{"id":9428,"date":"2016-09-01T11:41:28","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T09:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/?p=9428"},"modified":"2026-01-12T09:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:06:57","slug":"227-jsconf-2016-on-iceland-a-community-on-the-edge-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/news\/227-jsconf-2016-on-iceland-a-community-on-the-edge-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"JSConf 2016 on Iceland: A community on the edge (of the world)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conferences are short and intensive, yet there is so much to learn. The best conferences allow you to soak in the energy and excitement of an engaged community, while leaving you with ideas of what to do next as you return home.<\/p>\n

JSConf 2016 in Iceland was just like that.<\/p>\n

We were proud to sponsor this event, and not only did we send our entire development team to attend, but also sent the rest of the company to explore the startup ecosystem on the island (as well as the local sights and cuisine).<\/p>\n

Here are some of our takeaways from this JSConf 2016 that we wanted to share with you.<\/p>\n

Break out of your comfort zone<\/strong>
\n
\nGet out of your office! Being challenged by random and unknown people in a different place is a priceless experience, and Iceland is a great place for that. It takes around three hours to reach Iceland from Europe and up to six hours from the US (East Coast). Once there, the landscape is staggering, with its waterfalls, blue lagoon and volcanoes, you don\u2019t see that often do you!<\/p>\n

Reykjavik is the capital, located in the middle of a moonscape. The conference was hosted\u00a0in Reykjavik from the 25th to the 27th of August. It was attended by JavaScript enthusiasts from all over the world who came to share ideas, listen to experts and learn from each other.<\/p>\n

In such environment, you are literally taking yourself out of your business-as-usual setting, opening up for creative ways of combining your ideas with those of others\u2019 who share your interests, but not necessarily approach, to their craft.<\/p>\n

Meet experts and peers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conferences are great ways to connect with known and unknown thought-leaders in your industry. Speakers and organizers are available and easy to approach and to talk to.<\/p>\n

Personally, I admire people who build company or organization from scratch, and shares her\/his experience with others. One such speaker was Dag-Inge Aas, the founder of appear.in. I had the chance to sit down with him for a chat, and here are some of his thoughts about the conference:
\n
\n\u201cMy big takeaway is that the community is changing. This was one of the more inclusive and diverse conferences\u00a0I’ve been to, with good talks on the topic, and with a really nice atmosphere as well.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

The gender ratio on talks was 50\/50, which is excellent and really is a testament to the community\u00a0as a whole going in the right direction.<\/i>\u201c<\/p>\n

Raquel Velez was also a speaker\u00a0during\u00a0the event, and she had a\u00a0great point when it comes to how to accept the concept\u00a0of making money in an open source.<\/p>\n

This is much in line with our thinking at Highsoft: Open Source is about collaboration and transparency, not (just) charity. There is nothing wrong with creating a business that allows one to dedicate one\u2019s full time to creating value, strengthening the\u00a0community,\u00a0while putting food on the table!<\/p>\n

Besides being in contact with experts and speakers, JSConf was a great place to get in touch with Javascript developers at all levels. Networking is more than TCP\/IP, even for techies!<\/p>\n


\nConclusion<\/strong>
\nHuman interaction is a great experience, no technology can replace a handshake or face to face interaction. The benefits you get\u00a0after\u00a0such an experience is precious, from self-improvement to getting a better understanding of an entire ecosystem.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reasons you should attend a developer conference far from home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":10583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"meta_title":"","meta_description":"","hc_selected_options":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[211],"tags":[1031],"coauthors":[699],"class_list":["post-9428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-javascript"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29074,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions\/29074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9428"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}