In this talk I will present my journey in developing a decentralized and secure communication platform for a university with thousands students and faculty members. Using Matrix and Element as foundation I tailored the solution to meet academic needs, ensure data privacy and integrate with some systems, bots, widgets etc.

The session will cover:
- Why Matrix was chosen over other platforms.
- Technical stack and deployment model.
- Customization of Element and federation decisions.
- Challenges (including authentication, onboarding, moderation and compliance).
- Real-world impact and feedback.
- Future plans including bridging, widgets and improvements.

This case study shows how Matrix can empower large academic communities and help other institutions explore privacy-respecting and scalable alternatives to traditional messaging platforms.

By the way, it is real story. :)

Universities face growing challenges in balancing seamless communication, data privacy and platform sovereignty. This talk presents the story of how I built a Matrix-powered communication platform based on Element for a university community with thousands students, faculty and staff.

I will share my hands-on experience deploying a self-hosted Matrix homeserver, using the Element client for academic use and integrating the system with some infrastructure.

You'll learn about:
- The decision-making process: Why Matrix and Element?
- Technical architecture and deployment at scale.
- Real-world challenges in onboarding, federation, moderation and support.
- Custom feature additions and user adoption results.
- Lessons learned and recommendations for other institutions or organizations considering Matrix.

This session is ideal for technologists, sysadmins, public sector decision-makers and open-source advocates exploring decentralized alternatives to Slack, Teams or WhatsApp in education or large organizations.

So yep, feel free to ask!

Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
about this event: https://cfp.2025.matrix.org/matrix-conf-2025/talk/MLHCY7/