Introduction
Get ready to dive into ideas, innovation and creativity! ? OpenFest 2025 invites you to Bulgaria’s landmark event devoted to open source, knowledge sharing and communities. Since 2003, OpenFest has been a community-powered celebration — and the best part: admission is free.
Key details
Date: 18–19 October 2025
Venue: John Atanasoff Forum, Sofia Tech Park (Sofia, Bulgaria)
Organizer: Open Projects Foundation & the OpenFest community
Admission: free (no ticket fee)
Event page on EventHive: OpenFest 2025 @ EventHive.tech
Official website: openfest.org
Agenda highlights
Saturday, Oct 18
10:00–10:15 Opening.
10:15–10:55 Student Aerospace Engineering Club — Filip Andonov.
11:00–11:40 Motiki — Nikolay Tenev • Parallel: Anomaly Detection and Prediction in Zabbix — Aldin Osmanagić; intro & noisy workshops (mechanical calculators — Nikolay Mihaylov; soldering — Olimex; retro computers — Zahari Zahariev; Toool lockpicking; BASH scripting fundamentals — Ivan Basamakov).
12:00–12:40 NIS2, CRA, DORA — Petar Kirkov • Defining Libre Hardware — Martin Sotirov.
14:00–14:40 AI Use & Development Act — Bozhidar Bozhanov • People & Culture Craftsmanship — Nedko Hristov • No-code AI agents with n8n — Iliyan Petkov • Observability session — Imma Valls.
15:00–15:40 8-bit computer on breadboards — Denis Chakarov • AI Act & open-source exemptions — Siyanna Lilova, Georgi Hristov.
16:00–16:40 Open-source RAG for smarter LLMs — Nikolay Stoitsev • Fediverse for announcing & discovering events — André Menrath • Collective fight against crime — Martin Ruskov • Free software, free choice — Iliyan Petkov.
17:00–17:40 What SQLite can do for you — Mikaël Francoeur • Lightning talks.
17:40–18:40 Music Tech electro-acoustic Jam Session — Alex Milanov.
Sunday, Oct 19
10:00–10:40 TLS Demystified — Iliyan Iliev • HM4 key-value database — Nikolay Mihaylov.
11:00–11:40 Landing your first tech job — Ivan Basamakov, Nedelcho Nikolov • FDE, TPM2 and you — Radoslav Kolev • Fediverse essentials — André Menrath • Rack build & install for beginners — Rali Kehanov, Georgi Apostolov • Retro computers — Zahari Zahariev • Toool • Fritzing: first steps — Zdravko Zdravkov.
12:00–12:40 Building unix-like OS the Nix way — Hristo Georgiev • Industry 4.0 with Open Source & Open Hardware — Ivan Tiagov.
14:00–14:40 20+ Open-source projects that changed my life — Iliyan Petkov • Browser Grooves — Alex Milanov • Speak Geek — Afrodita Dobreva • Unlocking cars with Flipper Zero — Ventsislav Atanasov • KiCad PCBs workshop — Martin Sotirov.
15:00–15:40 My OpenTelemetry Contribution — Imma Valls • Accessibility tech with open source — Angel Petrov.
16:00–16:40 Zero Trust Network Access by Design — Valentin Hristev • Lightning talks.
17:00–17:40 No SPoFs! No Admin! Open-source cryptography… — Syed Hosseini.
18:00–18:15 Closing.
Rooms: A, B, Workshop C1/C2, noisy/quiet workshops (D/E). See the full timeline and rooms on the official site.
Who should attend
Developers (backend, frontend, full-stack), QA, DevOps/SRE, infra engineers
Architects & tech leaders, decision-makers and managers
Open-source contributors, maintainers and community builders
Students & newcomers seeking intro tracks and mentoring
Why attend
Focused content: AI Act, NIS2/CRA/DORA, observability, security, cloud & tooling
Hands-on learning: workshops (soldering, KiCad, Fritzing, lockpicking, retro hardware)
Networking: meet speakers, communities and future partners
Inspiration: real-world stories and OSS contributions
Accessibility: free entry and easy logistics
Add OpenFest 2025 to your EventHive calendar and keep an eye on updates.
See the full schedule and room details on the official website: Full Schedule and Program.