hydrarchist writes:

What The Hack? Festival
July 28-31, 2005, Den Bosch, Netherlands

What The Hack?, a large hacker's festival, has been organized as part of a interesting series of
events held every four years in The Netherlands. The events are known as a
great opportunity to meet others working on the same things. It started
with "The Galactic Hacker Party", also known as the "International
Conference on the Alternative use of Technology, Amsterdam". Since then
the festival moved outdoors, and the next three editions were held on a
large field. The last edition was visited by nearly 3000 people. Hackers
enjoy exploring the details and capabilities of tech-systems or engage
with technology on the basis of a do-it- yourself philosophy. Contrary to
popular misconception hackers do not, by definition, break into systems.

The festival will be taking place between July 28th and 31th July, 2005
in a camp near Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Common themes are freedom of
speech, government transparency, computer insecurity, privacy, open
software, open standards & software patents and community networking.Call for presentations and workshops

Another focus has to do with independent media and networking in crisis
areas and so called developing countries, which goals and objectives are:

** Bringing together and building links between technical people of
different backgrounds and countries. Involve young professionals from
Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa in this broad
international event. Creating opportunities for hackers to think about
how they can help in the distribution of technology, support independent
media and so on.

** Show projects on the forefront of creative network development and
use of new media.

** Share practical knowledge, skills and experiences in wireless
technology, open spectrum, open technologies and free software.

** Make use of the power of a large group of technical people. One idea
is setting up a meshing experiment. Meshing is a way to self-organize
wireless networks. Up till now, nobody really knows how well it scales
to lots of users. A massive mesh experiment using thousands of laptops
on the camp can give some answers. If necessary, it's a challenge to try
to improve the Wifi protocol so that it will scale.

** Discuss global topics like Open Access/Content issues, freedom of
speech or Internet Governance.

Anne Sedee, program committee, "What The Hack"

reply to: acde@xs4all.nl