FairPhone is having a busy February! Our team is spread out across countries and continents, and we want to keep you in the loop. Here’s a rundown of our events:

This Wednesday in Vienna, our Community Manager, Joe (me!) will be delivering a presentation on FairPhone along with a few really awesome panelists for the event “Exploring TwentyTwenty” with the theme “Gadgets: Devices without a Conscience?” I will deliver an overview of our vision, examples of our supply chain interventions, and what to expect from us in the coming months before the launch of the phone. The other panelists consist of experts on green guides with consumer electronics, the field of law and warranty, and a hardware hacker.

The event will be held at The Hub Vienna and you can register beforehand here. You can also mark Attending on the Facebook event.

This same week Bas, is traveling to the DRCongo for observation and research into initiatives for fair mining and conflict-free resources. We have previously discussed some of these in our blog, such as the first bags of tin leaving Congo, as well as some documentation of mined cassiterite for tin being exported from Congo. You can read all our posts about Precious Materials under this action area.

He is also visiting other mines to talk about potential supply chains for the future. Security there is tight, so it is difficult for us to get live updates, but he is taking lots of notes to document his trip and share the experience with you all once he returns.

Finally, Tessa and Miquel are happy to announce their visit to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, February 25-28. They will connect with relevant partners especially on the side of the operating system (OS), stay updated about the current trends, and gain some visibility for FairPhone. We want to leverage good practices, so we welcome individuals, developers, and organizations to collaborate with us (send us a line at info@fairphone.com).

By the time we get back from all these visits, we hope to have made a number of steps in the direction of securing conflict-free materials, raising awareness in Vienna, steps toward incorporating more than one open source OS for this year’s FairPhone, and choosing a manufacturing partner.

Each event will come with a blog post with a report, and some other multimedia surprises. Oh yeah, and next month: China!!

Featured image provided by The Hub Vienna; DRC photo by Bas van Abel