Akademy/2025

Akademy 2025 is coming to Berlin!

September 6th - 11th, 2025 at Technische Universität Berlin

Akademy 2025 Main Page

Promotion

Please publish your content and link to it here to help promote the event.

Be a volunteer

Akademy would not be possible without volunteers. Volunteering is a great way to help and get to know other people at the same time. Please sign up for a shift by adding yourself for one of the open shifts in the shift schedules below and join the matrix channel!.

Saturday (2025-09-06)
Sunday (2025-09-07)
Monday (2025-09-08)
Tuesday (2025-09-09)
Wednesday (2025-09-10): no volunteers needed (day trip)
Thursday (2025-09-11)

Volunteer Roles

We want a great conference. For that we need a number of volunteers to handle tasks before, during and after the conference. Below are the types of things we need help with during Akademy!

Production Crew

Make the event happen, get speakers in on time and keep the program moving!

Room Manager: Adopt a room for the day! Make sure speakers are set up with connections to the projectors/etc. Coordinate with the Session chair, and Speaker's Support to make sure everyone's talk stays on time and slides are working. Ask the Runner/Way Finder for help as needed.

Session Chair: Introduce the speakers at the beginning of the sessions, ensure that they are on time, ask audience questions, and keep the session on time. Work with the Chat moderator to include and share the questions from online participants.

Speaker's support: Support and connect with speakers before their talks, make sure they have water and know which room to be in and when, what equipment requirements they have (presentation, video playing, etc), communicate with Room Manager to handle any infrastructure needs or unexpected problems.

Chat Moderator: Monitor the chat during the event, moderate behaviour, share questions with the Session Chair. Familiarity moderating matrix spaces is a plus.

Ground Control

Make the event run smoothly, ensure no one gets lost in the venue, return the lost things, keep the conversations in the chat interesting, fun, and topical!

Information Desk: Welcome attendees, give out badges, give directions to room locations, manage lost & found items, distribute merch.

Way Finder/Runner: Stationed at the info desk, help attendees find the right rooms, bathrooms, elevators, etc. Supports Room Managers as needed!

Virtual Info Desk: Monitoring our matrix space for any questions, managing misbehaviour when chat moderators are unavailable.

Coffee break assistant: Help with setting up the tables, carrying supplies (if needed), guiding attendees to the coffee break area.

Lunch Assistant: Guide attendees to the lunch location, collect donations, able to help with setup/teardown if needed.

More Information

If you have questions about the tasks or their requirements, poke Kieryn (@mxdarkwater) on Matrix.

Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, workshops, and meetings

Check out KDE's best practice guide to running a hybrid BoF!

You can reserve time in BoF rooms for discussions, workshops, and other meetings during the Akademy week :

BoF Volunteer Roles

We also need help during the BoF days and for the End of 10 event on Thursday! You can sign up for these roles on the Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday.

Runner: Provide general support across all event rooms. This will involve being available during sessions to deliver materials around the venue.

BoF Room Assistant: Provide technical support during the event regarding the sound, troubleshooting general technical problems (likely with hardware connections for presenters).

BoF Tech Support (Online): Help remote presenters to get connected (when applicable) and use the virtual streaming platform and watch the matrix channels to guide online attendees to the correct spaces. Coordinate with the in person Tech Support or BOF Facilitator for those rooms to troubleshoot any problems if any arise. Familiarity with BBB and OBS is a plus.

BoF Facilitator: You don't need to know about the topic to be a good facilitator! Monitor the room and the online chat for questions, be the voice for the people watching online. Keep the conversation flowing between in-person and online attendees by alternating (as much as possible) questions/comments by online and in-person participants. Work with the Assistants as needed to troubleshoot any problems. See the BoF page for more information on running a good BoF! Facilitators need to add themselves to both the Volunteer wiki and the BoF wiki for their sessions.

Bof Wrapper: Herd all the BoF Organizers to report on their BoFs at the end of the day in the common area.

End of 10 Event Helper: Help new users install linux on their old Windows Computers that are about to be sunset. This is a project open to the public and part of the End of 10 Campaign! You don't have to be an expert in linux, just willing to help search for answers. USBs with linux distros will be provided. Sign up here.

Practical information

Matrix space to talk to other attendees: https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/#attend-akademy:kde.org