Clients and Testimonials 

Unconference Design & Facilitation Clients

RadicalxChange 2021 Annual Conference

RadicalxChange was looking to host a first event after the lifting of lockdowns. It was important that this event be outstanding, not just a regular conference.  We collaborated to create a series of events that used open space technology and brought forward the wisdom of the global community. (see the case study here)  

Kaliya has an exceptional understanding of what makes events great. Beyond being a terrific and wise facilitator, she has been a close strategic partner in helping us think through every aspect of why we’re bringing people together and how to get the most out of it. She has often persuaded me to try things that I never would have tried, and I’ve always been amazed at how good her insights are. – Matt Prewitt, President of RadicalxChange 

RadicalxChange 2024 Summit: What and How We Own? The Politics of Change

RadicalxChange and its partners invited 120+ people from around the world to consider a big question in a short amount of time. I worked with them to design the overall event and facilitate a core element of the event. (see case study here) 

Working with Kaliya has fundamentally changed how we think about events: once she introduced us to unconferences, we never looked back. Kaliya brings insight, skill, rigor and decades of experience into every aspect of event design, while also staying flexible and accommodating for our limitations in the process. Every time we’ve worked with her, the outcome has far exceeded what we thought was possible.  – Paula Berman, COO of RadicalxChange

Internet Identity Workshop – 40 so far! 

The Internet Identity Workshop was co-founded over twenty years ago by Unconference.net owner Kaliya Young. Today it is the leading innovation forum for digital identity globally. The first generation of protocols it cultivated (among them OpenID and OAuth) are used a billion times a day. The second generation of protocols (among them Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials) are just beginning to get widespread adoption by governments in projects like the EU Digital Identity Wallet, MOSIP, in countries like Bhutan and Taiwan and states like California. 

IIW 2006 WAS A SUPEREVENT Everyone in attendance was awe-struck by the IIW 2006 that just took place in Mountain View. It was incredible. With Doc Searls and Phil Windely navigating at the macro-level, the amazing Identity Woman Kaliya orchestrated an “unconference” that was one of the most effective events I’ve ever attended. It’s clear that creating synergy out of chaos is an art that these three have mastered, and participants floated in and out of sessions that self-organized around an ongoing three-day hallway conversation – the hallway actually being the main conference room and event! So we got to engage in all kinds of one-on-one (and few) conversations, meet new people, work out concerns and above all work on convergence. Many people told me they felt history was being made, and I did too.  – Kim Cameron Microsoft’s Chief Identity Architect.

MassTLC (Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council)

MassTLC had hosted a fall conference for entrepreneurs to pitch to investors – wanting to revitalize this event they chose to explore the unconference format. Our design expertise was leveraged to bring together a fantastic one day event that mixed together 4 generations of Massachusetts technology innovators. 

Check your meeting expectations at the door. Having attended two brilliant and very different unConferences, I suggest you be prepared to have your mind blown instead. Just do it. – Andrew Borg, CEO, Hi-Beam Entertainment (attendee East Online Community Conference NYC and MassTLC)

NYSAIS – New York State Association of Independent Schools Technology Managers Conference

This conference had been happening for 10 years previously. We worked with NYSAIS to incorporate Open Space Technology into their conference design that included several keynotes and a vendor exhibit.

How can you plan a conference in technology for 150+ School Technology Directors since technology changes so rapidly? Kaliya Hamlin helped transform our yearly conference into an unconference to great success, even the skeptics in our audience where convinced that an unconference was the way forward after they experienced it. -Don Buckley, Director of Communications Technology @ The School at Columbia University

Online Community unConference

This event is produced by Forum One Communications for online community managers, online community platform builders and companies that host online communities for their businesses. It has a reputation for high quality peer-to-peer exchange on the best practices and issues for online communities.

Kaliya is a master facilitator. She has helped us grow our Unconference business in the last 3 years. She is an asset during all stages of event planning and production, form initial concepts all the way to handling facilitation during the event. I consider her a strategic partner for our organization. – Bill Johnston Forum One

Mashup Camp

Kaliya was the founding facilitator of Mashup Camp. She gave this unconference for the uncomputer its unique format. This Included open space technology for peer-to-peer learning and Speed geeking. Mass Events Labs is now part of CMP who continues to produce the event. Startup Camp also produced by Mass Events Labs had a similar format to Mashup Camp.

Mashup Camp 3 at MIT in Boston wrapped-up yesterday. It was another well organized, well attended, very successful event... – Programmable Web

Ruby on Rails Camp

In 2006 after facilitating Mashup Camp I was approached by Max Dunn and Wido Menhardt to help them put on Ruby on Rails Camp.

We had no previous experience hosting an unconference and Unconference.net provided invaluable guidance that made our Ruby on Rails Camp a huge success! – Max Dunn, Co-Organizer, Ruby on Rails Camp

I want to thank you, Wido, Kaliya and Steve for putting on Rails Camp. I got a lot out of it – I think all of us did – and it was a truly pleasurable event as well as being productive. – Michael Mazour

Scala Lift Off

David Pollak the founder of the Lift framework of what was at the time an emerging functional programming language, Scala, hired us to help design and facilitate their first ever conference following JavaOne. Subsequently we facilitated their second event following JavaOneand in Octoboer 2009 in the DC Area.

The [Scala Lift Off] unconference was facilitated by Kaliya [Young]. She very deftly created the container, or context, in which the unconference could self-organize, ensuring that sessions emerged, that there was clarity as to the shape of the space, and that everyone involved was vested in participating fully, whether by volunteering to lead sessions or by making themselves heard in the sessions. – Lambda the Ultimate Blog

AOL Internal Unconference

 In 2007 we were approahced to work with AOL to support an unconference for AOL employees. 

On June 1st, AOL held its first “Un-conference”. Kaliya [Young] came and facilitated the day and as always did a great job. The event was sponsored by the AOL Architecture Council and the goal was to build community around technologies and strategies that are key to AOL’s success. Since this was the first un-structured conference here, there was some nervousness about how well it would work. However, there was no need for any nervousness, as there were over 100 participants and the day’s grid of sessions quickly filled to almost full. We had a lot of good discussions…. – Mike Cummins, AOL

Unconference Design Consultation Clients 

We also work with organizations just in a design capacity – that is supporting a team to develop a conference plan and empowering those on staff to facilitate particularly when this involves long travel. We have also worked with more local teams seeking expertise in working with technical communities.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Libraries Peer Learning Meeting

This event was held in in Latvia. Kaliya worked with the Peer Learning Meeting planning team for a day in February to introduce the format to the Global Library Staff and plan their 5 day conference which included 2.5 days of Open Space.

Journalism that Matters – News Tools 2008

Veteran facilitators Peggy Holman, author of the Change Handbook, and Stephen Silha tapped Kaliya to join their design team because her particular expertise in facilitating events for techies in Silicon Valley. Bringing techies and journalists together was at the heart of this event – to support cultural understanding between these two communities We brought Value Network Mapping into the design. In a two day pre-workshop, the old newsroom and emerging newsroom were mapped out. These were introduced the first day of the unconference.