OpenJS World 2020 Conference Goes Virtual, Tickets Are Free: June 23–24

Like many tech conferences, OpenJS World 2020 was forced to go virtual for its upcoming event scheduled for June 23-24, in Austin. The global conference was designed to be representative of all 32 projects hosted with the OpenJS Foundation. This includes Node.js, webpack, jQuery, Mocha, ESLint, Lodash, Grunt, and other popular projects. The Foundation is also in the process of initiating AMP and Electron through an incubation process.

Prior to going virtual, regular attendee ticket prices for OpenJS World ranged from $350 (early bird) – $899 (late). Ordinarily, travel expenses and missed work can make conferences like this cost-prohibitive for some attendees whose employers don’t sponsor their work travel. Now that the event has moved to be fully online, tickets are free for all who want to attend.

OpenJS World gives developers the opportunity to connect with others across the JavaScript and web ecosystem while learning from a diverse, world-class lineup of speakers. The schedule spans a variety of topics, including JavaScript architectures and patterns, internationalization, diagnostics and debugging, infrastructure, IoT, and more.

Glitch CEO Anil Dash is one of 16 keynote speakers. He will be talking about JavaScript and its place in tech after 25 years, as well as how its community should be working together. NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch will also be a keynoting the event on June 24, at 9 AM CT. Koch served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station for multiple expeditions and holds the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days). The event also features keynote panels with engineers and executives responsible for deploying applications at a massive scale.

While the pandemic has rendered many people housebound, there are a lot of virtual events competing for your attention. Although these sessions are likely to be available on YouTube at some point in the future, there are a few distinct benefits of attending live: the opportunity to network with other attendees, engage in live speaker Q&A sessions, and interact with sponsors. For WordPress developers, it may be a convenient avenue for getting outside the WordPress bubble and connecting with others in the industry.