Hi all, it's been half a year since the Governing Board's last report which means this week it was time for us to gather for the second Board meeting of the year!
We're busy getting a proper report ready to share with all of you, so this is just a teaser, but I hope we will be able to include it properly in the next TWIM!
As a tiny teaser, we thank Max who joined the Board as a representative for the Individual Members of the Foundation only during the last election cycle, but unfortunately had to leave the Board again long before the end of his term due to life happening. 🙏 Instead we're excited to announce that we're joined by Reid Anderson, the runner-up Individual Member candidate from the elections earlier this year! 🎉
Next on our radar: FOSDEM 2027! Planning is well underway, and we're happy to share the Call for Participation in the Decentralised Messaging Devroom. If your talk did not make it onto the schedule for The Matrix Conference, why not consider submitting it for FOSDEM? We'll have more information to share about our broader plans for FOSDEM over the next few weeks.
More than 340 attendees, exciting next-generation features ready to ship, Matrix powering more and more government communications, practical updates from the community, and the occasional shark: dispatches from Malmö 2026!
"Matrix has gone from being an interesting experiment to an existential requirement," said Matthew at the opening to the 2026 edition of The Matrix Conference, a sentiment that could be felt throughout this year's edition.
Civil servants from 15 different nations and intergovernmental organizations shared their decisions and experiences migrating to Matrix in response to an urgent need for digital sovereignty; we also heard from regulated industries like healthcare who cannot compromise on privacy or security and are increasingly looking to Matrix as a solution. Matrix is growing in response to this need: representatives from Matrix's rapidly expanding ecosystem came to present the varied projects built on Matrix specification, and members of both the Spec Core Team and the ecosystem came to demonstrate the expanding features that will make up Matrix 2.0.
A demo of Matrix real-time communication (MatrixRTC), was one of the highlights, as Matthew created a group call with himself using three different applications: Visio, Tammy and Element Call.
This year we introduced the community attendance sponsorship package, which allowed us to fund travel for the maintainers of one of the community-created Matrix homeservers called Continuwuity; their talks and workshop were among the most popular of the event. Thanks to Famedly for supporting this initiative via the community attendance sponsorship option.
Of course, we took advantage of being in the home of IKEA to adopt some Blåhajar:
A lot more happened, so read on for more highlights from The Matrix Conference 2026.
The Matrix.org Foundation, together with our friends from the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) and Delta Chat communities, is organising a Decentralised Messaging devroom at FOSDEM 2027, and we are looking for speakers!
Focused on federated and self-hostable chat, this devroom brings our ecosystems together to tackle shared challenges. Although our architectures look pretty different under the hood, we face many of the same hurdles. We want to get together to share operational and implementation experiences, discuss shared technical challenges, and look at practical ways our networks can cooperate.
We hosted over 340 people across two days of talks and workshops, with three rooms of content streamed and available for interaction via our live Matrix rooms during the event.
If you came to the conference, send us your best Blåhaj photos! You'll find us on Matrix and also on Mastodon.
As you can see in Matrix Live this week, we are into the final few days before the Conference!
The event is a team effort, and we're very appreciative of the help of our volunteers (40 of you!). We have a couple of slots (and hoodies!) left if you're willing to help out - just take a look at the volunteer schedule. Maybe there is a free shift during a talk you want to see? How about you help film or record it! If you are willing and able to help out, book a slot!
We are also grateful to our sponsors - their contribution plays a critical role in the Foundation’s ability to run the Conference and progress towards sustainability in general. Thank you!
We're looking forward to seeing many of you in Malmö and Copenhagen!
If you're not able to join us in person, we hope you'll be following along online.
It's finally October, the month of The Matrix Conference 2026! Within only 18 days from publishing this blog, the Matrix community and ecosystem meets in Malmö, Sweden for 3 days of conference, followed by another day of hacking and collaborating in Copenhagen, Denmark!
While the Conference is primarily an in-person event #LocalFirst, it will be accompanied with live streams from all 3 conference stages during the 2 main conference days, powered once more by the amazing c3voc! And of course we could not miss our chat rooms to virtually represent the physical stages on Matrix itself, a "General" chat for the hallway track, hackathon, and more. You can now find all of these grouped in this year's Conference space#conference-2026:matrix.org, and also on the Conference website soon. Naturally, the chats are just as practical if you will be attending in person, as we will be posting news and you can get in touch with other attendees, both remote and present! Note that rooms are read-only for now and will become available for chatting closer to the start of the Conference. Speakers and volunteers will also find that the respective private rooms are inside the same space.
Speaking of volunteers: Here's your chance to join the volunteer chat, get a limited Sweden-colored volunteer hoodie, and most importantly help make MatrixConf happen!
We have made some (hopefully final) adjustments so the shifts in our volunteering system match our schedule more precisely, and also added a couple more shifts! If you're interested in participating in one of our workshops, this should be particularly interesting to you!
Finally, our ticket reserves are starting to dwindle, so if you are planning to attend in person, get your ticket!
The Matrix Conference is happening in just a few weeks! (you may have heard about it? 😉)
Join us in Malmö for talks, workshops, and discussions about the future of Matrix. Go to the website for more details, and to get your tickets.
If you have already bought your ticket, these are now available for download or for adding to your digital wallet. Speakers should check their email to find their voucher for a ticket, and follow the instructions in the email to get invited to the speakers' room on Matrix.
The volunteer system has been updated, with some very last volunteer slots available.
We will have a new range of Matrix stickers available! If you have a Matrix-related project, make sure to bring your own stickers for the sticker exchange.
This week, we are happy to reveal that the pre-event social 🪩 will be held at Babel Malmö, close to the conference venue, on the evening before the main conference content begins.
