Sat 9 – Sat 16 January 2027, in Kiilopää, Inari, Finland. Above the Arctic Circle. In January. On purpose.
Codefreeze is an unconference, part of the #SoCraTes family, and it has been happening every January since 2015. My first one was 2017, when we were about 20 people. Since 2024 there are around 80.
The structure is almost nothing: a board where you post the session you want to run — or the one you wish someone else would run — a marketplace every morning, and a round of reflections at the end of the day. That's it. Everything else comes from the people who showed up.
And what those people do with it is hard to explain and easy to recognise:
⛷️ Cross-country skiing before lunch, refactoring someone's Python after it.
🧑💻 Ensemble programming that runs past midnight because nobody wants to be the one who stops it.
🧖 An architecture debate in the smoke sauna, whiteboarded on a fogged-up mirror.
💬 Sessions on testing strategy sitting in the timetable next to sessions on ADHD, imposter syndrome and social isolation.
❄️ Auroras, on snowshoes, at −20 °C.
Kiilopää is spectacular — a smoke sauna that fits 25 programmers, a river at −1 °C for the dip — but a beautiful place doesn't make strangers trust each other by Tuesday. A Code of Conduct everyone actually reads does. So do the returning folks who spend their first day making sure the newcomers aren't standing alone.
It's about people. It always was.
Register now at https://registration.codefreeze.fi.
Bring merino wool. Bring a swimsuit. Bring your unfinished ideas.
More infos on https://codefreeze.fi/.