For over two years, FediForum has been bringing together the people who move the Fediverse and broader Open Social Web forward in a series of online events with global participation. Building on this success, FediForum is now expanding the conversation by hosting the first in-person event, in partnership with SFSCON, an international Free Software conference in Bolzano, Northern Italy, November 7-8, 2025.

SFSCON is a well-established event; it’s been running for 20+ years and had about 1000 attendees last year.

For this occasion, we are planning to host:

• the whole Fediverse track of the conference, with a curated set of speakers;

• a Birds of a Feather (BOF), a space for open conversation and community exchanges, capturing the spirit of an unconference;

• a special and experimental hands-on exhibit that enables people new to the Fediverse to learn what it is all about and why it matters;

• an informal community gathering beyond the conference.

Organizers are: Tommi Marmo, Melanie Bartos and Johannes Ernst.

In conversations with our community, two major themes have emerged we want to put some emphasis on during this event:

• Educating potential new users about Open Social Web, the Fediverse, the projects building software and the benefits of using it over the commercial platforms.

• Meeting and connecting like-minded individuals and projects to enable them to coordinate with each other into larger roadmaps, with the goal of collaboratively solving the remaining technical and non-technical challenges still in the way of much broader use of the Open Social Web / Fediverse by organizations, governments and individuals.

We are inviting all members of the FediForum community to help us make the most of the opportunity to bring Fediverse and Open Social Web enthusiasts together in Europe in person and move the cause forward.

If you would like to present or demo in the conference track or at the exhibit, or have a relevant exhibit, please reach out to us by filling out this form, ideally by July 27, 2025, and we will get back to you.

Questions? Get in touch!