Shortly after WordCamp NYC 2015 ended, the team held a retrospective meeting to discuss what went well and gauge interest for 2016. We had serious doubts about the venue we had used for the last two years – availability was a concern and costs were rising more than we could justify. We began by recruiting new team members to even make the venue search a productive endeavor.

In mid January, our team grew concerned as the previous venue neglected to respond to our queries. It looked like we would not have a WordCamp this year.

Just about this time, Open Camps contacted us – would WordCamp NYC be interested in being part of a larger series of Open Source conferences? The series would take place at the United Nations in the summer, and would include Drupal Camp, PyConf, React Camp, and Angular Camp – just to name just a few. We agreed to meet with their representative – we had nothing to lose and it could have amazing potential.

We learned that this event is part of an open source initiative sponsored by the United Nations. The UN wants to bring the various Open Source communities together as a positive force for change. The UN offered use of their space during their week of recess as a way of facilitating this end. As a result of previous commitments and space requirements we were offered the weekend opposite the Drupal Camp.

At events we often hear various Open Source projects criticizing each other. This event is an opportunity, in the spirit of GPL software, to truly ‘democratize publishing’. Imagine a week long event celebrating, discussing and learning about varying Open Source projects. When we choose Open Source we all benefit.

Please follow this link to the new WordCamp NYC 2016 site.