Ideas for Awards presented at ElixirConf 2024

[dbern]

I’m thinking about awards to give away to the Elixir community at ElixirConf. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far but I’d love some input. All this is “ideation”

Awards are physical and attendees would need to be present at ElixirConf so they can receive it!

I think I’ll have a voting webapp for folks to nominate and vote to support the process.

Also, no promises on this!

Couple of rules:

1. No José or Chris McCord winners
2. one vote per person (no cheating!)

Again, I’m looking for ideas on categories and/or the process of voting. Shipping these awards would be kinda expensive, especially worldwide, so I’ll lean towards ideas where ElixirConf folks can receive them, but I acknowledge that folks that can’t come physically definitely deserve some of these awards so I’m open to ideas.

1. Project of the Year - Most innovative, impactful, or well-executed project during the year

2. Developer of the Year - Who has significantly advanced the community through their contributions, mentorship, or community involvement.

3. Best Hex Package - Most valuable, well-maintained, or widely used Elixir package

4. Innovator Award - Pioneer of new approaches or techniques.

5. Community Builder/Mentor Award - The individual that has fostered a strong and supported Elixir community

6. Rising Star Award - A promising newcomer to the Elixir community who has demonstrated exceptional potential

7. Best ElixirConf 2024 talk - This would have to be voted upon on the last day of the conference, so logistically a little difficult to pull off fairly but we could do it I think!

Tweet thread: x.com

[shishini]

Book/Author of the Year

[zachdaniel]

I’m thinking something along the lines of rewarding non-code contributions. Like maybe

• most helpful community member (i.e not a maintainer of a project but a helpful member)
• best documentation writer
• best elixir advocate

[dbern]

I might need to reconsider the awards to those that aren’t physically in attendance. I really don’t want to be unfair to those that deserve it.

[dbern]

Following up on this, ElixirConf 2024 has come and go, and there was no award ceremony because I felt like it was too restrictive to only present locally.

However, that said, the esteemed @wojtekmach did win an award for being awesome; too many presentations called him out and his library Req, so the opportunity just presented itself so obviously during the conference that I couldn’t not give him one! Well-deserved! Congrats and thanks for all your awesome contributions.

As for the rest of the awards, I’ll continue thinking on how to do this well so it’s worldwide.

[wojtekmach]

Yeah about that… I’ve been doing OSS Elixir for last 8 years, 6 of which playing easy mode, as my day job, and it’s not lost on me that it is not the case for vast majority of people. That being said, this is definitely the highlight of my career. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the recognition and I’ll try to live up to it!

(Thanks @type1fool for the first photo!)

[gregvaughn]

The moment I knew beyond any doubt that Wojtek was awesome was when I encountered his 2016 lightning talk named Advanced OOP in Elixir