H2K2 - the fourth Hackers On Planet Earth conference - has been confirmed for the summer of 2002. We've secured what is probably the largest space ever for a hacker conference.
H2K2 will take place July 12, 13, and 14 2002 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City - with one major difference. While we will once again have the entire 18th floor for speakers and presentations, we have secured an additional 35,000 square feet on the ground floor for the network and related activities. To give you an idea of just what this means, the entire conference area for our previous event (H2K) was approximately 12,000 square feet. We now have this PLUS the additional space which gives us nearly 50,000 square feet to play with.
How did we pull this off? It turns out that there was a large retail store adjacent to the hotel (Sports Authority) that has now been converted into conference space. It has an entrance from the hotel as well as one from the street. There is also a loading zone to facilitate equipment being moved in and out without having to worry about elevators. What we're envisioning is something the size of a trade show, except instead of people crowding around to look at Microsoft, IBM, and various corporate giants exhibiting their wares, the attraction will be individual hackers showing off THEIR systems, inventions, contraptions, etc.
We will also have room upstairs for multi-track presentations with the ability to merge rooms so that there will be plenty of space for everyone. One of the major problems with H2K in 2000 was that we just didn't have enough space for all of the things we wanted to do. That will no longer be an issue.
Since we have more than a year to put H2K2 together, the possibilities are virtually unlimited. We will soon be setting up submission forms for speakers and panels. We've already set up a mailing list for general discussion of the conference. To sign up, email majordomo@2600.com and enter "subscribe h2k2" on the first line of the message. Additional info will be posted on www.h2k2.net.
Also, in case you're wondering, the proper way to pronounce H2K2 is with the emphasis on the K.
