At the very last day of QtCon ‒ one of the biggest Qt events in Europe, held at Berlin Convention Center in 2016 ‒ a group of three Brazilian KDE contributors started wondering about organizing the first Qt conference ever held in Latin America. As a result, from 18th to 20th August 2017, QtCon Brazil brought together almost 200 participants from IT industry, universities, and governmental entities. The conference happened in São Paulo, the major financial hub in Brazil and the headquarters of big corporations, banks, universities and research centers. The first day of conference was dedicated to training sessions. Sandro Andrade presented a session on "Developing Android Applications with Qt" and Cleiton Bueno was responsible for the session on "Developing Embedded Applications with Qt" with the valuable support of Toradex, one of the conference's sponsors. The training sessions were carried out in two groups of 20 participantes, focused on hands-on activities about how to use Qt to power modern embedded and mobile applications. The training sessions were heavily demanded by attendees and have been totally sold out in only two weeks.
+At the very last day of QtCon ‒ one of the biggest Qt events in Europe, held at Berlin Convention Center in 2016 ‒ a group of three Brazilian KDE contributors started wondering about organizing the first Qt conference ever held in Latin America. As a result, from 18th to 20th August 2017, QtCon Brazil brought together almost 200 participants from IT industry, universities, and governmental entities. The conference happened in São Paulo, the major financial hub in Brazil and the headquarters of big corporations, banks, universities and research centers. The first day of the conference was dedicated to training sessions. Sandro Andrade presented a session on "Developing Android Applications with Qt" and Cleiton Bueno was responsible for the session on "Developing Embedded Applications with Qt" with the valuable support of Toradex, one of the conference's sponsors. The training sessions were carried out in two groups of 20 participants, focused on hands-on activities about how to use Qt to power modern embedded and mobile applications. The training sessions were heavily demanded by attendees and have been totally sold out in only two weeks.
QtCon Brazil 2017 happened with the valuable support of The Qt Company, KDE, Stone, Toradex, openSUSE, and JetBrains. The second and third days were devoted to keynotes' talks, invited talks from prominent Qt players in Brazil, and community talks coming from the call for participation. At Saturday, in the opening session, representatives from the sponsors and the organizing committee welcomed all participants and provided an overview of QtCon Brazil's goals and motivation, followed by a panel about "What's Qt About?". Then, there was a technical session about embedded Qt, where Cleiton Bueno talked about "Initializing and Handling Qt Applications in Linux" and Sergio Prado talked about "Creating a GNU/Linux distribution with Qt support for embedded devices". QtCon Brazil continued after lunch with a technical session about "Qt Successful Use-Cases". Lamarque Souza (Petrosoft) started by talking about "Scientific Computing with Qt" and João Jardim presented the Stone's experience in using Qt to develop POS (Point Of Sale) applications in a timeframe of only six months.
+QtCon Brazil 2017 happened with the valuable support of The Qt Company, KDE, Stone, Toradex, openSUSE, and JetBrains. The second and third days were devoted to keynote talks, invited talks from prominent Qt players in Brazil, and community talks coming from the call for participation. On Saturday, in the opening session, representatives from the sponsors and the organizing committee welcomed all participants and provided an overview of QtCon Brazil's goals and motivation, followed by a panel about "What's Qt About?". Then, there was a technical session about embedded Qt, where Cleiton Bueno talked about "Initializing and Handling Qt Applications in Linux" and Sergio Prado talked about "Creating a GNU/Linux distribution with Qt support for embedded devices". QtCon Brazil continued after lunch with a technical session about "Qt Successful Use-Cases". Lamarque Souza (Petrosoft) started by talking about "Scientific Computing with Qt" and João Jardim presented the Stone's experience in using Qt to develop POS (Point Of Sale) applications in a time span of only six months.
Next, a set of three talks about mobile development with Qt was presented. Sandro Andrade (IFBA/KDE) talked about the challenges and current Qt solutions for developing mobile applications. Gustavo Boiko (SUSE) talked about "Using Telephathy and Qt to create instant messages applications" and Tiago Salem presented "10 lessons on telephony/messaging applications development with Qt". The day finished with a "Meet and Greet Reception", kindly sponsored by The Qt Company. The last conference day started with the keynote talk "Convergent applications with Kirigami", by Aleix Pol i Gonzàlez (BlueSystems/KDE), followed by the keynote talk "From to production in one year", presented by Victor Kropp (JetBrains). Filipe Saraiva (UFPA/KDE) presented his experiences in "Extending Qt applications with KDE Frameworks 5" and Daniel Nicoletti (INDRA) presented the history and current status of Cutelyst, a high-performance Qt-based framework for developing web applications.
