[{"content":"← Back to DevConf.IN 2026 Overview The Preparation Begins A couple of days before DevConf.IN 2026, the real work began. As someone who would be representing the Fedora Project at a booth for the first time, I knew preparation was key.\nGetting the Fliers Printed Akashdeep asked me to get the prints of fliers he created to be showcased in the booth. Finding a shop which would have the required print quality along with the willingness to provide a receipt for it was an adventure in its own terms.\nAfter going around for a while from shop to shop, I finally found one who had what we needed. After verifying the quality of the paper, colour accuracy and the type of the receipt with Akashdeep, I finally got the prints done.\nFedora Project Trivia (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Fedora Project Badge (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Flock to Fedora 2026 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Matthew Miller's Talk (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) These fliers served multiple purposes at the booth, from promoting the trivia game where attendees could win special swag, to explaining how to claim digital Fedora badges after creating FAS accounts, announcing the upcoming Flock to Fedora 2026 conference and highlighting Matthew Miller\u0026rsquo;s highly anticipated talk. Each flier was carefully designed by Akashdeep to be eye catching and informative, helping us engage with attendees and guide them through different aspects of the Fedora Project community.\nGetting Ready to Answer Questions As someone who had primarily worked behind the screen on different Fedora Applications, the thought of being the face of Fedora Project at a booth was both exciting and nerve-wracking. I knew I\u0026rsquo;d be fielding questions from attendees with varying levels of Linux experience (from complete beginners to seasoned developers).\nSo I spent time preparing for the kinds of questions that might come up:\nTechnical Questions What is Fedora and how does it differ from other distributions? I prepared to explain Fedora\u0026rsquo;s philosophy, its relationship with Red Hat and how it differs from Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and other distros.\nWhat are Fedora\u0026rsquo;s core principles? Freedom, Friends, Features, First! I made sure I could explain each principle clearly.\nHow does Fedora\u0026rsquo;s release cycle work? Understanding the 6-month release cycle and what it means for users.\nWhat desktop environments does Fedora support? GNOME as default, plus KDE, Xfce, LXQt and other spins.\nWhy should someone choose Fedora? Being able to articulate the benefits: cutting-edge software, strong community, upstream-first approach, excellent for developers.\nContribution-Related Questions How can I start contributing to Fedora? I wanted to have clear pathways ready for different interests and skill levels.\nDo I need to be a programmer to contribute? Absolutely not! I prepared to talk about Design, Documentation, Translation, QA, Marketing and Community roles.\nWhat are the different contribution areas? Infrastructure, Package Maintenance, Documentation, Design, QA, Community Outreach, etc.\nHow does the Fedora Account System (FAS) work? Being ready to help people create accounts and claim their first badges.\nWhat resources are available for new contributors? Fedora Join, Fedora Docs, Discussion Forum and Matrix channels.\nCommunity Questions How is Fedora governed? Understanding the Fedora Council, working groups and community structure.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s the relationship between Fedora and Red Hat? Being able to explain the upstream relationship and Red Hat\u0026rsquo;s sponsorship.\nHow can I join the Fedora community? Pointing to local communities, SIGs (Special Interest Groups) and getting involved.\nAre there local Fedora communities in India? Knowing about Fedora India community efforts and regional groups.\nPreparing Project Knowledge I also brushed up on:\nRecent Fedora developments and features in the current release Fedora Workstation vs. Server vs. IoT vs. CoreOS - different editions for different use cases Projects I could point interested contributors to, especially the Fedora Badges Revamp Project that I\u0026rsquo;ve been actively working on How to navigate the Fedora ecosystem - from asking questions on Matrix to opening tickets on Pagure/GitLab The Mindset Shift More than just memorizing facts, I realized that booth staffing was about:\nListening first - Understanding what the attendee actually wants to know Guiding, not lecturing - Helping them find their path rather than overwhelming them with information Being approachable - Creating a welcoming environment where people feel comfortable asking \u0026ldquo;silly\u0026rdquo; questions Making connections - Remembering that behind every question is a person who might become a contributor, a user, or a community member Admitting when I don\u0026rsquo;t know - And being ready to find the answer together or point them to someone who does The key realization: This wasn\u0026rsquo;t just about representing a Linux distribution. It was about representing a community, a global network of people who believe in open source, collaboration and making technology accessible to everyone.