Join us for STAC Sprint #6 — our first fully remote event
With the SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) spec recently reaching 1.0.0-beta, we figured it’s time for one final sprint before we push out 1.0.0 final. The goal with STAC has always been to ensure that the specification meets real-world needs, by always iterating its improvements in conjunction with actual implementations. One early goal was to reach 1 billion records in STAC before we go to 1.0.0, but we achieved that much earlier than expected. But the various catalogs have not necessarily upgraded to the latest STAC version right when it comes out. So our main goal for the sprint is going to be to upgrade all the STAC software and catalogs to the latest 1.0.0 beta specification and ideally add several new catalogs and data types. The goal will be to ensure that STAC is flexible enough to handle anything, so when we reach 1.0.0 the core will not need to change.
With each recent sprint, we’ve aimed to be more and more friendly to remote participants, and so the constraints of no one traveling should enable a fairly seamless transition to a fully virtual event. We’ll keep the structure mostly the same, but we’ve decided to space out the sprint days, so participants can hopefully focus entirely on the sprint during the ‘on’ days, and use the off days to prioritize their main work projects.
The other change will be to break it into two different ‘parts’. The first will be a ‘software’ focused sprint, in mid-August, where the aim is to upgrade everything in the STAC ecosystem to 1.0.0-beta, and to hopefully add some new tools that can help people work with STAC. And then in early September, we’ll do a big ‘Outreach’ day, with lightning talks and ‘Beginner Sessions’ to teach people how to use the tools. That will kick off the next part of the sprint, when everyone will focus on ‘data’ — upgrading and creating new STAC Catalogs. We will also likely have a small group focused on ‘outreach’: improving the website, publishing tutorials, writing whitepapers, etc.
Schedule
August 18 (tues) — Software Sprint Kick-off and working day
August 20 (thurs) — Software Sprint day, likely with a virtual wrap-up
September 8 (tues) — Data Sprint Kickoff and STAC Outreach Day — Lightning Talks Session & Tutorials
September 10 (thurs) — Data Sprint continues
September 15 (tues) — Data Sprint wrap up and prizes
At least that’s what we’re thinking so far — there will inevitably be some tweaks as we flesh out more details.
Sponsoring & Prizes
Every previous STAC sprint has been possible with generous sponsors, who provided for space, food, travel grants, and even t-shirts. With an entirely virtual sprint most of those are not relevant, as we are not convening in a physical space. But we hope to offer limited edition STAC Sprint #6 t-shirts to all participants who contribute — writing code working on STAC catalogs, or doing outreach. We are also going to experiment with select cash prizes to help push forward key elements of the STAC ecosystem. The exact form is still be figured out, but we hope to be able to reward good contributions and even to select a project started in the sprint to get further funding to push it forward. Thus sponsors will be directly contributing to the STAC ecosystem growing more useful for everyone.
So sponsorship will cover t-shirts & prizes, and we may also seek cloud hosting donations for public STAC catalogs. We are also going to have a new type of sponsorship that recognizes organizations that give their employees at least 3 dedicated days to participate in the sprint. Every past sprint has been possible based on the generosity of organizations sending their people, so we want to call out that contribution explicitly. And we hope this will enable participants to truly set aside the time, which can be harder when we’re not all physically present together.
If your organization is interested in sponsoring please see the sponsorship prospectus and follow the instructions there.
And please sign up at https://forms.gle/4YyQZM6keGLxXA977 and forward to anyone who might be interested! That will ensure you’re on all the communication about the event.
