Join us to learn, practice and discuss Software Engineering together with like-minded passionate software crafters.
The SoCraTes unconference is an event by and for passionate software crafters. It is an unconference where software crafters get together in order to learn, teach and discuss the topics that interest them. While having a very good time!
The goals of the unconference are to learn and share new ideas, techniques, programming languages and frameworks through coding dojos, pair programming, mob programming, group discussions, workshops, presentations and so on. You’ll also get to learn what other people are working on. All of this combined with as many interesting, informal conversations as possible.
This is not a 9 to 5 conference. The learning, connecting and socializing only stops when you want it to stop. During breakfast, lunch and dinner you can freely mingle with all the participants and continue those interesting conversations. Well into the night.
So if you are passionate about software development this is definitely the unconference for you. Talk and socialize freely with many different passionate people who are willing to learn and share their knowledge and experience.
The SoCraTesBE is an unconference. This means it is a participant-driven meeting that tries to avoid hierarchical aspects of a conventional conference. Unlike a regular conference, there is no fixed agenda, no paid speakers, no fixed topics, no specific technology or methodology focus.
It is a self-organizing event, using open space, where the SoCraTesBE participants create the schedule on the fly, every day before the Open Space starts. This guarantees that the participants work around topics that truly interest them. So everyone gets back the value that they put into it.
The self created “schedule” is known as the marketplace. The marketplace is basically a map of timeslots and locations for sessions like in the picture. At the start of the day, when the marketplace is created, every participant that wants to can add a session. They typically give a short intro of the topic they want to discuss, present, work on or experiment with that day. After which it will be added to the marketplace. Once the marketplace is created the day sessions start. Where everyone is free to participate whatever sessions they want.
The marketplace
The SoCraTes unconference is a non-profit unconference. Everyone is attending and contributing on a voluntary basis. There are no paid speakers, no marketing driven paid sessions and no recruiters. But there will be a lot of highly experienced, passionate people present.
Apart from a great atmosphere and connecting with other participants, you will definitely be able to learn a lot. Because it is a self organizing conference, you are able maximize the value you get by adding your own sessions to the marketplace and by being free to walk in and out of any sessions you want at any time. It is your conference. You will get out of it, what you put in.
For example:
You want to learn a new technology or methodology?
You simply add a session to the marketplace where someone can teach it
to you.
You have a work related real-life problem
You can set up a session where you can discuss it with experienced people who've been there. This can be technology,
organization or people related.
The urge strikes you to just quietly write some code?
You are of course free to not attend any sessions.
If you have never been to a SoCraTesBE event, a great way to learn what it is all about is to join us at one of our regular meetups where we have an open space for one evening.
We learn and share new ideas, techniques, languages and frameworks through coding dojos, pair programming, mob programming, groups discussions, presentations, informal conversations. Below are a couple of sessions from previous SoCraTes unconferences
We always run the conference from thursday evening to sunday morning. This seems like a fair division to us between employer and employee. The friday is the only working day when the participant will not be working for the company. The participant commits part of their weekend, demonstrating their eagerness to participate and learn.
This year's SoCraTes unconference runs from Thursday 09 October to Sunday 12 October 2025 at Floreal, La Roche-En-Ardenne.
We’ll kick off Thursday evening with dinner at 7 PM. After dinner, around 8.30 PM, we will officially open the fifth edition of SoCraTes BE with a warm up session to get all the brains fired up. When the warm up session is finished, the floor is yours to continue the conversation, twist it around and branch it in every direction.
On Friday and Saturday, we’ll run the open space, in which every attendee is welcome and encouraged to propose talks, discussions, workshops or whatever else they choose to further every attendee’s knowledge and understanding of creating and maintaining software.
On Friday and Saturday evenings, attendees are encouraged to run social activities, from pair-programming to board games and everything in between.
The conference is officially over on Sunday the 12th October after breakfast.
The price for attending the unconference 2024 is
This is an all-in price, including your hotel stay, meals, drinks during socials, and usage of all the facilities throughout the conference.
Cancellation can be performed by us if we are informed within 14 days of your registration. The cancellation policy can be reviewed in more detail during registration.
The venue will be provided with all legally required information to accomodate your stay. Since catering is handled by the venue, we will provide them with dietary information gathered through the registration form.
In the event that you can no longer attend the conference after the cancellation deadline has passed, we offer assistance in finding a willing party to take over your ticket (reach out to the community). Please contact us as soon as possible to discuss this option. If no party is found, we will not be able to refund.
In case of circumstances beyond our control, such as the hotel going bankrupt or a COVID-like event affecting the conference, our cancellation policy may be subject to change. Under such circumstances, refunds will be determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on the severity and impact of the situation. While we will do our best to accommodate attendees' needs, we cannot guarantee a full refund in these exceptional cases. Please note that all refund requests and inquiries related to ticket transfers should be directed to SoCraTesBe. Our team will respond promptly and assist you with the necessary steps.
Reserve your tickets today via this Google Form!
overview of conference
Upon arrival at Hotel Floreal @ LA Roche, you need to check in at the hotel to get your room. There is, of course, no fixed timeslot for this. There will probably be some people who have arrived early; you might find them in the hotel bar located downstairs from the lobby! Or it will be posted on Slack where everyone is gathering.
When you are checked in to your room, it is time to strengthen the body. There is a dinner in the evening before we get together in the conference room to kick off Socrates.
Official opening of this edition of SoCraTes BE with a warm up session to get all the brains fired up!
During this timeslot we invite all participants who feel like sharing a short session on any topic to take the stage.
We start the day with a good breakfast
Time for everyone to write down their sessions and pick a slot on the market place.
The sessions are one hour long.
Time to refuel.
The sessions are one hour long.
Time to wrap up the first day of SoCraTes BE!
We end the day with dinner.
Time to code, play, sing, play music, dance or whatever else you want to do during the evening.
We start the day with a good breakfast
Time for everyone to write down their sessions and pick a slot on the market place.
The sessions are one hour long.
Time to refuel.
The sessions are one hour long.
Time to wrap up the second day of SoCraTes BE!
We end the day with dinner.
Time to code, play, sing, play music, dance or whatever else you want to do during the evening.
We start the day with a good breakfast
Time to checkout!
You can find a small report of the 2022 edition here.
A great way to learn what it is all about is to join us at one of our regular meetups
The SocratesBE is a non-profit. There is no commercial aspect to organising this conference, we do it because we are passionate about it. Therefore we try to keep the price of the conference low. Since there are no paid speakers, the cost of the conference is your stay, the food and the venue. Sponsoring the conference helps directly keeping the price of the conference low, directly reducing the cost of the venue on each individual ticket.
A conference for everyone
SoCraTes BE follows the Conference Code of Conduct laid out by several conference organisers around the globe. We ask that you read the full version before attending. You are required to cooperate with the code throughout the event to help ensure a safe environment for everybody.
Our conference is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks, workshops, parties, X (Twitter) and other online media. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organisers.
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