+Next, a set of three talks about mobile development with Qt was presented. Sandro Andrade (IFBA/KDE) talked about the challenges and current Qt solutions for developing mobile applications. Gustavo Boiko (SUSE) talked about "Using Telepathy and Qt to create instant messages applications" and Tiago Salem presented "10 lessons on telephony/messaging application development with Qt". The day finished with a "Meet and Greet Reception", kindly sponsored by The Qt Company. The last conference day started with the keynote talk "Convergent applications with Kirigami", by Aleix Pol i Gonzàlez (Blue Systems/KDE), followed by the keynote talk "From to production in one year", presented by Victor Kropp (JetBrains). Filipe Saraiva (UFPA/KDE) presented his experiences in "Extending Qt applications with KDE Frameworks 5" and Daniel Nicoletti (INDRA) presented the history and current status of Cutelyst, a high-performance Qt-based framework for developing web applications.
The conference proceeded with the talks submitted to the event's call for participation. Flávio dos Anjos (UNESP) talked about "Using Qt to leverage the discovery of new drugs" and Rodrigo Coimba (Brazilian government's Tribunal Superior Eleitoral) presented how Qt has been used to support Brazilian elections. Eliakin Almeida (IFBA/KDE) talked about his experiences in using Qt and Python to extend applications. Gabriel Fedel (LNLS) talked about how Qt has been used to develop the basic control systems which support the Brazilian particles accelerator project. Lucas Lellis talked about wiRed Panda - a Qt-based teaching software for simulating digital circuits. Last but not least, Luis Barreto (O.S. Systems) talked about his experience in using Qt to develop embedded infotainment systems for cruise ships. This first edition of QtCon Brazil was a quite fruitful endeavor, which has set the underpinnings to grow Latin-American Qt user base and foster relationships between continent's Qt actors. Check here the complete photoset of QtCon Brazil 2017!
+The conference proceeded with the talks submitted to the event's call for participation. Flávio dos Anjos (UNESP) talked about "Using Qt to leverage the discovery of new drugs" and Rodrigo Coimba (Brazilian government's Tribunal Superior Eleitoral) presented how Qt has been used to support Brazilian elections. Eliakin Almeida (IFBA/KDE) talked about his experiences in using Qt and Python to extend applications. Gabriel Fedel (LNLS) talked about how Qt has been used to develop the basic control systems which support the Brazilian particle accelerator project. Lucas Lellis talked about wiRed Panda - a Qt-based teaching software for simulating digital circuits. Last but not least, Luis Barreto (O.S. Systems) talked about his experience in using Qt to develop embedded infotainment systems for cruise ships. This first edition of QtCon Brazil was a quite fruitful endeavor, which has set the underpinnings to grow Latin-American Qt user base and foster relationships between continent's Qt actors. Check here the complete photo set of QtCon Brazil 2017!
Over the past 21 years KDE community has been a synergistic space for sharing knowledge, creating innovative technology, and improve people's lives under the precepts of Free Software. In spite of such quite long history, with each passing year KDE becomes better at supporting the contributors' spontaneous interests while yet attentive to the need for community-wide articulation and medium/long-term goal definitions.
In 2017, KDE presence has been considerably expanded in Asia (FOSSASIA and Hong Kong Open Source Conference) and Latin-America (QtCon Brazil). conf.kde.in has reached its 7th edition and we had a remarkable presence at Qt World Summit. Also in 2017, KDE had the pleasure of having Private Internet Access joining our esteemed group of KDE Patrons, which already includes Blue Systems, Canonical, Google, SUSE, and The Qt Company.
As for KDE e.V.'s administrative and PR infrastructure ‒ in addition to the excellent work already done by Petra Gillert as the assistant of the KDE e.V. Board of Directors ‒ in 2017 we had two marketing contractors joining our team. The result is a considerable uplift in the way KDE communicates to our partners, users, and contributors.
This report brings together the most relevant achievements of KDE in 2017. KDE is a global and diverse community. As such, we strive not only to sustain the contributions pace in places with well-established KDE culture, but also to foster the seed of FOSS initiative in regions until then out of KDE radar.
In addition, we went through the process of asking for proposals, selecting, and announcing the winners of the KDE community's goals for the upcoming years. We believe this a quite important effort to bring back unity and catalyze a uniform mindset over different KDE projects.
Enjoy the reading!
-Have an excellent reading!
Sandro Andrade
for the KDE e.V. Board of Directors
QtCon Brazil 2017