Foojay Podcast #24: BeJUG, BruJUG, and how Devoxx was born

The Foojay Java User Group World Tour has already brought us to a lot of different countries virtually all over the world.

But for this episode, the host decided to stay at home in Belgium.

The Belgium JUG (BeJUG) started in 1997 and was the birthplace of Devoxx, Devoxx4Kids, and VoxxedDays.

And in our capital Brussels, we’ve been able to join Brussels JUG (BruJUG), since 2010.

So there’s a lot we can talk about to learn more about communities and conferences in Belgium!

JUG World Tour: BeJUG, BruJUG and how Devoxx was born as JavaPolis (#24)

Guests

• Olivier Hubaut, BruJUG
  - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierhubaut/
  - https://mastodon.top/@ohubaut
• Stephan Janssen, founder BeJUG, Devoxx, Devoxx4Kids, Voxxed
  - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanjanssen/
  - https://twitter.com/Stephan007
• Tom Cools, AntwerpJUG, BeJUG
  - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-cools-17547548/
  - https://twitter.com/TCoolsIT
  - https://mastodon.social/@TCoolsIT

Podcast host

• Frank Delporte
  - https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankdelporte/
  - https://foojay.social/@frankdelporte
  - https://twitter.com/FrankDelporte

Links

• https://www.meetup.com/belgian-java-user-group/
• https://www.meetup.com/BruJUG/
• https://devoxx.be/
• https://events.voxxeddays.com/

Content

• 00'00 Introduction of the topic and guests
• 02'19 History of BeJUG and the start of JavaPolis (Devoxx)
• 06'00 How BruJUG (Brussels) started and evolved
  - https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-unseen-99
• 08'35 Tom as the winner of the bad timing award with AntwerpJUG
• 10'35 Impact of Covid on Devoxx and BruJUG
• 18'09 How BeJUG got restarted in 2022
  - https://github.com/BeJUG/bejug.github.io
  - Video: “Transitioning into Tech: The Journey of a Senior Junior Developer by Ibrahim Dogrusoz”
• 27'05 How BruJUG attracted new speakers + tips for new speakers or new talks
• 31'32 How Devoxx4Kids grew to a worldwide event
• 36'03 The tools developed and used to manage Devoxx
• 41'13 About the name change from JavaPolis to Devoxx and the franchising
• 46'14 Future plans for Devoxx, BruJUG and BeJUG
• 51'14 CFP for Devoxx and how reviewers can find sessions for their JUG
• 54'16 Outro

Originally published at https://foojay.io on June 5, 2023.