Regards to the no-english; Personally for me it’s a massive dilemma. On one hand it is my strongest language, and speaking it with my friends and new acquiaintances allows me to quickly interpret my own thoughts into meaningful words, and it allows me to have great conversations with my friends, many of whom I don’t get to see for the other 359 days of the year!

On the other hand I am excited about foreign languages, and I don’t mind speaking them at all if at all possible. As an example when we spoke Russian and Hungarian in the pub, or when I spent most of the week in Slovakia hanging out with a group who had mostly German as the strongest common language. It’s good fun and very challenging, but I would never agree to something like a no-english. That’s not why I go to these things!

Regarding the criticism of format and representation of female participants/speakers, well I just don’t see that in reality and can only assume that the people who had this opinion may have carried some prejudice from home. Unless you can point me to some limiting factors inherent in the structure of the gathering, that somehow discriminates female speakers or participants then I’m afraid it’s just nonsense. Granted, it would be fantastic if we could get the numbers up to 50/50 – but if we can’t then I don’t see a problem with it. No reason to strong-arm or enforce quotas just for the sake of added perceived representation.

What did you think of Bratislava overall? I found it quite nice, a bit similar to Prague. I’d probably prefer Budapest though – no bias 😀

PS: Thanks for the picture of me – I didn’t knew I had gotten this round. Need to shape up!