Month: January 2017

gbgcpp

Another interesting weeks has passed by. We held our first Gothenburg C++ meetup with a nice turn up. We met at the Pelagicore offices in Gothenburg (thanks for the fika) and decided on a format, the cadence and future topics for the group. If you want a primer in C++ and Qt in the next few months, make sure to join us! All the details are on the gbgcpp meetup page. For those of you not based in Gothenburg, there is a Sweden C++ group based in Stockholm.

Some other, more work related news: Pelagicore are changing offices in Gothenburg and it will be an Upgrade with a capital U! We’ve signed for a really nice office space just across the street from the opera and less than five minutes from the central train station and the Brunnsparken public transport hub of Gothenburg. And as always – we are looking for developers – hint, hint ;-)

Finally, do not forget that fosdem starts in a week. I’m going, so I’ll see you in Brussels!

Building communities

As some of you might know I’ve been involved in the foss-gbg group for a long while (more than 3 years now). Last year I helped starting the foss-north conference, which is really about taking what foss-gbg is and turning it into something bigger. We had a great turn-up – over 100 guests and ten great speakers.

This week, I finally got time to start pushing forward with this year’s edition of foss-north. It will be held on April 26 in Gothenburg and it is a great opportunity to visit Sweden and Gothenburg and mingle with the FOSS community. We’ve already confirmed Lydia Pintscher and Lennart Poettering as speakers. If you want to speak the call for paper has just opened and will run until March 12. Tickets sales will open shortly too, as well as the call for sponsors.

By a random chance I got involved in the organization of yet another group this week. The C++ meetup community in Gothenburg has been inactive for almost a year, so a group of people decided to pick up the ball and try to get something running. We’ve renamed the group to gbgcpp and the next (our first) meeting will be held January 26, and then we will take it from there. Hopefully this can turn into something fun!

Summary of 2016

So, 2016 has been a great year to me. Interesting in many aspects, but most has turned out to be for the better. I’ve gotten to know a bunch of awesome new people, I spoken about open source, Qt and Linux in Europe and USA, I’ve helped hosting an open source conference in Gothenburg, I’ve learned so much more professionally and as a person, and I’ve really enjoyed myself the whole time.

2016 was the year that…

  • … myself and Jürgen where Qt Champions for our work with the qmlbook. It feels really great getting recognition for this work. I really want to take QML Book further – during 2016 both myself and Jürgen have been too busy to do a good job improving and extending the text.
  • … I had to opportunity to visit the Americas (Oregon and California) for the first time in my life. Felt really nice having been on another continent. Now it is only Africa and Australia left on the list :-)

  • … I picked up running and has run every week throughout the year, averaging almost 10km per week. This is the first year since we built out house and had kids (so 11 or 12 years) that I’ve maintained a training regime over a full year.
  • … foss-gbg went from a small user group of 15-30 people meeting every month to something much larger. On May 26 the first foss-north took place. This is something some friends of mine and myself have discussed for years and when we finally dared to try it was a great success. We filled the venue with 110 guests and ten speakers and had a great day in the sunshine. In the events after foss-north, the local group, foss-gbg has attracted 40-60 people per meeting, so double the crowd.

  • … Pelagicore, the start-up I joined in 2010 when we were only 6 employees, was acquired by Luxoft. We had grown to 50+ employees in the mean time and put Qt, Linux and open source on the automotive map. It has been a great journey and I feel that we being a part of something bigger lets us reach even further, so I’m really excited about this.

2017 will be the year that…

  • … I make more time for writing – on qmlbook, this blog and more.
  • … I improve my running and increase my average distance per run as well as distance per week.
  • … foss-north will take place again. This time with double the audience and dual tracks for parts of the day. I will share more information as it develops. This time, the date to aim for is April 26. In the mean time, foss-gbg will have fewer, but larger, meetings.
  • … Qt, Linux and open source becomes the natural choice in automotive. I will do my best to help this turn out true!

Even as 2016 has been really good, I hope that 2017 will be even greater. I’m really looking forward to learning!