GoatConf: a free conference in Tuzla, built like Pi
After EuRuKo 2024 in Sarajevo and RubyConf Austria in Vienna, I am starting a third conference: GoatConf, in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 3–5 June 2027. It is free to attend, with IPI Academy as host and partner.
Why. The goal fits in one sentence: get great minds together in an affordable environment, hang out, spend time together, learn, share experiences. Tuzla makes the affordable part easy. It is a cheap city, the food is very good, and the Pannonian Lakes, three salt lakes with a beach, sit in the middle of town.
Who it is for. People who build and sell software: engineers, designers, product people, founders. Ruby is home for me and for several of the speakers, and Rubyists are very welcome. So is every other language and stack: the more mixed the rooms, the better the hallway conversations.
Built like Pi. I like how Pi works: a small core that others extend. GoatConf works the same way. I provide the core:
- Two core days, Thursday and Friday, with one-hour sessions in all seven IPI rooms at once.
- An hour off after each session, on Freedom Square, under five minutes away. The hallway track is the point, not the gap between talks.
- Saturday for the community: a day at the lakes, and a goat hunt through town that ends at the goat statue, in the spirit of the treasure hunt I ran in Vienna for RubyConf Austria.
Everything else is an extension. Anyone can propose an event around the conference: an evening meetup, a hike, a workshop, a hackathon. The first one is in: the BH Professionals Meetup on Saturday evening, hosted by the BH Futures Foundation. Keeping the core small is also what keeps GoatConf free. For now, everyone pays for their own food and drink, and Tuzla makes that easy on the wallet. GoatConf has no plans to record the sessions, but anyone who comes is welcome to film them, or to bring their podcast and record an episode there. All of this depends on the budget: if it allows, or if a supporter steps in, the conference may end up covering more of it. The details, from travel to supporters, are on goatconf.com.
Why the goat. When Austria-Hungary ruled Tuzla, it banned goats. One man hid his and kept it, word spread, and soon the whole town was buying his milk and cheese. People in Bosnia still say “the whole of Tuzla milked one goat”. The goat was the symbol of EuRuKo 2024, the first Ruby conference in the country, and it carries over: one small thing that feeds a community.
Who is speaking so far: Paul Campbell (Tito), Carmine Paolino (RubyLLM), Dejan Menges (Enola), Amar Mahmutbegović (Semblie, from Tuzla), Cristian Planas (Rails Scales!) and Christoph Lipautz (Meister). The call for sessions is open: a talk, a panel, a workshop, live coding, a fireside chat, or anything else that fits an hour. First-time speakers are welcome, and everyone who proposes hears back.
How to come. Register on Luma; I confirm each registration, usually within a few days. Propose a session, or add your own event. The whole conference is planned in a public repository, so an event can also arrive as a pull request.
See you in Tuzla.