Travel bursaries for LibOCon

This is to inform you about travel bursaries for the LibreOffice Conference.

We are trying to enable as many contributors as possible to join us in Berlin, to meet their community friends, to listen to exciting lectures, and to work on the future of the best free office suite, LibreOffice.

Unfortunately, we are a rather young foundation, depending on donations, with a budget of currently 20.000 € for the rest of the year. Therefore, we are right now working hard on getting sponsors for our conference, and expect large parts of their donations to go into the travel funding budget. As of today, while there are several interested sponsors, no contracts have been signed yet, so we cannot estimate the concrete amount of money available.

Nontheless, we strongly recommend that all interested participants book their trip and hotel already now, as prices tend to grow massively over time. Waiting for a funding confirmation might eventually lead to travel fees we can’t cover anymore.

Be aware that we cannot make any guarantees about travel funding as of today, so if you book, take into account that you have to cover all costs on your own. We give our best, however, to make things clear as soon as possible.

A possible travel funding is primarily dedicated to get those to Berlin who otherwise would not be able to attend, and who are contributors to our community, like conference speakers, project members, and organizers. If you have any other means to join the conference, like sponsoring via your employer, a local association, or paying out of your own pocket, we ask you to take advantage of this and try it out before, to enable those in need to be funded.

TDF already has a travel policy in place, and we expect that the notion will be very similar. Based on the experience from previous years, we are most likely to cap the individual funding per eligible person, so that an economic travel and economic stay in the hotel during the days of the LibOCon can be covered. In case there are much more requests than available money, travel funding might only be granted partially, to at least cover parts of everyone’s expenses.

Legal disclaimer: Be advised there is no legal obligation from our side to pay any travel funding. It is a sole decision of the board, and depends on available financial means.

We hope to be able to see all of you in Berlin, and help those who cannot afford on their own to get there – we’re working hard on that every day, and will share any news we have!