What to expect from ClueCon Deconstructed

Every year, the FreeSWITCH team hosts ClueCon, an awesome developers’ conference in Chicago. Things are looking a little bit different than usual, but 2020 will still have its own version of ClueCon online: ClueCon Deconstructed. It’s free to attend this three-day-long event, and many of the things that make ClueCon special will still happen in this new virtual format, which will be hosted in our very own virtual office space. Whether you’ve attended each year or this is the first time you’re hearing about it, we want to give you an idea of what to expect on August 4th-6th, because so much of what there is to love about ClueCon will still be happening, from insightful presentations and the Coder Games hack-a-thon, to Dangerous Demos and the Gigabit Reception. Not to mention we will still be offering amazing raffle prizes, like the custom engraved MacBook Pro!

The conference will officially be taking place from Tuesday-Thursday, however, on Monday, August 3rd, we will be hosting a pre-conference coffee chat from 10am-12pm CST where the team will be hanging out and answering questions. If you want to meet the team or ask us anything, you should grab a cup of coffee and join us! 

The conference will kick off on Tuesday with a day full of open source workshops you can attend for free. Pick one, a few, or all to attend: SignalWire, Janus, Kamailio, OpenSIPS, and FreeSWITCH. Each workshop will last for about an hour and will be led by industry experts. Of course, the day will include little breaks between each workshop, so if you do want to attend them all, you’ll have plenty of time to recharge. And something extra special will also be taking place overnight during our timezone – a FreeSWITCH workshop will be available at 5 am CST just for the convenience of our attendees on the other side of the world. We have both team members and attendees from all across the globe, and so we’re stepping outside of our timezone to make ClueCon Deconstructed accessible to everyone! You can check out the schedule here.

Then on Wednesday, get ready to game – we’re hosting an online version of our Coder Games hack-a-thon! There are two challenges this year, one more suited to our attendees who want to code and build their way to amazing prizes (like an Oculus Quest and a Nintendo Switch) and one for our puzzle-solvers and riddle-lovers! Our Game Theory Challenge requires you to start working now, so if you’re interested in competing for these prizes, you can read more about the challenge here. At 10am CST on Wednesday, these games will be demo’d for the enjoyment of all attendees. Then at 11am, everyone will break up into teams to participate in the Get a Clue challenge – a virtual version of the classic Clue board game. In this version, Dangerous Demos have been hacked, and you’ll have to figure out which FreeSWITCH team member committed the crime, in what room, and with what weapon! Get more details about Get a Clue here. 

ClueCon always has Dangerous Demos, and ClueCon Deconstructed is no exception. Dangerous Demos are a fast paced show of hacking excellence. Everybody loves to watch demos at tech conferences but few are brave enough to actually do them. Things can and do go wrong and who wants to risk it? On Thursday morning attendees can watch the most dangerous demos, where the danger is part of the fun!  If you’d like to participate, you can fill out a sign up form. Those who demo have the chance to win one of the highly sought-after Dangerous Demos 3D laser etched trophies. Awards will be offered in several categories, and anyone who can take home a trophy can rightly class themselves as a pioneer of open source and an Original Geek. Even if you don’t want to demo yourself, we need audience members to vote, so you can kick back, relax, and watch some demos crash and burn!

The insightful presentations are one of the biggest parts of what make ClueCon so memorable, and we haven’t left those out, either. During the afternoon on Wednesday and Thursday, you can catch a dozen half-hour long speaking sessions from brilliant industry professionals. These speakers will also be around later to answer any questions, hang out and chat! You can read about the 2020 speakers here. From the comfort of your own home you’ll get to witness all kinds of conference-worthy presentations about telephony, WebRTC, VoIP, and more, with built-in breaks throughout the day.

Exciting raffle prizes, including the custom engraved MacBook Pro, will be awarded throughout the week. That’s right – it’s free to attend, AND you’ll be entered to win all kinds of prizes and swag just for showing up. Then after a week full of presentations, demos, coder games, and raffles, we carved out time for networking and fun. The Gigabit Reception is a great way to meet your peers and get to know industry heads in a relaxed and fun atmosphere. On Thursday afternoon, grab a drink or a snack and join us for games, an underground guitar jam session and the highly anticipated ClueCon Karaoke, all in a virtual format! 

If you haven’t already, you should register now!