# cc2020venueannouncment Name of file: 2020-06-29-cc2020themevenue.md <!--- Will update the name of the file above when time to publish --> --- layout: page authors: ["Daniel Ouso", "Bianca Peterson", "Sarah Stevens"] <!--- Add your name here if you help --> teaser: "CarpentryCon2020 will be held in ..." title: "Announcing CarpentryCon 2020 Dates, Location and Theme" date: 2019-07-31 <!--- Update when posting date decided --> time: "09:00:00" <!--- Update when posting date decided --> tags: ["CarpentryCon", "CarpentryCon2020", "Communications", "Madison", "South Africa", "CarpentryCon2021", ] <!--- Update as needed --> --- Thanks to the efforts of the whole Carpentries Community, we received a number of great suggestions/bids for the CarpentryCon2020 theme and venue. Many thanks to those who took time to suggest a theme or submit a venue bid. Read more about the theme and venue below and bookmark the [CarpentryCon2020 website](https://2020.carpentrycon.org/) for additional updates. <!--- Bumping this section up, as it's the long awaited news. Announce location, then theme for 2020, followed by 2021 city [name=Serah Njambi Rono] ---> ## CarpentryCon 2020: Meet up in Madison, Wisconsin, USA! We are excited to announce that CarpentryCon2020 will be held **June 29 - July 1st, 2020** at the [University of Wisconsin - Madison](https://wisc.edu) (Madison, Wisconsin, United States). <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/collegelibrary/14070186173/in/photostream/" title="Aerial View of Campus, with Helen C. White Hall in foreground"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/7242/14070186173_d73139edde_b.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Aerial View of Campus, with Helen C. White Hall in foreground"></a> _Photo by [Jeff Miller/UW-Madison](https://www.flickr.com/photos/collegelibrary/14070186173/in/photostream/)_ The city of Madison is sandwiched between two freshwater lakes, features an iconic state capitol building in the city center, and is a short trip from several other large US cities (Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis). The [University of Wisconsin - Madison](https://wisc.edu) sits along the shores of Lake Mendota, including a student union with a lakeside terrace. CarpentryCon2020 will be supported by a growing local community of instructors, coordinated through [UW-Madison's Data Science Hub](https://datascience.wisc.edu/). We cannot wait to see you there! ## Growing inclusive, computational communities and leaders <!--- What the theme means to us as a community --> As a team, we pulled together your many wonderful theme suggestions into the final CarpentryCon2020 theme, **"Growing inclusive, computational communities and leaders"**. We chose this theme because it represented many of the core ideas/philosophies of the Carpentries, including: computational skills, inclusivity, community building, and continuous skill building. Join us at CarpentryCon2020 so we can learn from each other and grow our community further. ## CarpentryCon 2021: Let's go to ~~Cape Town,~~ South Africa! <!---Leaving out all specific mentions of Cape Town as the South Africa city location for CarpentryCon 2021 [name=Serah Njambi Rono]---> We emphatically thank the many individuals who put together venue bids. > There were so many amazing choices for venues that it made it hard for the taskforce to decide. <!--- Rewording this section so it communicates our reason for announcing Cape Town in 2021 differently (see paragraph below) [name=Serah Njambi Rono]---> There were so many amazing choices for venues that started a discussion among CarpentryCon Task Force and The Carpentries Team about what it would take to run a successful CarpentryCon in these suggested places. We all agree that developing relationships with potential institutional partners locally in the different regions is a key aspect. We appreciate that this might take more time in some cases, and are convinced that starting the planning process early is a good idea. Thus, we are also excited to announce that the next CarpentryCon will be in 2021 (that's right, no year break this time!) in ~~Cape Town,~~ South Africa! ~~![Cape Town dawn cityscape with Table Mountain](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Cape_Town_dawn_cityscape_with_Table_Mountain.jpg/800px-Cape_Town_dawn_cityscape_with_Table_Mountain.jpg) _Photo by [Daniel Case](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cape_Town_dawn_cityscape_with_Table_Mountain.jpg#filelinks)_~~ Stay tuned for updates about CarpentryCon2021! ## Our decision-making process As most of the venues submitted met all of our initial requirements, we focused on five additional criteria and weighted (ordered below by weight) them based on voting by CarpentryCon Task Force members: 1. Fiscal policy 2. Visa requirements and the complexity/cost of the process to the hosts and participants 2. Travel/accommodation cost (to participants) 3. Regional rotation - Having a different geographical region each time for CarpentryCon 4. Potential to engage local community (based on its size) - strategic goal & bigger picture for The Carpentries 4. Venue cost - hosting cost We then used these weighted criteria to narrow down the venues to Madison, Wisconsin, USA and Cape Town, South Africa. Since we were excited about both venues, we decided to move on Madison for 2020 and start planning for ~~Cape Town~~South Africa in 2021. If your venue was not chosen, we encourage you to resubmit your venue for consideration for a future CarpentryCon or organize a CarpentryConnect there! The taskforce hopes that by starting planning for 2021 alongside 2020 we can make this process more reproducible and bring together the Carpentries Community more regularly. ## What's next <!--- I was thinking of a suspense/continuity, may also consider a "What's next" title? | Sarah: I swtiched it because a way forward sounds like we are in a pickle and are struggling to move forward to me. Overall I like this section though!--> The CarpentryCon 2020 taskforce continues to work on the other aspects of planning for the conference including registration and keynote speakers. Periodic updates may be found on the [CarpentryCon2020 website](https://2020.carpentrycon.org/). We hope to see you in Madison.