JUG World Tour: BeJUG, BruJUG and how Devoxx was born as JavaPolis (#24)

Foojay.io, the Friends Of OpenJDK!

The Foojay Java User Group World Tour has already brought us to a lot of different countries all over the world. But for this episode, the host decided to stay at home. The Belgium JUG (BeJUG) started in 1997 and was the birthplace of Devoxx, Devoxx4Kids, and VoxxedDays. And in our capital Brussels, we can join Brussels JUG (BruJUG), since 2010.
So there’s a lot we can talk about to learn more about communities and conferences!
Guests

Olivier Hubaut, BruJUG

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierhubaut/
• https://mastodon.top/@ohubaut

Stephan Janssen, founder BeJUG, Devoxx, Devoxx4Kids, Voxxed

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanjanssen/
• https://twitter.com/Stephan007

Tom Cools, AntwerpJUG, BeJUG

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-cools-17547548/
• https://twitter.com/TCoolsIT
• https://mastodon.social/@TCoolsIT

Podcast host

Frank Delporte

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankdelporte/
• https://foojay.social/@frankdelporte
• https://twitter.com/FrankDelporte

Links

• https://www.meetup.com/belgian-java-user-group/
• https://www.meetup.com/BruJUG/
• https://devoxx.be/
• https://events.voxxeddays.com/

Content

00:00 Introduction of the topic and guests

02:19 History of BeJUG and the start of JavaPolis (Devoxx)

06:00 How BruJUG (Brussels) started and evolved

• https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-unseen-99

08:35 Tom as the winner of the bad timing award with AntwerpJUG

10:35 Impact of Covid on Devoxx and BruJUG

18:09 How BeJUG got restarted in 2022

• https://github.com/BeJUG/bejug.github.io
• Video: "Transitioning into Tech: The Journey of a Senior Junior Developer by Ibrahim Dogrusoz"

27:05 How BruJUG attracted new speakers + tips for new speakers or new talks

31:32 How Devoxx4Kids grew to a worldwide event

36:03 The tools developed and used to manage Devoxx

41:13 About the name change from JavaPolis to Devoxx and the franchising

46:14 Future plans for Devoxx, BruJUG and BeJUG

51:14 CFP for Devoxx and how reviewers can find sessions for their JUG

54:16 Outro