\nReady (Sort Of) Did all this preparation make me feel 100% ready? Not really. But it gave me a foundation to build on. The real learning, I knew, would happen when I was actually at the booth, face-to-face with attendees, thinking on my feet.\nAs it turned out, the questions I prepared for were exactly the kinds of questions I\u0026rsquo;d get asked and then some I hadn\u0026rsquo;t anticipated at all. But having that foundation made all the difference.\nDay 1: Setting Up \u0026amp; Finding My Voice → ","permalink":"https://sdglitched.github.io/blog/devconf-india-2026/day-0/","summary":"Behind the scenes preparation for DevConf.IN 2026 - getting fliers printed, preparing for questions and the mindset shift needed for booth staffing.","title":"Day 0: Preparation \u0026 Getting Ready"},{"content":"← Back to Day 0: Preparation \u0026amp; Getting Ready Day 1 Highlights (TLDR): Booth setup complete by 10:30 AM Met Matthew Miller (Ex-FPL) Answered countless questions about Fedora from budding Linux enthusiasts Distributed swag and ran Fedora trivia with ~90 registrations Squeezed in a quick 15-minute lunch (after climbing 8 floors!) Explored OKD and Backstage booths Special swag giveaway to 4 lucky winners! Community dinner at Wasabi 15 with deep conversations about open source and AI contributions The Morning Rush The day started with a couple of unexpected situations. First, Akashdeep mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to drop by my place to do an inventory check of the swag packs that were delivered there. This meant I also had to make an unusual purchase of double-sided tape to ensure we could paste fliers at the Fedora Project booth. Not the most glamorous start, but hey, conference prep is all about the details!\nReady to leave for Day 1 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nAfter waiting for a while, Akashdeep finally arrived and we were on our way to the venue MIT World Peace University (MIT WPU), arriving around 10:00 AM. But to our surprise, the venue had been moved to the newly constructed Vyas Building, which meant we had to walk over a kilometer carrying the swag packs. To our relief, Avadhoot Dhere was there at the building’s entrance and helped us carry our load to the Fedora Project booth.\nHelper in Disguise! (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nBooth Setup Once we entered Vyas Building, we saw the registration desk filled with attendees doing registrations. We ignored the registration part as we thought we were already late (which was not the case at all).\nDuring that time Samyak and Yashwanth were already there attending the Opening Keynote at 8th Floor. Akashdeep asked Samyak and Yashwanth to come down to the Fedora Project booth so we could start setting it up.\nAfter a brief introduction with Samyak and Yashwanth, we started unpacking the swag box and the fliers. Akashdeep and Yashwanth started setting up the badges and stickers while Samyak and I started setting up the fliers.\nBy 10:30 AM, our booth was up and running.\nBooth Setup - Image 1 (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Booth Setup - Image 2 (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Shortly after, Matthew Miller (Ex-FPL) visited our booth. Akashdeep jokingly asked him, \u0026ldquo;Hey Matthew, did you use Fedora Linux?\u0026rdquo; which was hilarious.\nFedora Project Staff (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Matthew Miller at Booth (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) I was barely able to introduce myself to Matthew when Akashdeep asked me to come with him to complete the registration first. At the registration desk, we received our IDs along with a DevConf.IN badge and surprisingly, they handed over a DevConf.IN branded backpack which we were not expecting.\nDevConf.IN 2026 Swags (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nAfter finishing with registration we were officially ready to welcome attendees.\nTalking to the Budding Linux Crowd This is where things got real. As someone who primarily contributes to different Fedora applications mostly on backend systems and infrastructure code, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t used to being the person explaining Fedora to curious attendees. But there I was, answering questions about:\nWhat is Fedora and how is it different from other distros? What are Fedora\u0026rsquo;s core principles (Freedom, Friends, Features, First)? Why should someone choose Fedora over Ubuntu, Arch, or Debian? How can I contribute to Fedora? The questions came fast and furious from enthusiastic students, developers and open-source newcomers. Some were budding Linux users who had just started their journey, while others were seasoned contributors looking to get involved with Fedora specifically.