[OpenDoc Announce] Join us for the Berlin ODF plugfest (July 14/15th 2011)

[Mailing list for announcements for all OpenDoc Society members]

Dear members,


since 2009 OpenDoc Society has organised a number of very successful ODF
Plugfests in different countries, together with a number of
organisations, governments, universities and other key stakeholders in
improving interoperability of office applications.

In three weeks we will gather in Berlin for the sixth ODF plugfest,
hosted by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry
of Economics and Technology. The event will take place on July 14th and
15th 2011 at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. You are
warmly invited to join.

Please find the formal invitation from the CIO of the German Federal
Ministry of the Interior dr. Martin Schallbruch for this event.
Apologies if you have received this invitation before. You can find more
information on http://www.odfplugfest.de.

If you want to participate remotely, please notify us so that we can see
if we can accommodate this. If you are in need of a travel grant, please
contact us as well.

The seventh plugfest (the next one after this) will be held in The
Netherlands on November 17/18th 2011, and will be hosted by the
Netherlands government under the aegis of The Netherlands in Open
Connection Action programme. We are still looking for candidate host
countries beyond that. If you are interested in hosting a future edition
of the plugfest - please contact us.

Kind regards,

on behalf of OpenDoc Society

Michiel Leenaars
Director of Strategy
NLnet foundation

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Save the date: 6th ODF Plugfest on July 14th and 15th 2001 in
Berlin
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:26:32 +0200
From: Martin Schallbruch
To: Holger Boeken


To whom it may concern.

I have the pleasure to invite you to participate in the 6th OpenDocument
Format (ODF) Plugfest on July 14th and 15th 2011, Invalidenstr. 48,
10557 Berlin Germany. This Plugfest is a two day interoperability
workshop on open document exchange formats hosted by the Federal
Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of Economics and
Technology in Berlin, in collaboration with OpenDoc Society, the OASIS
ODF TC, OASIS ODF OIC and the OASIS ODF Adoption TC. Previous events in
this series supported by other governmental organisations were held
since 2009 at The Hague (Netherlands), Orvieto (Italy), Granada (Spain),
Brussels (Belgium) and Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (UK).

The Berlin Plugfest will bring together key vendors and organisations
implementing Open Document Format to discuss its future. It also
involves stakeholders like the German Federal Government to voice our
requirements. The aim is to provide a hands-on interoperability testing
environment in which vendors and community members can fine-tune the
interoperability capabilities of various productivity applications and
make test scenarios, recommendations, ultimately creating guidelines for
implementers. Our goal is to encourage seamless interoperability across
all suppliers, platforms and supported technologies. The strength of the
event is the opportunity to work with many vendors at once.

The interoperability of products utilising open document exchange
formats immediately impacts everyone's productivity. This is why all who
have a significant stake in this process should work together. It would
be great if you could send a delegation to the Plugfest, or even
participate yourself. With many of the teams behind the competing
productivity tools on the market attending with their lead developers,
technical management, as well as their community leaders, the Plugfest's
importance transcends the narrow remit of the technical and embraces the
reality of use.

There is no fee required to participate. Would you be so kind as to
inform us by June 30th, whether you or a representative from your
organisation plans to attend this event? If you have any questions, need
assistance or just need more details, we will gladly help you out.
Please contact Mr. Holger Böken, +49 (30) 18681-2390) or Ms. Silke
Hildebrandt (it2 at bmi.bund.de, +49 (30) 18681-1716).

At your request we can send you a formal letter to assist with any visa
applications. Meanwhile, you can already go to the Plugfest website
(http://www.odfplugfest.de ) and find more information about the results
of the previous ODF Plugfest - as well as the preliminary plans for the
next one.

We hope to see you in Berlin!
Regards,

Martin Schallbruch
CIO of the Federal Ministry of the Interior