EventFahrplan
Conference schedule app with strong offline capabilities
EventFahrplan is a privacy-friendly app for attending conferences and events running on Android devices. The development of the project happens continuously by staying up-to-date with new technologies and Android versions, adding useful features and fixing bugs. Current challenges are the migration to Compose UI, architectural refactoring, Kotlin coroutines, accessibility improvements, translation management, behavior changes with Android 13, interface changes to address large devices - and many other topics. This project helps to sustain the development of the app and to work on a selection of these topics.
- The project's own website: https://eventfahrplan.eu
Why does this actually matter to end users?
EventFahrplan is your convenient digital companion for attending conferences and events. It runs on Android smartphones and tablets. The objective of this open source app is to act as a reliable assistant without being overpowering. It is available since 2011, in 11 languages and is being used at more then 30 events per year.
The EventFahrplan app downloads the program of the event and automatically keeps it up-to-date for you. When your Internet connection is poor or the conference server cannot be reached you can be happy to have the app on your device. You can still enjoy the program thanks to the offline-first approach of the app. The interface of the app is designed to provide maximum overview. The timetable is shown as a grid of sessions which allows to intuitively grasp which talks or workshops happen in parallel and where they happen. If you want to dive into the detail description - the app also got you covered. Whatever you are interested in you can easily pick your favorites or even set up an alarm for individual sessions. When the program changes before or during the conference then the app automatically notifies you and shows you what changed. This frees you to not waste your precious time running after program changes but instead enjoy the event by attending sessions, participating at workshops or meeting old and new friends.
The app is privacy-friendly for the average user without technical background. No personal data nor tracking is exploited/shared to third parties without your consent. Even a simple session selection can be critical in non-democratic societies where opposition or free speech is under pressure. You can however export your session selection if you choose to. The permissions needed to run the app are reduced to a minimum. EventFahrplan is based on an open and standardized XML data format which is currently supported by the widely used backends Frab, Pretalx and Wafer. The app can be both visually customized to match the theme of an event and adapted to connect to different backends.
This project was funded through the NGI0 Entrust Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 101069594.
