We have received over 60 applications for the Participation Grants. However, we received less applications than we expected from Hungary, Eastern Europe and Russia. Since one of the main purposes of the Grants is to support applicants from these regions, we feel that we need to give them more chance to get financial help in attending the Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest.

Therefore, the Grant Committee has decided to extend the application deadline until 2009 September 5. By this new deadline, the grants are open for applications with the original conditions, for applicants from all regions. 

New results will be announced by 2009 September 11.

Information for those who have submitted their application before August 20:

• Applicants from regions 1-4 (Europe and Russia) will have their applications accepted or rejected immediately and the results will be announced shortly. NOTE: New applications (those who applied after August 20th) from these regions still participate in the Grant until September 5th and will get results by September 11th.

• Applicants from region 5 (the World) stay in competition without immediate results, and will have their acceptance results published by 2009 September 11.

If you are a Grant Applicant, and you also need a visa to Hungary, we advise to start with your application process immediately, and notify us by email if you want us to send the Letter of Invitation for visa. More information is available here.

Register to the Plone Conference! Registration is now open.

There are two payment options: PayPal or bank transfer payments are accepted. Companies can register more attendees and pay them at once.

Early Bird price is available until September 5. Make your registration today, and participate on the Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest, for only 150 EUR!

We ask proposal submitters (entitled to a 50% discount in case of acceptance) to pay only after the accepted sessions have been announced. Applicants for the participation grant should also wait with the registration until the grant results are published. We encourage you, however, to enter your participation data without payment, already today.

Information about the attendees will be available on the website soon.

Get ready to submit session proposals for Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest! Submissions open July 31, and close September 6. Past conferences have always had more great session proposals than speaking slots, so start preparing your session proposal today!

Evaluation Criteria for Session Proposals

We will use the following criteria to select the winning sessions:

• Broad relevance to Plone community (end-users, integrators & developers).
• Demonstrations of production-ready products that solve common problems of Plone customers.
• Case studies that showcase strategies for success with Plone that can be reproduced by Plone project managers and Plone integrators.
• Sessions that will teach Plone administrators & integrators at beginner or intermediate level the core skills necessary to succeed with Plone.
• Sessions that will help people make the leap to being effective contributors to Plone (both core & add-on Products).
• Sessions that will enlighten people towards why they should start using Plone today, in preference to any comparable systems.
• Sessions that will spark people's passion for Plone by making them feel empowered and successful.
• Sessions that describe Plone community processes.
• The speaker's track record of delivering well-received sessions at past Plone events.
• Geographic, sector and gender diversity of presenters.

Sessions We'd Like to See

This community is capable of a lot, and we're looking forward to your proposal. If you've got an idea, please submit it! If you're looking for inspiration (or a little edge), check out the list of suggestions here!

We are waiting forward to your contribution! We hope to welcome you in Budapest.

After more delay than we expected, the website of the Plone Conference 2009 is alive! It is created entirely by contribution of community members. Special thanks to M. Harito Reisman from Haritomedia for the design; to Jean-Paul Ladage and the Team of Zest Software, to Laurens Stolk, Fred van Dijk and Mirella van Teulingen, for theming and hosting. Thanks to all the contributors for their excellent work! We will continue development of the site and add more functionality and content until the conference.

Please visit the site for information on various conference subjects.

You can find information on hotels which were chosen because of their location, quality and price. All of them are in the city center and not far from the conference venue. The room rates on the hotel websites are very reasonable right now, lower than the guaranteed corporate rates. Please check them out to have the best price.

For those conference participants who would like to spend even less for accommodation, we suggest hostels and apartments. We also encourage everyone to share their experience regarding accomodation in the website forum.

The Open Society Institute offers Participation Grants for conference attendees. It will cover the conference registration fee and part of the travel expenses for the grantees. This is a unique possibility for all eligible applicants to support their participation on the Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest! We will announce the final details of the call soon.

You can look at the upcoming important dates here.

Share your voice with us on the conference website! See you in Budapest!