This blog was originally published on April 27, 2020!
On April 16, 2020, the Oracle APEX community held the first-ever APEX@Home virtual conference. It was 24 hours from 24 speakers on a huge variety of subjects. It was amazing. And it was something that only the Oracle APEX community could have done.
On March 13, 2020, I was contacted by Martin D’Souza, Adrian Png and Trent Schafer with an idea of theirs. As Martin said in email, “Given all the conference cancellations and otherwise dismal news Adrian, Trent, and I have been talking about doing a one day APEX conference to get the community back together. We’re aiming to keep things simple for everyone involved.” I discussed it with the Oracle APEX product development team, and everyone on our team was all in. I offered our full support, for whatever they wanted to do. The original plan was for 8 speakers over 8 hours. We had a Zoom video call with Martin, Adrian and Trent on March 16, we moved the day of the week of the conference to not a Friday (for the communities in the Middle East), and also suggested it be a 24 hour conference to accommodate the global APEX community. 8 hours is nice, 24 hours is memorable. Go big or go home.
Martin, Adrian and Trent reached out to the luminaries in the Oracle APEX community and asked if they would be willing to participate and deliver a presentation for the first-ever APEX@Home virtual conference, and everyone stepped forward. Everyone. It was humbling to see how selfless everyone was with their time. They worked with Bo English-Wiczling on the APEX Product Development Team to plan and organize the event. Using the excellent Oracle Office Hours platform that Steven Feuerstein and his team have created, we were able to easily publish a schedule, handle registrations, and orchestrate delivery of the sessions over Zoom. And the rest is history!
There were more than 4,700 unique attendees from around the globe. Some sessions had close to 600 live attendees. The response to this event had to exceed everyone’s expectations, including my own. I was impressed by the diligence of the organizers and presenters, and amazed by the number of attendees. The Oracle APEX team contributed by hosting the sessions and introducing the speakers, and thanks go to Bo, Chaitanya, Carsten, David, Doug, Marc, Menno, Monica, Salim and Vlad for managing this.
Below, I wish to recognize the organizers and presenters of this conference. Without them, there would be no conference. It takes a lot of time and energy to organize and prepare something of quality, and I am humbled by how gracious and giving everyone was with their time – all for the sake of the global Oracle APEX community. If you wish to watch the replays of APEX@Home, watch this playlist on YouTube.
As I said in my keynote, the APEX community is certainly unique within Oracle and I would say unique within the industry. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m simply grateful to be a part of it. You should be too.
