Company „Skillsmatter“ stops operations

The company Skillsmatter in London has been put „under administration“ and basically stopped its operations. The web site seems to suggest, that everything is still ok, but that is not the case and I have heard so from several sources. The owner Wendy Devolder writes on Twitter and on Linkedin. Or here are some more news from cbronline or from theregister. The adminstrator is Resolve. They had put a deadline on 2019-11-05 for potential buyers and nothing indicates that such a buyer could be found.

There are some hopes expressed, that either 10’000 people will donate 250 GPB each or that someone buys the company and keeps it afloat. Reasonably it is probably not going to happen.

Now it is hard to obtain further reliable information. Have the employees already been layed off? Have all conferences been cancelled, for example Clojure Exchange (ClojureX) and Scala Exchange (ScalaX)?

The websites mention nothing about it, but simply the fact that there is nothing mentioned indicates that the employees, who could update the site, are gone and that the conferences will probably not take place. Otherwise I would expect an update on the site mentioning that it is taking place in spite of the situation. In case of Clojure Exchange I have been informed by other participants that Clojure Exchange has been canceled and that there will probably be a „community conference“ instead. Being a speaker, I volunteered to perform my talk on this community conference instead.

In case of Scala Exchange there was a strange story. A keynote speaker, John de Goes, was „uninvited“ because of „inclusiveness“. As a result, he decided to create a competing conference, Functional Scala, at exactly the same time as Scala Exchange and also in London. Some speakers have reportedly decided to speak at Functional Scala instead of Scala Exchange and speakers were encouraged to do so. In the end this might come out as a good thing, because Functional Scala will probably take place and might be an option for those who have already booked their visit to Scala Exchange.

So what does all of this mean? If we are heading for bankruptcy of Skillsmatter and if the conferences (Clojure X for sure, Scala X probably) are canceled, we as speakers or simply visitors are entitled to refund for our ticket or our non refundable travel expenses as speakers to the extent that Skillsmatter would have covered them. But reasonably there will not be enough money left for this. A company can go bankrupt and still have funds that is hard to access, but in practice banks will help out if these funds can be documented. So in reality bankruptcy usually means that there are many debts and little money already. Now the salaries of the employees get the highest priority. When they have been paid, other open payments can be covered, according to the rules that apply in the country. Possibly the price for the ticket, that has already been paid, is simply lost. Possibly travel expenses are lost if they cannot be redirected to another event.

If you like to Donate 250 GBP and 10’000 people do so too, the company could continue. I do not think that this is going to happen.

I will keep you informed if I learn more about the issue that is interesting to potential conference visitors and speakers of events organized by skillsmatter.

Update 2019-11-12: I got in contact with the administrators. They did not want to confirm or deny that the conferences scheduled in December would take place. They just do not know, but it seems to be depending on finding a buyer. If a magical buyer appears and decides to reactivate the events, they might take place. Meanwhile all web pages of skillsmatter show a text that the company is „under administration“, so I guess each day it is getting less likely that there will be anything a buyer can reactivate. I know for sure that at least some employees have already been asked to leave.

Now the good news: The replacements for Scala Exchange and Clojure Exchange are already in place, meaning a conference about the same programming language at the same date and also in London. So if you have booked your hotel and your trip to London already, you might want to check them out:

• reClojure Monday 2019-12-02 (only one day)
• Functional Scala 2019-12-12/2019-12-13 (two days)

Update 2019-12-09:
Scala Exchange is not going to happen. See web page.
And since so much time has passed, it is becoming unlikely that a buyer turns up, so the company will be gone.

Update 2020-02-12:
The company found a buyer and will start working again. (see comment)