Welcome to rustfest.world, the new home of the RustFest blog and the RustFest Project as a whole.

RustFest is now a community-owned non-profit organization helping the Rust community around the world grow closer & stronger, through all sorts of events from small meetups to large conferences, organized by the members of the global Rust community.

And with that, it’s time to announce our first big project under this new umbrella:

The RustFest Project Presents: RustFest Global 2021. Online conference series organized by the Rust community. November-December 2021. 3 events, 3 teams, multiple languages. CFP now open!
Please give a warm welcome to RustFest Global 2021!

There is a lot to talk about, but allow us to cut to the chase and say: we want your talks!

Submit a proposal to RustFest Global 2021!

We, in fact and as you will also notice in the submission form, want all kinds of your session ideas, not just talks. There is a lot more to unpack about the CFP but first, let’s talk a bit about why we felt these changes were needed in the first place.

Global inclusion — five years in the making

Since the very first RustFest five years ago we have always tried to make RustFest more inclusive and accessible. This did not stop at worrying about the venue’s accessibility, or our diversity, or even the affordability of the conference — it fuelled many other aspects of inclusion, from bringing RustFest to local communities, making it a migratory event, to trying to bring outside perspectives into RustFest through talks and CFP committee members.

So-called “family photo” from the very first RustFest Berlin event

Last year’s RustFest Global was yet another leap forward in this direction, as we explored how we could connect the Global Rust community at scale. While many (us included!) lament that online events are no replacement for a community getting together in person, online events can have their own perks. They are able to reach a much wider audience who never has to worry about the costs and grievances of international travel, visas and so on. Yet, global access does not necessarily mean global accessibility and inclusivity. Time zones, language difficulties and huge disparities in internet connectivity remain but some of the most well-understood challenges that online events face — challenges that unfortunately we saw rarely taken up on by the myriad of online events springing this past year.

This is why we keep trying to evolve the format of RustFest (Global), because we believe these are challenges worth solving. The feedback we have received after RustFest Global 2020 happens to confirm this suspicion.

Three Editions, One RustFest

While cramming three whole conferences into one planetary day of RustFesting last year has certainly been a… let’s say “educational experience”. It was not very sustainable, to say the least. In 2021 we expect to deliver a similar amount of content (15+ hours!), but this time around in a brand new format split across three weekends. These three new RustFest “Editions” will not only differ in their scheduling (live airing timezones), or dates, but will be entirely different events organized by their own dedicated teams! The organizing teams will have a large amount of freedom to focus on the event experience, lineup and tailor it to their focus audience — while the shared infrastructure allows funds, sponsorship, streaming infrastructure etc to be shared by the whole organization.

Compile Once, Run Anywhere

The new RustFest CFP condenses what we learned from five years of frantically-reviewing-proposals-for-an-entire-week into a new approach that should be a win for both prospective presenters and the organizing team.

Talks submitted through our CFP are made available to all teams, who will execute the selection on their own cadence, gradually filling up their event’s lineup. In this sense, we will do away with the traditional (and rather arbitrary) concept of a “closing date”, since the CFP in all practicality will be “open” until the teams still have open slots in their schedules.

The submission also makes the submitted proposals easily portable by generating of a both human- & machine-readable downloadable file from the completed submission. These can be edited and discussed separately, even shared with other events if in the future some would choose to adopt this system. Submissions can be easily moved around and tweaked before importing and submitting them with a click of a button! The CFP form and other components are in an alpha state, but are open source, with other components also released soon as they are being completed.

¿Así que sólo hablas inglés, ah?

If we have learned something from RustFest Global 2020, it’s that there’s a lot of room for us to grow in the language department. Not only that we should be working on making RustFest localized into more languages (which we are!), but we should also try to bridge these gaps between pockets of Rust communities across the globe.

Starting today, the RustFest CFP is fully localized in English and Spanish, with additional accepted languages enabled for future editions. All proposals may be submitted in any of the supported languages, and the team pledges to provide translations of the proposals for the selection and professional English subtitles for all accepted presentations.

We understand this may still be far from ideal, but we believe this is a good start and a step in the right direction. We always welcomed feedback, so if you have thoughts please let us know!

All this coupled with our beginner-friendly approach, regular perks (e.g. speaker fees and an A/V stipend) and some brand new ones in the works (stay tuned!) all RustFest Family events are committed to make these online spaces welcoming for the Rust community truly anywhere on the globe.

What do you mean “RustFest Family”

RustFest today is so much more than the RustFest conference in Berlin five years ago, but the ethos is unchanged. It is an ethos inspired by the JSConf Family: while RustFest itself is now its own (non-profit) organization, RustFest Global and events that share our community focus and values (such as the wonderful Rust.Tokyo) are their own entities, with a common goal of bringing the Rust community together.

The RustFest Project has a couple means of raising funds, be that through RustFest Global sponsorships and ticket sales, or through direct support via Open Collective. All these funds are tracked transparently in our open budget, and used entirely to improve RustFest Global and support the RustFest Family events.

These funds mean a lot. The income from RustFest Global 2020 meant we could support and build the RustFest infrastructure over the past year, had enough to start the 2021 planning and even paid for the subtitling of one of this year’s upcoming Rust.Tokyo talks! We are hoping to raise more funds from sponsorships (please reach out!) and ticket sales (soon!), but would also ask all of you to consider supporting us with (even just a small!) recurring donation that will make RustFest’s work much more sustainable.

It is here where we would like to thank Concordium, Embark Studios and the individual supporters Peter Parkanyi & Beni Issembert for their trust and continued support, your early contributions have helped us get to where we are today.

Á propos… speaking of “the very first RustFest”, we have our fifth anniversary coming up in just a couple days, and we fully intend to celebrate in style! That is all we can share, for now, but stay tuned for an upcoming announcement shortly. 😉

Thank you!

Thank you for all the support we have received from everyone up until now, it has been such a ride! Looking forward to the next 5 years! Send us a proposal. Join an organizing team. Support us on Open Collective. Sponsor RustFest. Be well, stay safe, wash your hands & don’t touch your face.

Lovingly,

The RustFest Project & RustFest Global organizers

FAQ!