\nBooth Representation (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Booth Representation (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Booth Representation (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) One attendee was particularly interested in contributing towards any frontend change that we might be working on currently. I introduced them to the Fedora Badges Revamp Project. We had a great conversation about what the Fedora Badges Project is and what the Fedora Badges Revamp Project is about. They left as a probable contributor, which felt amazing!\nSwag, Trivia and Digital Badges Throughout the day, we:\nInformed attendees about digital badges they could claim by signing up Ran a trivia with questions about Fedora Project basics Distributed swag including: Physical badge cum fridge magnets Stickers Digital badges in their FAS (Fedora Account System) accounts The special swag (a Fedora-branded sipper) was reserved for those who scored perfect score in the trivia and had good luck with the spin wheel!\nTrivia in Action (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nLunch Break (If You Can Call It That) While all this was happening, Akashdeep and I left Samyak and Yashwanth to handle the booth. During this time, the footfall was reduced as most of the attendees had left for lunch.\nAfter climbing 8 floors through sixteen flights of stairs along with Akashdeep, we reached the dining establishment arranged by DevConf.IN, which volunteer Rahul Sharma had informed us about around 01:00 PM. We did end up wasting our time though, since we found a huge queue at that place.\nWhile coming back disappointed and hungry we met Pravin Satpute, who suggested that we have lunch at the cafeteria on the fifth floor. Due to this small suggestion, Akashdeep and I finally managed to squeeze in a 15 minutes lunch break along with Avadhoot Dhere. Yes, you read that right 15 minutes!! Conference life is no joke!\nThe dining choice was limited to a Vegetarian Biryani and Cold Coffee, but at around 02:30 PM, that felt like a divine serving.\nAfter coming back, we switched places with Samyak and Yashwanth so they could have lunch as well.\nVeg Biryani (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Lunch Break (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Booth Hopping Before having lunch and being dissapponted and hungry while coming down from 8th Floor, Akashdeep and I visited other booths to see what they were up to:\nOKD: community driven, open source upstream distribution of Red Hat OpenShift Backstage: An open platform for building developer portals FOSS United: A non-profit foundation promoting and strengthening the FOSS ecosystem in India It\u0026rsquo;s always inspiring to see what other open-source projects are building!\nFOSS United Booth (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nUnexpected Visitor We had an unexpected visitor at our booth Sayak. Even Akashdeep wasn\u0026rsquo;t expecting him to be there.\nI briefly introduced myself and Akashdeep mentioned that Sayak is a Fedora Badges enthusiast who wanted to learn about the Fedora Badges Revamp Project. Due to time constraints, we decided to schedule the demo for Day 2. Then Sayak took a leave for checking out other booths and talks.\nMeetup with Sayak (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nThe Grand Finale: Day 1 Trivia Winners As the day wound down, at about 4 PM, Samyak started jotting down names for the day\u0026rsquo;s special swag distribution from the Trivia winners. Around 90 people registered on Day 1 and we got around 10 winners from that. As we only had a selected number of special swag (Fedora Branded Sipper), 4 in total for Day 1, we announced the 4 winners using the wheel.\nIt was exciting seeing attendees wait and watch if they had the luck to win the special swag.\nAkashdeep and Samyak did the honors of giving out the special swag to the winners while I captured each giveaway moment on my camera.\nTrivia Winner 1 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Trivia Winner 2 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Trivia Winner 3 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Wheel of Luck (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Wrapping Up Day 1 By the end of Day 1, I was exhausted but energized. The experience of talking to so many people, explaining open-source philosophy and representing Fedora Project was surreal.