We are delighted to announce that the next edition of Open Source Conference Albania is taking place in the warm city of Tirana on 18th & 19th of June 2022.

If you are looking forward to spending a weekend fully dedicated to open source software and culture, meeting up with friends from different communities, hosting a talk, workshop or meetup on a topic you are passionate about, while enjoying the nice weather and great food in the city, come and join us in Tirana, Albania.

About OSCAL: OSCAL (Open Source Conference Albania) is the first annual conference in Albania organized to promote software freedom, open source software, free culture and open knowledge. The Conference will gather free libre open source technology users, developers, academics, governmental agencies and people who share the idea that software should be free and open for the local community and governments to develop and customize to its needs; that knowledge is a communal property and free and open to everyone.

This is the 7th edition of the conference. As we always try to bring new year we have been proud to have a variety in our sessions

• broad range of technical topics
• over 90 hours of sessions
• over 70 diverse speakers
• more than 20 exhibitors
• exclusive city tour
• hackerspace parties
• diverse and inclusive environment

This year theme is: Internet Freedom FTW/WTF?

In this edition we decided to continue where we left in 2020 before the pandemic disrupted the conference and our lives. But many things happened during these 2 years, and we would like to reflect on what has changed and what has gone wrong.

Internet freedom is at its lowest. For years, netizens have praised the collaborative and empowering tools of the internet, while also warning about the raising interest in controlling, filtering and censoring what we see and do online. But in the recent years we’ve seen a new kind of problem, that of the freedom in the internet being abused and used to disseminate misinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech at levels never heard before. On the one side, governments and corporations engage in massive surveillance of every movement online. On the other side, shady actors are using misinformation to undermine the very sense of truth, and hiding behind slogans of freedom.

With more and more reports about internet shutdowns, domain names being blocked, massive surveillance and censorship, governments fighting privacy friendly tools like encryption, together with massive spread of fake news, what are we to do?
How do we counter censorship and surveillance coming from both government and corporations alike? Is there a democratic solution to the spread of misinformation? Is the new stack of technologies referred to as web3 a way forward towards a decentralized internet, or just a re-branding offering more of the same? The World Wide Web, an amazing tool used to share knowledge, information and one of the fastest communication tools is now being used against us and we need to act! In this edition of our volunteer powered conference we want to emphasize that we are here to fight for internet freedom and against misinformation widely spread on the net!

OSCAL 2022: presentations, workshops, community meetups and info booths gearing up for #InternetFreedomFTW #InternetFreedomWTF.

Participation and attendance is totally free, though the organizers gratefully accept donations and sponsorship. To register please visit osc.al/register

Our call for sponsors is still open and we would appreciate your support to bring another successful edition. Please visit our sponsors page to find out more: oscal.openlabs.cc/sponsors/

Contact information:

• website: oscal.openlabs.cc
• email: oscal(at)openlabs.cc
• twitter: OSCALconf

OSCAL is organized by Open Labs Albania, a non governmental, not for profit organization, dedicated to promote openness, freedom, transparency and decentralization by amplifying its voice as a community altogether.