Conferences are a great way to build strong community ties. Meeting people in person provides a connection that’s hard to duplicate in online interactions. For the Open edX 2021 virtual conference, we knew we couldn’t provide the same experience as a physical conference, but we wanted to try to include lightly structured social time. We wanted to provide some of that tight bonding that can happen when people gather outside the presentation halls.
For parts of the conference, we’ll be using Gather.town, a virtual space that emulates a physical world. During the half-day conference, we’ll have 90 minutes dedicated purely to social time in Gather, and the space will be open for the entire conference. We think it will make a great complement to the presentations and keynotes.
You can get a taste: join us for a social hour!
- When: Thursday May 13th, 11am-noon EDT, 15:00 GMT (time converter)
- Where: Enter the Gather space with this link: https://gather.town/i/blh9WWdN
- Who: Everyone is welcome!
There’s no agenda, we’re just gathering to talk. We’ll have topic areas available for people to claim and post topics if you want a focused discussion. But otherwise, meet people and find out what they are up to!
If you’ve never used Gather before, here’s a video explaining some of the features of our conference space:
See you on Thursday!