\nAll 4 of us walked together to the gate and started booking cabs/autos to get back to our homes/hotels to freshen up and take a bit of rest before we headed out for the community dinner.\nCommunity Dinner at Wasabi 15 Community Dinner at @Wasabi 15 (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nCommunity dinner was planned at Wasabi 15, Viman Nagar, near Pune airport. After freshening up, getting some rest and reflecting on the surreal experience, it was time to get ready again for the much-awaited dinner after our 15 minute lunch.\nFinding a cab/auto proved to be quite challenging with the ongoing issues with cab/auto drivers in Pune these days. Due to the delays, we all agreed to postpone the meeting time from 8:00 PM to 8:30 PM. Akashdeep made the changes to the reservation and confirmed with us.\nI finally got a cab and arrived around 8:25 PM. Samyak and Yashwanth were already there. As I was heading up, Akashdeep also arrived. We went up together and met Samyak and Yashwanth.\nSince we were already running a bit late and it had been a long day, we quickly started checking the menu and ordering food. For starters, Samyak chose Asparagus Cream Cheese Sushi and Peri Peri French Fries to suit his dietary preferences, while the rest of us ordered Dakgangjeong, Korean Fried Chicken, Tuna Mayo Gimbap and Chicken Kimchi Gimbap.\nWhile waiting for our food to arrive, Yashwanth shared his early open source program experiences. All three of us could sense his frustration with the use of AI while contributing to open source programs like Outreachy and GSoC.\nI shared my experience contributing to the Fedora Project and how the maintainers approach AI contributions. Akashdeep explained that in the Fedora Project, they don\u0026rsquo;t just evaluate PR quality - they also observe contributor behavior. They notice everything, including whether contributors ask for help or help others.\nMeanwhile, our food arrived and we started digging in. It was my first time trying Wasabi 15 and to their credit, they did not disappoint. Afterwards, we talked more about the day\u0026rsquo;s events and what we could have done better.\nFor the main course, we ordered Stir Fry Ramen in Gangjang Sauce with Batter Fried Tofu for Samyak, Stir Fry Ramen in Teriyaki Sauce with Batter Fried Prawns for Akashdeep, Chicken Kung Pao with Butter Garlic Rice for Yashwanth and Stir Fry Ramen in Gangjang Sauce with Batter Fried Chicken for me. Once again, Wasabi 15 delivered.\nTuna Mayo Gimbap (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Dakgangjeong (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Stir Fry Ramen in Gangjang Sauce with Batter Fried Chicken (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Chicken Kung Pao with Butter Garlic Rice (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) After wrapping up our dinner we took some group pictures and said goodbye for the day. Akashdeep and me waited for Samyak and Yashwanth to board their cabs first and then we boarded ours.\nDay 2: Deep Conversations \u0026amp; Matthew\u0026rsquo;s Talk → ","permalink":"https://sdglitched.github.io/blog/devconf-india-2026/day-1/","summary":"Day 1 at DevConf.IN 2026 - Setting up the Fedora booth, meeting Matthew Miller, engaging with budding Linux enthusiasts and ending with a community dinner.","title":"Day 1: Setting Up \u0026 Finding My Voice"},{"content":"← Back to Day 1: Setting Up \u0026amp; Finding My Voice Day 2 Highlights (TLDR): Booth setup complete by 11:00 AM (on Valentine\u0026rsquo;s Day!) Deep conversation with Swamprakash about open source contribution Helped attendees create FAS accounts and claim digital badges Unexpected visitors: Sudhir and Sayak (demo cancelled due to network issues) Booth hopping Round 2: FOSS United (FOSS HACK event), OKD trivia (secured 2nd place!), FreeIPA passkey demo, Tekton \u0026amp; Argo CD, Backstage Attended Matthew Miller\u0026rsquo;s inspiring talk: \u0026ldquo;35 Fedora Releases in 35 Minutes\u0026rdquo; Final trivia reveal with Matthew handing over special swag to winners Late lunch at La Sicilia Bistro and Patisserie with memorable stories Community dinner at Ishaara (reduced to 4 people due to miscommunication) Another Early Start Day 2 began with excitement, a little less nervousness and a bit more tiredness from Day 1.\nWhile waiting for Akashdeep, I remembered it was February 14th (Valentine\u0026rsquo;s Day), which explained the delays and cancellations Akashdeep was facing. After some time I met up with Akashdeep along with the swag packs and started our ride to the venue Vyas Building MIT World Peace University (MIT WPU) around 10:20 AM.\nOn reaching the Fedora Project booth, we saw Matthew was already there (he had arrived around 10:00 AM), preparing for his talk \u0026ldquo;35 Fedora Releases in 35 Minutes\u0026rdquo;.