When? Where? What?

Participants

Fees

Practical

candy, beverages

Stuff needed (1) = available, but located in Ostend, kws will pick this up on 06/11/2009

paper, attachments, various

electronics

What else?

Report

Like the previous Dipro fair, held in Ghent, visitors where able to visit a photography fair and a "computer" fair with the same ticket.

The booth was coordinated by Kenneth and had 6 extra volunteers (Joris DV, Joris DW, Jean, Dieter, Matthias and Jan). Jan was able to provide a part of the original CD's (+/- 50), that are sent to each loco-team. Jean, who was keeping the Ghent event-box, provided an older laptop and a P4 all running Ubuntu 9.10. Kenneth and Joris DV's current employer (Ebit NV) has donated 2 additional IBM r51 laptops for the Ghent event-box. One of them is running Ubuntu 9.10, the other is running Kubuntu 9.10. Joris DV also brought a big screen, which is very useful, to run the OOo presentations. So, currently the Ghent event-box has all the material it needs to support future Dipro fairs or other events in Ghent. Kenneth will keep the Ghent event-box, until further notice.

The booth was correctly decorated with flyers, A4 and A3 stands. Kenneth brought an additional cloth for the tables, which proved necessary since we had a lot more space than usual. Working with a laptop on the table is a bit tedious, since the tables are quite low. Showing Ubuntu on the big screen was easier and helped a lot to demo applications and features to the visitors.

As already said, we had +/- 50 original CD's at our disposal. Most of the time, all laptops (3) and the P4 where burning additional CD's to gibe to the visitors. On top of the original CD's we burnt 100 additional CD's and distributed them amongst the visitors.

We had the busiest time in the morning and part in the afternoon (from 10h till 14h). All participants were permanently busy addressing visitor's questions, explanations and demonstrations. By now, a lot of people already know Ubuntu, or Linux. Some people showed interest. Some people were not interested at all and not very friendly. For some reason, people still think we are trying to sell stuff, which is obviously not the case. Most elder people really showed interest in Ubuntu. The rationale behind this is simple, I think. They use a computer for what it was designed for; reading mails, browsing the Internet, watching videos, write letters and manage photo's of their (grand) children. They don't really care what OS they're running. As long as it works, easy to administer and runs on older hardware, they are pleased. Most youngsters, visiting the fair, use their computer for gaming, most of the time. Ubuntu (and all other *NIXes) is, IMHO, not intended for this group of people.

As usual, there were a few "regulars". These are people talking to us every time we organize a booth in Ghent (I guess other people participating on other fairs will have the same perception). We also had a very interesting talk with a person shipping old computers to poorer countries. He was planning to try Ubuntu (or Xubuntu) on some of the old laptops and see if it works. We also met a teacher who complained to us about the high license costs of Microsoft's office (which is in face TCO). Apparently Windows is not so expensive, but running Office on dozens of computers seems to be very expensive. IMHO schools should promote the use of Open Source and Free (as in free beer) software. Not only for their own sake, but also for the sake of parents who will have to buy a brand new computer for their children and expensive office software to do their homework.

We started cleaning up our booth at around 16h30. At that time, a lot of other exhibitors where also cleaning up, since the number of visitors was becoming very low. We collected €91 which will be deposited on the Ubuntu - BE account (minus €38 for the booth, so €53 in total).

To conclude I want to say that the Ghent Dipro fair was a much bigger success than last time (on September 6th). We were able to collect more gifts and provide more CD's than any of the past fairs I attended. Maybe it has something to do with the crisis ... I don't know. When talking with another exhibitor, he seemed to have the same impression. I would also like to thank everybody for "manning" the booth and addressing the visitors. I do know this proves to be difficult sometimes.

Pictures

Our booth was actually pretty nice this time. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I am not able to prove this. I promise to provide some nice pictures of the next event in Ghent Smile :)

BelgianTeam/ComputerFairs/Ghent_2009-11-08 (last edited 2009-11-11 07:21:42 by 78-23-206-197)