So i have a strange request. I'm a computational scientist but I've always wanted to attend fosdem as some of the tools we use are open source. For those a little outside of computer science proper or tech in general, what do you use to justify to funding agencies or the like (advisor) to attend fosdem if you do?
I'd argue that it's very useful for making contacts.
The talks are online, but FOSDEM is full of interesting people. Some of those people aren't very available online. Some you don't even know they exist. Some organize an after-FOSDEM dinner like the Perl people do. You can ask around questions like "Is anyone from X here?" and probably get a positive answer even if they don't have anything in the schedule.
FOSDEM also has BOF (Birds of a Feather, basically a bunch of people in a room having a chat about something) that can be set up on an improvised manner. And of course you can just agree to eat or drink something with them.
So it can be extremely useful to attend in person especially if you come with a plan.
I've gone to dinner with people, had a KDE member help debug stuff on my laptop, and done experimentation on Open Source VR with another project's members, for instance.
That can be extremely useful, and for the price of travel and hotel (FOSDEM itself is free), that's an extremely good deal.
