Campus Party (CP) is a conference and hackathon.
Founded in 1997 as a technology festival and LAN party, the event was first held in Málaga, Spain, and has since been run in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Paraguay, Singapore, Spain, the Netherlands, Uruguay and USA.
The event has evolved into an annual week-long, 24-hour-a-day festival involving online communities, gamers, programmers, bloggers, governments, universities, companies and students and covers technology innovation and electronic entertainment, with an emphasis on free software, programming, astronomy, social media, gaming, green technology, robotics, security networks and computer modeling.
History
In December 1996 EnRED, a Spanish youth organization, wanted to found a small, private LAN party held at the Benalmádena Youth Center in Andalucía, Spain. Paco Regageles, then director of Channel 100, suggested they expand the event, and promoted it as a LAN party under the original name, the "Ben-Al Party" in reference to the event's location in Benalmádena.
In April 1998 the second Ben-Al Party was held, attracting 5 times the number of participants and national media attention to the gaming event. EnRED abandoned the project as it grew, and in April 1999 Paco Regageles along with Belinda Galiano, Yolanda Rueda, Charles Pinto, Pablo Antón, Juanma Moreno and Rafa Revert founded the non-profit organization E3 Futura, with the broader objective of making technology in all forms more accessible to society. Asociación E3 Futura founded Futura Networks to organize the Campus Party festivals, Campus IT Summer University and the Cibervoluntariado digital inclusion movement.
In 2000 Manuel Toharia, a speaker at previous Campus Parties, and director of Príncipe Felipe's Museum of Sciences in Valencia's City of arts and Sciences suggested that Ragageles expand and make the event more international by moving it to the famous museum. That year, Campus Party doubled in size, attracting 1,600 participants to the 6-day festival.
Futura Networks
Futura Networks was founded by the non-profit E3 Futura in 1999 to create forums and educational programs, such as Campus Party, to promote innovation and responsible participation in digital culture. Their headquarters are in Madrid, Spain with satellite offices in Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, London. Futura Networks employs 87 people, and hires approximately 20 local organizers and hundreds of volunteers for each Campus Party event.
Content and focus
Something Better
Something Better is an initiative announced on January 17, 2011, at Campus Party Brazil by CP co-founder Paco Ragageles and José María Álvarez-Pallete, President of Telefónica Latin America. Its goals are to promote the idea that the "Internet isn't a network of computers, but a network of people" and to encourage responsible and proper use of the networks. Paco Ragageles said that the new initiative aims to start a movement of civic and social responsibility on the web that promotes innovation and collaboration, and addresses common issues such as Internet privacy, piracy, spam and cyberbullying. One of the reported objectives of Something Better is to create an Internet use education program through Ministries of Education globally.
The first development of Something Better is Geeks Sans Frontières, a volunteer ambassador program which is based on the concept of Médecins Sans Frontières. Their goal is to help foster growth of technology infrastructure and access to information in developing countries in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas between all communities and cultures. The first destinations for the project are Colombia and Ghana.
Free and Open Source Software
Free software is rooted in the origins of Campus Party. They believe that free and open source software is a "new way of writing the rules of digital society" and demonstrates a "profound change in the relationship between the industry, software creators and all who participate in the construction of a world where knowledge knows no boundaries." Some of the most popular events at the Campus are Linux and Ubuntu download fests where free software advocates can recruit new converts. Executive Director of Linux International, Jon "Maddog" Hall has spoken at the event four times, most recently in Brazil in 2011 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Linux. In 2009 he created the multimedia "maddog challenge," a video contest sponsored by Telefónica to raise the awareness of free software and Creative Commons licenses.