The two most important conferences of KDE are Akademy and Camp KDE. Each event is on a large scale, both thematically and geographically. Akademy-BR and Akademy-es are local community events.
Akademy
Akademy is the annual world summit, held each summer at varying venues in Europe.[53] The primary goals of Akademy are to act as a community building event, to communicate the achievements of community, and to provide a platform for collaboration with community and industry partners. Secondary goals are to engage local people, and to provide space for getting together to write code. KDE e.V. assist with procedures, advice and organization. Akademy including conference, KDE e.V. general assembly, marathon coding sessions, BOFs (birds of a feather sessions) and social program. BOFs meet to discuss specific sub-projects or issues.[54]
The first conference that the KDE community held was KDE One, in Arnsberg, Germany, in 1997 to discuss the first KDE release. Initially, each conference was numbered after the release, and not regular held. Since 2003 the conferences were held once a year. And they were named Akademy since 2004.
The yearly Akademy conference gives Akademy Awards, are awards that the KDE community gives to KDE contributors. Their purpose is to recognize outstanding contribution to KDE. There are three awards, best application, best non-application and jury's award. As always the winners are chosen by the winners from the previous year.[55] First winners received a framed picture of Konqi signed by all attending KDE developers.[56]
Camp KDE
Camp KDE is another annual contributor's conference of the KDE community. The event provides a regional opportunity for contributors and enthusiasts to gather and share their experiences. It is free to all participants. It is intended to ensure that KDE in the world is not simply seen as being Euro-centric. The KDE e.V. helps travel and accommodation subsidies for presenters, BoF leaders, organizers or core contributor. It is held in the North America since 2009.
In January 2008, KDE 4.0 Release Event was held at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, US, to celebrate the release of KDE SC 4.0. The community realized that there was a strong demand for KDE events in the Americas, therefore Camp KDE was produced.
Camp KDE 2009 was the premiere meeting of the KDE Americas, was held at the Travellers Beach Resort in Negril, Jamaica, sponsored by Google, Intel, iXsystem, KDE e.V. and Kitware. The event included 1–2 days of presentations, BoF meetings and hackathon sessions.[57] Camp KDE 2010 took place at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in La Jolla, US. The schedule included presentations, BoFs, hackathons and a day trip. It started with a short introduction by Jeff Mitchell, who was the principal organizer of the conference, talked a bit of history about Camp KDE and some statistics about the KDE community. With around 70 participants, the talks of the event were relatively well attended. On 1/19, the social event was a tour of a local brewery.[58] Camp KDE 2011 was held at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco, US. It was co-located with the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.
SoK (Season of KDE)
Season of KDE is an outreach program hosted by the KDE community. Students are appointed mentors from the KDE community that help bring their project to fruition.[60]
Other community events
conf.kde.in was the first KDE and Qt conference in India. The conference, organized by KDE India, was held at R.V. College of Engineering in Bangalore, India. The first three days of the event had talks, tutorials, and interactive sessions. The last two days were a focused code sprint.[61] The conference was opened by its main organizer, Pradeepto Bhattacharya. Over 300 people were at the opening talks. The Lighting of the Auspicious Lamp ceremony was performed to open the conference. The first session was by Lydia Pintscher, who spoke on "So much to do – so little time". At the event, the return of Project Neon was announced on March 11, 2011, with the project providing nightly builds of the KDE Software Compilation.[62] Closing the conference was keynote speaker and old-time KDE developer Sirtaj.
Día KDE (KDE Day) is an Argentinian event focused on KDE. It gives talks and workshops. The purposes of the event are to: spread the free software movement among the population of Argentina, bringing to it the KDE community and environment developed by it; know and strengthen KDE-AR; and generally bring the community together to have fun. The event is free.[63]
