OpenCamp Bratislava 2019 Conference

On 13.4.2019 the OpenCamp conference took place in Bratislava at the FIIT STU university premises. It was the second year of this conference, which is focused on open technologies. Conferences like OpenAlt or Linux Days are an ideal independent source of information for any student, enthusiast or professional, and so I can only recommend attending such conferences. The conference was very good...

Website of the Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies in Bratislava. Website of the OpenCamp conference.

Invitation to the OpenCamp 2019 conference

To help promote the conference, I also filmed an invitation video:

Anyone living in Slovakia had the opportunity to attend and pick up not only new, interesting information, but also to meet in person many capable and proactive people and experts in the field of IT.
I also decided to help expand the range of topics covered and so I came with my own talk on the topic "The BTRFS filesystem and backups".
At the same time it was a great opportunity to see Bratislava again. I also arranged to meet up the next day with my friend Marek Belisko, and we got to chat about both work and life..

OpenCamp Bratislava 2019: BTRFS

The conference wasn't recorded, but since I have my own YouTube channel and basic but versatile filming equipment, I filmed my own talk and then edited it. It was, once again, an experience for me to film and edit a recording of a talk, but the Workshop: Video editing on Linux showed me how to do it.

More about the OpenCamp Bratislava 2019 conference

Even though this was only the conference's second year, the program was rich. Three talk tracks and one workshop. The conference was a one-day event, which I consider an advantage, because Sunday was free, so I got to walk around the city of Bratislava. Only the journey home to the Krkonoše mountains from Bratislava was a long one. I had, however, planned the outbound trip from Prague, so I took a direct RegioJet train, which was a comfortable journey.

On the social network Twitter, posts from the event can be found under the hashtag #opencampba.

There were many talks, so I couldn't cover all of them even if I wanted to. Personally, I was drawn to two talks that aren't strictly IT fields but ones I'm also involved in. The first was from the field of public administration: eGovernment in municipal practice, and the second from the field of HR: Is there such a thing as the perfect skillset?

eGovernment in municipal practice

The field of information technology is useless on its own. All technology is meant to help people, and so it could and should help in public administration too. That's why it's interesting to hear what the real situation is like. Moreover, as a citizen of the Czech Republic, it was interesting for me to see how eGovernment is handled in Slovakia, what problems and successes they have, what the differences are, and the Slovak perspective on public administration's approach to information technology.

Is there such a thing as the perfect skillset

After years of working at various companies, for various organizations, in various cities, and with experience from interviews and behind-the-scenes information from HR and company owners, I've increasingly been thinking about the job market, whether the job market itself or the market for technical specialists, and IT specialists in particular. And so I was interested in the perspective of someone who was asking whether a superman exists, and what he would actually need to know how to do.
Once again it turned out that, aside from the mass of HR workers, an HR specialist has a realistic view, is able to describe it, and even knows where the future of the job market is heading.
Doing one thing at one company your whole life is already a thing of the past. The future belongs to those who are able to constantly learn new things and look for good opportunities in every direction.

Conclusion

A tradition of a free conference has taken hold in Bratislava, one that, like others, is independent of corporations and, above all, is not a promotional event for some company, while still being free to attend. The conference thus brings know-how and an opportunity for growth for IT professionals, laypeople and companies alike, and overall growth for the Slovak capital.