Ekoparty

Ekoparty is an annual information-security conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is frequently described as the largest and most influential hacker/security event in Latin America. Its roots trace to the "Ezkracho" (EKO) team, a group of Argentine hackers who connected online and began organizing informal gatherings and a technical e-zine (Eko Magazine) around 2000–2001, amid Argentina's economic crisis of that period. The organization's own materials and the English-language Wikipedia entry state Ekoparty was "founded in 2001" by Juan Pablo Daniel Borgna, Leonardo Pigner, Federico Kirschbaum, Jerónimo Basaldúa, and Francisco Müller Amato.

Disputed founding date: The Spanish-language Wikipedia entry, citing the same archived "About Ekoparty" source page, instead states the conference was founded in 2005 by the same group. This is corroborated by the conference's own 2026 edition being publicly numbered "Ekoparty 22," which mathematically implies a first numbered edition around 2005 (2005 + 21 = 2026) if editions ran continuously and annually. A plausible reconciliation, though not independently confirmed, is that the EKO hacker community/e-zine began informally around 2000–2001, while the first formal conference editions were held a few years later at an informal LAN-party venue ("Baires LAN" in the Villa Urquiza neighborhood), before the event adopted a professional conference format — reportedly from its third edition onward — at Hotel Bauen in Buenos Aires. Because sources conflict and some details come only from the organizer's own current website (not independently fact-checked), the exact founding year and early-edition venue history should be treated as unverified/disputed.

What is consistently documented is that Ekoparty grew from a small, community-driven hacker meetup into a multi-track professional conference featuring research talks, workshops, wargames, wardriving, lockpicking contests, and digital-forensics challenges, alongside a capture-the-flag competition. Over two decades it became a fixture of the Latin American security calendar, drawing researchers, professionals, and hobbyists from across the region and internationally, and is often mentioned alongside DEF CON, Black Hat, and the Chaos Communication Congress as a major event on the global security-conference circuit, though on a regional (Latin American) scale.

In recent years Ekoparty's organizers have expanded beyond the core conference into a broader ecosystem: Hackademy, billed as Latin America's first hacker academy; professional training courses; EkoJobs, a cybersecurity careers platform; Futuro Hacker, educational outreach for students; and EkoGroups, a network of local community meetups. The organization has also begun exporting the brand internationally, with an Ekoparty Miami edition alongside the flagship Buenos Aires event. The 2026 Buenos Aires edition, its 22nd, is scheduled for October 7–9, 2026, under the theme "Embrace the Chaos." Video archives of talks dating back to 2007 are maintained publicly, documenting nearly two decades of the conference's recorded content.

Timeline

• 2000The Ezkracho (EKO) hacker team forms in Argentina, reportedly organized by figures using the aliases "ca0s" and "Powertech"; the group produces the Eko Magazine e-zine and organizes informal meetups (per Ekoparty's own current 'About' page; not independently verified).
• 2001Official Ekoparty materials and the English Wikipedia article state the conference was founded this year by Juan Pablo Daniel Borgna, Leonardo Pigner, Federico Kirschbaum, Jerónimo Basaldúa, and Francisco Müller Amato (disputed — see 2005 entry).
• 2005The Spanish Wikipedia article, citing the same organizer source, instead dates Ekoparty's founding to this year; this is also consistent with the conference's 2026 edition being publicly numbered 'Ekoparty 22.'
• 2007Reported third edition of the conference moves to Hotel Bauen in Buenos Aires, adopting a more professional multi-track conference format (per organizer's current website; unverified independently).
• 2026-10-07Ekoparty's 22nd Buenos Aires edition is scheduled to begin, running through October 9, 2026, under the theme 'Embrace the Chaos,' alongside a parallel Ekoparty Miami edition.