[FOSDEM] Call for Participation: FOSDEM Junior devroom @ FOSDEM 2025

[Bart Mathijssen]

Hello everyone,

Last year we organized the first edition of FOSDEM junior. We are 
pleased to announce that we will be back this year. FOSDEM Junior is a 
collaboration between FOSDEM, Code Club, CoderDojo, developers, and 
volunteers to organize workshops and activities for children during the 
FOSDEM weekend.

The FOSDEM organizers were gracious enough to give us more room than 
last year, so we now have two rooms for both days of FOSDEM. This 
enables us to accommodate a greater number of activities and allow 
individual activities to extend beyond the one-hour default we had last 
year.

## Call for participation

We are looking for activities for children from age 7 to 17. These 
activities are for children to learn and get inspired about technology. 
Last year's activities included microcontrollers, embroidery, plotting, 
game development, mobile application development, Raspberry Pi's, and 
Java development. If you are still unsure if your activity fits this 
devroom, feel free to reach out so we can assist you. We anticipate that 
most projects that organized activities last year would like to return, 
so make sure you submit your proposal early.

It is important for the children to remain inspired when they return 
home. So make sure that you give the children something after your 
activity. This can either be that they can continue working on their 
project that they worked on during the activity, or in the form of 
goodies or certifications. Also, if necessary, include information about 
where the children and their guardians can find resources and tutorials 
about your project. This is another step towards making sure they 
continue their technical journey when they return home.

Each room has a maximum capacity of 48 seats, but will be capped at 30 
children per activity by the Devroom managers. This is to ensure there 
is enough seating for both children and their guardians.

## Submission process

Please submit your proposals at https://fosdem.org/submit by the 1st of 
December 2024. If you already have an account from a previous year, you 
should reuse it so all recorded FOSDEM contributions are associated with 
your profile.

When submitting your proposal, select 'FOSDEM junior' from the track 
drop-down menu. Write the desired duration and maximum capacity into the 
proposal so we can take that into account when planning. Also, please 
include if you need additional volunteers available during your 
activity. We can ask for volunteers through our networks.

When the full schedule is published, all activities will be registered 
on the Code Club profile: 
https://codeclub.org/en/clubs/c0468f47-a1a4-43b6-b7f0-170a7d98b30c. 
Children and volunteers than will be able to sign up for each individual 
activity during the weekend.

## Requirements

The conference language is English. All content must relate to Free and 
Open Source Software. By participating in the event you agree to the 
publication of your recordings, slides and other content provided under 
the same licence as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY). By participating in 
FOSDEM you are required to adhere the Code of Conduct: 
https://fosdem.org/2025/practical/conduct/

## Please consider volunteering

Regardless if you submit an activity, please consider volunteering if 
you plan on attending the devroom. Our aim is to have a good mix of 
languages spoken by the volunteers in order to cater to all children who 
sign up for the activities.

You will be able to sign up as a volunteer on the Code Club profile: 
https://codeclub.org/en/clubs/c0468f47-a1a4-43b6-b7f0-170a7d98b30c. When 
the full schedule is published, volunteers will be asked to sign up for 
each individual activity.

## Devroom managers

Current Devroom managers are Bart Mathijssen and Peter Mathijssen. You 
can use the dedicated email address to contact us: 
junior-devroom-manager at fosdem.org.