Hi Srinivasa,Thanks for the information.The request is from Ubuntu Kylin team leader, there are three people from Ubuntu Kylin are planning to attend GUADEC. Ubuntu Kylin is one of the most popular Linux distribution in China, they are thinking about engage more with GNOME/GTK core developers. They are interested in sponsorship, but they would like to participate in GUADEC this year first.They are not GNOME foundation members, neither speakers yet. I asked him to try tourist visa but they can only go aboard for business. Ubuntu Kylin is a project between Canonical and China National University of Defense Technology(NUDT), NUDT is a key university under the Ministry of National Defense. So they only can apply for business visa.Srinivasa, what would you suggest to do? If you need more information, feel free to contact me and I am happy to provide more information.Thanks,Emily2015-05-15 18:36 GMT+08:00 Srinivasa Ragavan <sragavan gnome org>:Hi Emily,
On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 2:12 PM, Oliver Propst <oliver propst gmail com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 8:47 AM, Emily Chen <emilychen522 gmail com> wrote:
>> People from China is asking for invitation letter to attend GUADEC, it
>> usually take weeks to get visa to European.
>>
>> Who is helping on the GUADEC visa letter ?
>
> If I understand things correctly Srinivasa Ragavan [1] [2] have agreed
> to coordinate Visa Letters. We in the local team should probably do
> more efforts in reaching out him about this.
Yes, I volunteered to prepare/send visa invitation to the attendees.
>
> Can also mention that the CEO of FFKP, the organization in Sweden that
> will act as a legal organizer of the conference (if the foundation
> board agrees to the terms and sign a contract) have agreed to the sign
> the Visa Letters.
I haven't yet got in touch with the Sweden organisation, for the
signature approval or format approvals. Ill start that asap.
>
> Thanks Emily for paying attention to the situation around the Visa
> Letters, we will hopefully have more updates to share soon.
>
> Note that on the last local team meetings Visa Letters have been a
> standing agenda item so news about Visa Letters is made public when we
> publish the meeting notes, which we do on the GUADEC 2015 wiki [3].
Basically the process last time was:
If you are approved by travel-committee for sponsorship or if you are
a foundation member or an accepted speaker, you will be issued a
invitation letter. For all other exceptions the board needs to vote
(+4) on it.
I prepare 2 documents:
1. Visa invitation letter with the digital signature of the CEO of the
Sweden organization
2. For people who are sponsored by GNOME foundation, sponsorship
document with the digital signature of the Foundation President.
This was the process followed last time and AFAICS sure this holds
good this time too.
Thanks,
-Srini.
>
> 1 https://wiki.gnome.org/SrinivasaRagavan
> 2 https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/2015/Team
> 3 https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/2015
> --
> -mvh Oliver Propst
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