While our friends were celebrating the Midsummer festival in Estonia, we, with my girlfriend Grete, spent possibly the most memorable days of our whole travels so far. We volunteered in Running Remote conference in Ubud, Bali.

How did we end up there?

We don’t even remember how we heard about the conference. But on one day we knew that we would definitely want to attend it.

Speakers were CEOs of successful remote companies. They will definitely inspire us, teach how to earn money remotely and lead us towards a dream of location independence. And it would be a perfect possibility to network with like-minded people.

However, no matter how much we wished, it didn’t take as long to understand that it won’t be possible for us to attend there. The ticket price was something between 800-1000 euros for those 2 days. Little out of our budget.

That’s when Grete got a brilliant idea. What if we write to them that we want to volunteer? We could help them to organize it, and in return maybe get free access to the conference. She could photograph there, and I could… do something else they need.

Little later we sent out our slowly-crafted letter to organizers. Letter’s summary would be something like: “We are a splendid poor young couple interested in remote work and would like to participate, please make us useful somehow”.

Time past. And then one day Grete yelled from other room. “THEY ANSWERED!”

Organizer wanted from us some extra assignments. Grete had to send her photography portfolio. I had to send a video myself how I am presenting something. We recorded a video of me on the same night in our hotel room. It was awful. But I gave my best.

Was it Grete’s skills, my enthusiasm, or something else, but we got accepted to volunteer at the conference.

What volunteering work we had to do?

We scheduled a pre-event meeting with organizers in co-working space Hubud in Ubud (really cool place). Our surprise was huge when one of the organizers reached us with a world “Tere!”. Turns out the main work was done by a Russian- Estonian couple. (Well, that’s why we got chosen…)

We got our volunteering assignments. Grete had to take pictures in the event and at the afterparty. And help them also with designing webpage, flyers and banners.

I had to promote a cool product named Cushti in the event. It’s a computer bag that has cool features on. The slogan is “Laptop back to lap”. The product protects a user from overheating and from radiation when they use a laptop on their lap. By the way, for young men overheating and radiating a lap area is surprisingly dangerous. Never use a laptop on your lap! Only with Cushti.

We had some more meetings. Grete did her design work. I used Custhi on the bed to watch World Cup games.

How did the conference go?

We got more and more nervous every day the conference came closer. Our anxiety mostly came from the fact that we hadn’t done anything intense and ‘work-like’ for 3 months. Of course, it was also a new experience for us to volunteer at some conference. Plus, I have never presented anything before, now I had to do it for people I really admire.

No matter how nervous we were, the Running Remote conference was finally there.

We had an opportunity to attend a pre-party that was organized only for speakers. The venue for it was sublime, 5+ star hotel with a super view towards rice terraces. By the way, all the venues and food at the conference were unbelievably good. It was a reason to volunteer itself.

First people we spoke to at the pre-party were surprisingly again Estonians. Overall, a concentration of Estonian in this conference was strangely high. There were two speakers, Marit Martin from Hunderd5 and Indrek Pällo from EAS, two volunteers Mart and Grete, and an organizer named Liis.

Next day the two volunteers arrived at the conference 15 minutes late, like locals. Many guests had already arrived, organizers were running around, our hearts pumped of excitement. We adapted quickly and so we started.

Me: “Hi, do you have a minute? I would like to present you a cool product…”. And Grete was just wandering around with a camera, at least it looked like to me.

So our two days of volunteering in the conference went.

I approached and presented the Cushti to around 100-120 participants in two days. Grete made around 1200 pictures. On the side of volunteering, we got an opportunity to listen to almost all speakers. And managed to socialize with very interesting people at the after parties.

How satisfied were we with our decision to volunteer at the conference?

Very very satisfied. Even though our expectations before the event were high, the experience of volunteering at the conference surpassed everything.

Why?

• We felt useful again. Funny thing about being jobless is a feeling of usefulness. Volunteering helped to give us more confidence.
• Conquered the new challenges. We had never volunteered at a conference, I had never presented anything, and Grete had never taken pictures at a conference.
• Possibility to add those experiences to resumes
• Made new friends and new connections
• Got so much information about the remote world, how the remote teams work, and what are the challenges they face
• Improved our English. A difference in my talking speed between first presentations and second-day presentations were at least double, my English went much smoother.

Not to mention all the ideas we got during the conference and after. There will be definitely many posts in my blog featuring some insights from the Running Remote conference.

And what else!? We got invited to volunteer also in Freedom X fest in August in Spain. And we stated our interest to volunteer again at the next years’ Running Remote conference in Bali.

I encourage everyone to follow us. Find the conference you would like to attend and just write to organizers that you would like to volunteer. If it worked for Ordinary Mart, then it would work for everyone.