PyCon India 2024

“It has been 10 years!“ I was not able to get over the fact that I have been attending PyCon India for 10 years now and the fact that it happened at NIMHANS made it even more special because it’s the same place where this journey started.

I attended my first PyCon in 2014 and the way I attended was no lesser than magic, I used to volunteer for FSMK (the first blog I ever wrote) and there was a discussion about who could handle the community booth in PyCon India. I still remember how enthusiastically I volunteered for that job with Jeevan and Vishal. I didn’t have tickets at that time at least I didn’t buy one because I couldn’t. I still have that year’s T-Shirt with me and I remember how lovingly Vijay Bung gave that(and the food coupons) to me and others at the booth. I remember how Viggy helped me to understand what PyCon is and who all are there.

I still have the same curiosity whenever I go to PyCon I have always been a volunteer and that is the most memorable part for me. The comradery and the discussions we have is amazing and this community has always been warm and welcoming to me.

This year’s PyCon was even more special I had a bunch of my college alumni attending and volunteering for PyCon. In addition to them, there was Shabnam(my wife) who was actively volunteering in various WG. I was humbled all over but a tiny part of my heart was jumping up with joy because I was able to introduce and bring these people close to this community which is so close to me huge shoutout, especially to Pratik, Ashish, and Shabnam.

Now coming to the event the preparation started way back and it was such a pleasure to watch how everything unfolded and came together in such a well-organized manner. I take a little bit of pride because I was a tiny cog in this huge machinery. I was helping Abhishek and Nabarun with sponsorship. I learned a thing or two about how sponsorship works, maybe I can help better next time. I had a fair share of failures this PyCon, I was trying to make an electronic badge and was trying to push that workgroup with Jithin’s help but after a lot of discussion, we couldn’t reach a conclusion and the idea was abandoned. A very similar thing happened with artistic installation.

The major learning I got from this is to take the ideation to fulfillment and this should be done without a single ounce of doubt. A small lag or doubt would lead the idea to go down, if I get a chance to do this again this is the learning I will have at the forefront of any project.

It was so inspiring to see the last-minute prep and the enthusiasm everyone had pushing the event forward. For me, I was in the middle of the action and yet I had the privilege to observe everyone and the insights it brings you is just fantastic.

I had a bunch of duties for the event that was assigned to me and I enjoyed each one of them yes at times it creates a high-pressure scenario but as I said I was a small cog so I wasn’t directly affected by them. Some of the things that I did during the conference were:

1. Following up and handling a few sponsors.

2. Checking AV.

3. Handling registration desk.

4. Handling T-Shirt Distribution.

5. Be the muscle power whenever needed.

6. A little bit of website review (all thanks to Saptak).

The best part of the conference was the people, there were few people which I could only meet during the conference because the rest of the time life happens. I had a gala time with Saptak and Vivek, re-living a lot of our old memories. I had some really deep conversations with Gaurav and Chandan about life. I need to plan my time better and meet these folks more often and not just during the conference. I had such precious time working with them and hanging out. This was pointed to me by Sohom and it caught me thinking that I have been living under a rock and I need to get out there more often which is why I am going to try to do that.

I had a gala time hanging out at Sayan’s and Shilpi’s place with these beautiful people.

Be more active, be more outgoing, participate in meetups, and spend my time with these amazing people I have in my life. (at least try to)

I don’t have many pictures but here are some really amazing tweets:

We also pioneered Litti Chokha Coffee cult with Abhishek.

The conference was amazing but now I had something even more challenging waiting for me. Everyone was dead tired including me because we had been getting 2 hours of sleep and I had one more day to go because I was managing the DevSprint and it was Monday horror in Bangalore. Everyone was running late except the participants fortunately me and Shabnam reached on time and we had about 85 participants including the speakers to manage somehow we managed everything for about two hours and got the event started then we had some help from the volunteers coming in. All's well that ends well we had a successful DevSprint with a lot of PRs.

In my opinion, we carried out a very successful event, can we do better? Yes always.

I have a special thanks to give to Anirudh for making me T-Shirt Model for PyCon India.

Another special thanks to Naveen my friend and colleague from OpenCraft to attend PyCon.

It was a fun event and I am just grateful to be a part of it.

Happy Hacking!