Welcome Message from David Duffett, Asterisk Global Community Manger:

Greetings fellow Asterisk enthusiast, welcome to AstriCon 2014!

This year we find ourselves in Las Vegas, such a great venue, for an AstriCon that promises to be our best yet!

It's been a whole year and much has happened in the world of Asterisk... the hard work invested in Asterisk 12 last year by the the dev team and our valued Community Members has been built on and matured by the same people to bring us Asterisk 13, an LTS (long term stability) release, which, as I write this message, is available as a beta2 release.

What strikes me most about this AstriCon is the vast array of excellent conference sessions we have for you this year, and although I 'curate' this central element of the event, it is the Asterisk Community members that have submitted these sessions that must really take the credit for the diversity, depth and quality of the 2014 crop!
Rarely can an event boast such a breadth of related subject matter, such a mighty collection of exactly the right people to 'talk Asterisk' or such an interesting cross-section of the ecosystem populating the exhibit floor - and I would like you to join me in saying a big 'Thank you!' to all of our sponsors.

Matt Jordan (head of the Asterisk dev team) will be running a couple of sessions to allow you to catch up with what has gone into Asterisk 13 and how to make most effective use of it through the ARI (the Asterisk REST Interface), a new API that arrived in Asterisk 12 and has been improved in Asterisk 13.

With more than 45 hand-picked sessions to choose from, there will inevitably times when you wish you could be in two (or possibly three or four) places at once!  This is the beauty of attending AstriCon with your colleagues, in that it gives you the ability to cover a variety of sessions - and then explain them to each other afterwards. If that's not possible, don't fret, as we do record the sessions - so you will be able to catch up with what you have missed after the event.

I wanted to highlight a couple that have an extra special flavor this year... First, two AstriCon favorites, the lovely Allison Smith (The Voice of Asterisk) and Ben Klang (Mojo Lingo) are joining forces to present a talk called "Using Asterisk to create 'Her'" which will delve into integrating speech technologies with Asterisk, and even flirt with the idea of adding artificial intelligence into the mix. Also, we are delighted to welcome Jim 'Dude' Dixon back to AstriCon. It was Jim that started to low cost telephony card revolution with the Zapata Telephony Project and the Tormenta card. One of our sessions, "¡Viva la Revolución!", will be an audience with Jim, where he will recount what led him to the powerful conclusions he came to back in the day, and he may even share his thoughts on where things are going next!

AstriCon is such a great place to learn a huge amount about Asterisk, what people are doing with it - and how they're doing it, in addition to hearing about all sorts of associated projects and wild and wacky integrations...
But do not attend AstriCon simply to receive, please be prepared to share your thoughts and opinions, ask your questions and think about the talk that YOU might give next year!

You can also participate in the 'Fastest Dude' contest. This year we're going back to basics... It's just you, a SIP phone and Asterisk... If you can rise to the challenge and be one of the three 'Fastest Dudes' a sweet prize will be yours! Look for the contest booth on the exhibition floor.

I hope you will enjoy the event and find the value planted in every single session.
Once again, welcome to AstriCon - the conference and exhibition that YOU make the Asterisk event of the year!!

Companies interested in sponsoring AstriCon should contact Joe Fabiano at TMC: +1 (203) 852-6800 ext 132 or via email at jfabiano@tmcnet.com.

 

AstriCon's mission is to expand awareness and knowledge of Asterisk over the course of a three-day conference and exhibition. AstriCon includes a wealth of information for every Asterisk user, whether you are getting started or have already discovered the power of Asterisk.  AstriCon gives all members of the Asterisk community - including telephony enthusiasts, developers and businesses - a forum to learn about the technology. Asterisk integrators and business users can expect to hear the latest Asterisk news and project updates, gain access to in-depth technical sessions, participate in networking opportunities, meet potential collaborators and review and discuss detailed case studies of Asterisk projects. 

 

 

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