RTC.ON behind the scenes

The dust has settled after the RTC.ON conference, making it the perfect time to share some thoughts on the event. There are already great recaps by Dan Jenkins and Arin Sime available [here] and [here] that delve deep into the talk details, so I highly recommend giving them a read. Nevertheless, as a member of the organizing crew and an event host, I have both backstage and front-stage insights to share! I’ll do my best to refrain from technicalities, as that’s been covered elsewhere. Instead, my goal for this article is to make it fun to read! Let’s dive in!

This was the second edition of the RTC.ON conference, hosted at the fantastic Software Mansion office in Kraków. This venue choice turned out to be spot-on. Why? One of the main drivers for this conference is the ambition to build a community. Community means people and interactions between them. As it happens, this office space turned out to be a great facilitator for human interactions! It was a heartwarming experience to participate in all of the conversations.

Being a bit of a nerd, allow me to throw in some fun numbers to give you a sense of what you missed if you didn’t attend (maybe next year?). The conference attracted almost a hundred participants from across the globe! The furthest distance traveled to attend the event was slightly over 9000 km — and yes, I did ask that person if it was worth it, and they confirmed it was! The scope of topics evolved a bit between editions. This year, the main focus was obviously on multimedia, with special attention to WebRTC and MOQ, but also AI and the intersection between multimedia and React Native.

If you were to ask me about my top three most enjoyable talks, that would put me in a difficult spot, as I tried my best to make all speakers feel welcomed and as relaxed as possible. But since you asked, it would be rude not to answer!

So here it comes, my personal, ultra-subjective top 3 talks, presented in random order:

• Damien Stolarz: “WebRTC and Spatial Computing on Apple Vision Pro” Let me start with a little story. I met Damien a couple of months ago at another multimedia-related conference that I highly recommend — JanusCon in Naples. I remember that day as if it were yesterday, as Damien was the only person in the audience using an Apple Vision Pro device. Even now, it looks quite futuristic and eccentric. In fact, Damien’s talk was quite futuristic itself! It gave a glimpse of how Hollywood-grade movie editing already looks now, and how WebRTC combined with Apple Vision Pro is making movie-making a remote job, so to speak!
• Piotr Skalski: “Everything You Wanted to Know About VLMs but Were Afraid to Ask” Some might accuse me of nepotism, as Piotr and I live in the same city. This is true — we both live in Kraków. Nonetheless, local patriotism wasn’t the only reason I got excited about this talk when I first saw the abstract in early summer. Piotr knows his craft, but more importantly, he knows how to talk about it in an engaging way! I can’t wait until we reach the point where Vision Language Models become applicable in real-time scenarios.
• Ali C. Begen: “DASH and Media-over-QUIC Transport Face-Off: Performance Showdown at Low Latency” I wish it was me who came up with the idea to have Ali at the very end of the conference! Why? Because it was literally the best closing talk I could imagine. Deep insights from an expert in the field, delivered with grit and wit, spiced with (spoiler alert!) an epic DASH vs. WebRTC meme comparison. YOU SHOULD WATCH IT.

Dear reader, if you’ve made it this far, I’m thrilled and would like to thank you for your time. I hope we’ll see each other at the next edition of the RTC.ON conference!