The inaugural JavaZone conference was organized in 2002 by Sun Microsystems. The event was held in the basement of Chateu Neuf, the headquarters of the Norwegian Students’ Society, and featured about 350 participants. The technical quality of the conference was ensured by javaBin, a Norwegian Java User Group. In 2004, javaBin took over the entire event, although Sun Microsystems continued to contribute as a partner.
As we’ve already mentioned above, most of JavaZone’s staff are volunteers. Every year, dozens of people dedicate their time and effort to making the conference as successful as possible. There is a programming committee responsible for planning and structuring the technical program of the conference. The committee invites domestic and professional speakers according to the principle “professionals know what professionals want”: the speakers are hand-picked to ensure that all presentations are relevant and interesting to the audience.
According to a tradition, the speakers do not receive any payment for their contribution to the program. About half of the presentations are in English, and the rest are in one of the Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Danish or Swedish). JavaZone is known and loved for its non-commercial and unconventional approach that helped boost its popularity.
Alongside keynotes and presentations on various topics related to programming (by the way, not limited to programming in Java), the program of JavaZone includes workshops, a separate exhibition space for several dozen large and mid-sized IT companies to exhibit their products or services, special events for networking and socializing, and JavaZone Academy (a special program for IT students).
Photo: javazone.no
