A Year of rOpenSci's Unconf

"What makes this conference truly special is the people who attend. I don’t know how rOpenSci is able to curate such a consistently friendly, empathetic, passionate, and interesting group of people but somehow they pull it off year after year. The participants come from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds including banking / data science, visualization / ballet, indigenous rights / cybersecurity, and nights at the museum! You can find all of the attendees on this Twitter list. Considering this variety of interests in the rOpenSci community, I believe there are a few core principles that unite us including:

1. Empathy for all who do research programming.
2. A commitment to openness.
3. Aspirations for diversifying the scientific community.
4. Embedding our values in software, documents, and processes.
5. Spreading this philosophy as far and wide as possible.

If you feel like you might identify with this community you should absolutely apply next year! If you’re afraid you might feel like an impostor at this event don’t worry - the vast majority of participants feel that way! (See relevant tweet above.) If you’re still unsure if the conference is right for you feel free to get in touch with me, Stefanie Butland, or Karthik Ram (rOpenSci’s Co-founder). The rOpenSci Unconference catalyzes this beautiful community of open scientists who share both technical and structural pain, and a hope for a more humane and transparent future for scientific computing. Thank you to the entire rOpenSci team for organizing this fantastic event! I can’t wait to see what we all make in the year to come!"