Every year for over a decade, the Opensimulator Community Conference has offered an opportunity for the platform to unite and learn about projects, passions and plans for the future of Opensim. But what is the OSCC?
James Atlloud: Many people think Avacon is involved with the development of Open Simulator but that isn't the case - Avacon was created to build the community of people who use and care about Open Simulator.
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| Avacon Plaza already looking festive |
Inworld, there are two distinct grids - Avacon, and OSCC. The Opensim Community Conference, on its dedicated grid, is a weekend of talks, workshops, and parties about opensim.
It's held this year on December 7 and 8, 2024.
The conference is live inworld, and you can also watch on Youtube. Here's the link to the 2023 presentations so you can get an idea of what goes on. But how did this come about? what are the origins of the event?
Joyce Bettencourt aka Rhiannon Chatnoir got into Second Life in 2005 and was drawn immediately to the community aspects of the platform. That included people and inworld places, and of course people and real world places. Rhiannon attended real world meetups for SL people, and in 2007 she had joined the Second Life Community Convention organizing team.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: By SLCC 2009 in San Francisco, she was the conference content lead - coordinating all the talks. At the end of that year, the original SLCC planning team decided not to organize any more events, so a new group formed, called Avacon. The original Avacon team was Fleep Tuque of Chilbo, Linden Lab's Misty Rhodes, musician Katydid Something, and virtual fashion designer Crucial Armitage. We did two more real life events, in 2010 and 2011 but as we got more interested in Opensim, - Fleep set up Fleepgrid, if you remember that - our focus shifted.
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| The OSCC conference area |
Rhiannon Chatnoir: We decided with the skills and lessons learned from organizing SLCC, we could help bring together the greater OpenSimulator user community in a way similar to what we had done in SL. We reached out to the Overte Foundation, the organization run by the Core Developers of OpenSimulator. That began the collaborative planning process, Nebadon Izumi initially setting up the OSCC grid and eventually launching the first OpenSimulator Community Conference in 2013!
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| Joyce Bettencourt |
Knowing this, you can see why the virtual conference is run on lines that look a lot like a real world conference, with things like attendee registration, being asked for your RL name and institution... in the past there have even been lanyards and ID badges! This event is not something that gets done in a few days, it's a big task.
James Atlloud: We typically start planning this winter conference towards the end of summer by confirming the dates with the planning advisors, usually about 5 more people. Our experience with this conference gives us a good amount of tools and templates we can re-use, but the proposals we receive will be different and require logistical adjustments. As we review proposals we start reaching out to volunteers and volunteer coordinators. It is a lot of work with many moving parts.
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| A Safari event during the 2015 OSCC |
Now in its 12th year, the presentations at the OSCC have touched on all kinds of issues that affect the many grids of Opensim. Unlike SL, Opensim is a dislocated archipelago of grids, and creative people often have no idea what other people are working on in other places. Having a yearly meet up allows ideas to cross pollinate and be praised or discussed on a wider platform.
Today the Avacon team includes webmaster and script-wizard Frans Charming, and Sun Tzu, content maker, community manager and party planner. Grid manager Marcus Llewelyn is the stream guy alongside James Atlloud who also runs the event calendar, and through his work on Inworld review also find some of our speakers. Out of the army of volunteers for the OSCC, the most prominent is Lyr Lobo who tends to the speakers, through the whole process of finding them, getting them trained and set up with their expo space on the grid.
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| James Atlloud, Mal Burns and Lyr Lobo on an episode of Inworld Review |
Joyce's efforts to bring together that team are much appreciated by those who know her best.
Lyr Lobo: Rhiannon believes in the power of community and the importance of sharing our discoveries and love for virtual worlds
Marcus Llewellyn: Joyce has been a driving force behind countless successful events and conferences. Her dedication and versatility have made her an invaluable asset to the community, tackling everything from graphic design to technical support, and it's been a true joy working alongside her.
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| Marcus Llewellyn |
The OSCC has been a way to bridge the gap between everyday Opensim residents, and the Core developers, who work in so many ways to develop, experiment, maintain and expand the frontiers of the virtual platform, giving them a voice and an opportunity to be acknowledged for all their hard work. Over the years, people have come to look forward to certain regulars, like Maria Korolov's talks, where she breaks down the statistics of Opensim's growth in terms of residents and regions.
Rhiannon Chatnoir: Another regular part of the event is Mal Burns, as he has brought together some of the most engaging panel discussions, commentary, and guests at OSCC. I love what happens when you bring people from various community grids together with differing interests and expertise, and we all get to see how everyone uses OpenSimulator! We also want folks to join us in helping OSCC 2024 happen this year by submitting a proposal to present, volunteering as a greeter or moderator, sponsoring, or even hosting a community event or tour before or after OSCC.
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| Ferd Frederix presenting about Dreamgrid at OSCC18 |
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