\nMatthew Preparing for Talk (Yashwanth Rathakrishnan, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nYashwanth was already engaging with some attendees. Thankfully, no registration was needed today and most of the booth setup was already in progress. Samyak joined us shortly after, and together we finished setting up the Fedora Project booth, completing everything efficiently as we now had experience from Day 1.\nBooth Setup (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nAs the day progressed, the number of attendees steadily increased. We received similar questions as Day 1, but today attendees were more curious about getting started with contributing to the Fedora Project.\nA Memorable Conversation with Swamprakash As I was talking with attendees, I met Swamprakash, a student from MIT WPU and we had what turned out to be one of the most meaningful conversations of the conference.\nWe talked about:\nWhat is Fedora? The basics, the philosophy, the community. Why use Fedora? The benefits and trade-offs compared to other distros. How and why to contribute to open source I shared my own journey and motivations. Why don\u0026rsquo;t contributors just fork the project and manage it on their own? A great question that led to a discussion about community collaboration, shared maintenance burden, and the power of collective development. Before parting ways, I shared my LinkedIn and FAS account details with him in case he wanted to connect and start his contribution journey. Moments like these remind me why community work matters.\nHelping Attendees Get Started Throughout the morning I helped attendees with:\nCreating FAS (Fedora Account System) accounts Claim their digital badges Try out the trivia for a chance at special swag Attendee Interaction 1 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Attendee Interaction 2 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Attendee Interaction 3 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Attendee Interaction 4 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Unexpected Visitors We had another unexpected visitor at our booth - Sudhir. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know him personally, but Akashdeep introduced us. We had a brief chat as the booth was filled with attendees at that time.\nAfter some time, Sayak arrived at the booth, eager for the demo of the Fedora Badges Revamp Project. Although the booth was less crowded at that moment, we still couldn\u0026rsquo;t provide the demo due to poor network connectivity, which caused significant delays in loading Akashdeep\u0026rsquo;s hosted site. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the demo once again.\nBooth Hopping Round 2 At around 12:00 PM, I left the booth in the capable hands of Akashdeep and Samyak and went booth hopping with Yashwanth.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what we explored:\nFOSS United: The folks running the booth explained that FOSS United is a non-profit foundation promoting and strengthening the FOSS ecosystem in India. We learned about their flagship event FOSS HACK scheduled for the coming month (March'26). FOSS United is doing great work promoting open-source culture in India! FOSS United Booth (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nOKD Booth (Again!): This time, I was more interested in learning how to contribute to OKD, whereas Yashwanth got a full introduction to what OKD is. We participated in the OKD trivia along with another attendee, and I secured 2nd place and scored some awesome OKD stickers! OKD Trivia 2nd Place (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nFreeIPA: I already knew a bit about FreeIPA as I\u0026rsquo;ve seen it used in some of the Fedora Apps that I\u0026rsquo;ve contributed to, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that FreeIPA is the upstream open-source project for Red Hat Identity Management. The folks running the booth were stormed with attendees just like our booth, and yet they managed to show a fantastic live demonstration of passkey authentication along with Fedora integration.\nSecure Flow (Tekton \u0026amp; Argo CD): This booth was particularly technical, and the booth staff were not very eager to explain what these tools are about. From the brief explanation I received, I understood that Argo CD and Tekton are tools that automate software building and deployment on Kubernetes. Tekton handles building and testing, while Argo CD handles automated deployment. I tried their trivia that dove deep into the working mechanisms behind the scenes, which I can\u0026rsquo;t know (duhhh).\nBackstage: Learned a bit more about what Backstage offers at the enterprise level - building developer portals and improving developer experience at scale. I asked how Backstage is different from ServiceNow apart from Backstage being free and open source, but the answer was unsatisfying. I tried the crossword puzzle they prepared, but since Matthew\u0026rsquo;s talk was coming up soon, I had to leave it unfinished.