Call for Papers for 1st Balkan Computer Congress - BalCCon 06|07
September 2013, Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia, Europe, Earth, Milky Way

The Event: Balkan Computer Congress has been conceptualized as a two day gathering of the international hacker community in the organization of LUGoNS – Linux users of Novi Sad. We admire and tend to find a role model in the large scale conferences such as Chaos Communication Congress, organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). Smaller hacker community gatherings had been organized in the Balkans in the past, yet, this is the first International Congress of this scale.

The Organizers: Organization team has scores of years of experience visiting, participating in and volunteering at hacker events of all sizes.  This is our first attempt to organize such an event independently, with the help of friends from all around the world!

The Location: Novi Sad is the centre of Vojvodina, northern province of Serbia, famous for its multicultural history and active artistic and technological scene (e.g. music festival Exit and digital-media event Share). With a prestige night life combined with the warm and welcoming character, Novi Sad offers inexpensive prices for lodging and dining, compared to the neighboring EU.

Our Goal: Our goal is to gather all the communities from the region, continent and the World in an effort to hack, play, learn, pass knowledge and exchange experience. BalCCon aims to become the central hacker community in South East Balkan, as well as to provide the opportunity for all the people in this part of Europe to connect and to cooperate.  

Having said that, we would like to invite you to make and send us proposals for talks, lectures and workshops on all topics of relevance.  We would also like to see installations and projects you have done recently. The following areas are of particular interest:

- Free Software
- Interesting Hardware
- Security Nightmares
- Deep Web
- Cryptography, Cryptanalysis and Crypto-politics
- Social Networks – unexpected use, abuse and analysis
- Social Engineering
- Robotics – humanoid, football playing, autonomous vehicles, (armed) drones, ethics, utopia and dystopia
- Hacker Space Program, Space Travel and Satellites – technology, goals and ethics
- Reverse Engineering, Forensics and Anti-Forensics – technology, law and politics
- Mobile Device Hacking and Telecommunications Security, Security of Apps
- Clouds – hacking, breaking, unexpected usage
- Future or No Future of IT Security – state of fail, new concepts and methods, implications for society and infrastructure
- Lockpicking
- DPI (deep packet inspection) – current state of introduction, breaking, circumvention and political situation
- Net and Device Neutrality – ownership, censorship, circumvention and the politics of de-facto standards, search engine politics
- Programming Languages — state of the art and research
- Politics and Technology of Surveillance and Oppression – state trojans, interception, social media monitoring, laws and counter-movements
- Revolutions and Hacktivism
- Transparency and Participation in Politics and Governance
- Copyright and Patents – the war on file-sharing, alternatives to the current system

Submission Guidelines

For Talks, Lectures and Workshops: Please submit a meaningful and complete description which will give us an insight on the key points of your presentation. We prefer quality over quantity, which will be evaluated based on the proposal you send us. Also, have in mind that other people might submit a talk on the same topic, so give us a reason to consider your presentation unique. Feel free to include some facts about yourself and the things that motivate you. It is not necessary for your talk to be the first of its kind, it may have been presented at other conferences, however please make sure that its content is up to date. Lectures should not exceed 45 minutes, plus up to 15 minutes for questions and answers. Longer time slots are possible if we feel the topic demands it (please tell us if necessary). Please indicate the length of your presentation clearly on your submission.

Language of the Presentation: BalCCon is an international congress, therefore your submissions should be in English. It is expected that we will have participants from all over the World, so it is important to have a common language.  

Travel Expenses: The Balkan Computer Congress is a non-profit oriented event and speakers are not paid. However, financial help on accommodation may be possible, within our means, for all accepted submissions. Don’t be shy and state your requirements in the application when submitting your proposal.

How to Submit? Please follow the instructions below. If you have any questions regarding your submission, feel free to contact us at cfp(at)balccon.org.

By Email:

Email your submission to: cfp at balccon.org.
Email subject should be: CFP BalCCon 2013 - Paper Title
Email Body:
Personal Information:
Speaker Name:
Job Role/Handle:
Company/Organization:
Country:
Email ID:
Contact Number:
Speaker Profile: (max 1000 words)
Presentation Details:
Name/Title of the Presentation:
Paper Abstract: (max 3000 words)
Presentation Time Required (20, 30, 50 Minutes)
Is there any demonstration? Yes or No
Other Needs & Requirements: Do you need any special equipment? If you have any other requirements, please mention it here and the reason.

All submissions will be reviewed by our Program Committee. Authors will be notified upon acceptance of their talk.

Dates and Deadlines:

July 1st, 2013 (23:59 UTC): Submission deadline
July 15th, 2013: Final notification of acceptance
September 6th – 7th, 2013: BalCCon Computer Congress

All submissions will be judged equally, disregarding race and gender.  Organizers reserve the right to make changes to the event program or disregard any proposal if found inappropriate for this congress.