\nBooth Swags (Fedora, OKD, FreeIPA, FOSS United, Backstage) (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nMatthew Miller\u0026rsquo;s Talk: \u0026ldquo;35 Fedora Releases in 35 Minutes\u0026rdquo; At around 12:50 PM, I came back to help Akashdeep and Samyak pack up the booth which they had already managed to do. We headed straight to room VY0104 to attend one of the most anticipated talks of the conference, scheduled for 1:15 PM, \u0026ldquo;35 Fedora Releases in 35 Minutes\u0026rdquo; by none other than Matthew Miller, former Fedora Project Leader.\nWe set up a swag corner in the talk room for attendees, and while Matthew spoke, I went around taking pictures to capture the moment.\nSwag Corner (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nThe talk was exactly what the title promised, a whirlwind tour through Fedora\u0026rsquo;s history. Matthew had initially planned to cover 30 releases but expanded it to cover all 35 major releases and the evolution of the project over the years. He shared stories of:\nKey milestones in Fedora\u0026rsquo;s journey, from history to major changes that took place The ancient naming convention Fedora used to follow Challenges and downfalls the project faced How the community stayed strong and resilient through it all His storytelling made Fedora\u0026rsquo;s history come alive, and it was inspiring to see how the project has grown and adapted while staying true to its core values.\nMatthew Miller's Talk (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Fedora Core 5 Release (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Fedora 15 Release (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) FPL Experience 1 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) FPL Experience 2 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) FPL Experience 3 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) FPL Experience 4 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) The 45-minute talk flew by, concluding around 2:00 PM, and we headed back to the booth.\nIf you missed the talk, you can always watch it on DevConf\u0026rsquo;s YouTube channel: \u0026ldquo;35 Fedora releases in 35 minutes: a look back with lessons for any project - DevConf.IN 2026\u0026rdquo;\nThe Grand Finale: Day 2 Trivia Winners Back at the booth around 2:30 PM, it was time for the final reveal of the Day 2 trivia winners. The crowd was extensive, and the excitement was at its peak as attendees now knew what the surprise was!\nWhile Samyak was creating the spin wheel, we started distributing the remaining swag to attendees to manage the crowd.\nAfter the wheel was ready, we invited Matthew to do the honors of handing over the special swag to the winners.\nCrowd at Giveaway 1 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Crowd at Giveaway 2 (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Wheel of Luck (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Trivia Winner 1 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Trivia Winner 2 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Trivia Winner 3 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Trivia Winner 4 (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Wrapping Up Day 2 By 3:30 PM, we packed up the booth for the final time. It was bittersweet - exhausting yet rewarding.\nAs I was reflecting on today\u0026rsquo;s experience, Samyak asked where we were all having lunch. That\u0026rsquo;s when I remembered nobody had eaten lunch and it was already this late.\nAkashdeep asked me to check for places where we could get good food at this hour. I started looking for a restaurant that could cater to all of us and found La Sicilia Bistro and Patisserie, which was close by and still serving food. I proposed it to everyone and after a quick menu check, everyone agreed.\nMeanwhile, Avadhoot joined us and Akashdeep extended the invitation to him as well. Akashdeep started looking for a cab while we took some photos at the DevConf.IN photo booth and banner.\nOnce the cab arrived, Akashdeep, Samyak, Yashwanth, and I boarded it while Avadhoot used his scooter to get to the location.\nDevConf Photo Booth (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0) Akashdeep at DevConf (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Samyak at DevConf (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Yashwanth at DevConf (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Avadhoot at DevConf (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Celebratory Lunch (Finally!) After the non-stop action, we finally sat down for our first proper meal of the day, lunch at La Sicilia Bistro and Patisserie with Akashdeep, Samyak, Yashwanth and Avadhoot.\nA restaurant staff member informed us that a portion of the menu would be closed in 10 minutes, so we quickly started ordering food. Samyak and Avadhoot started browsing the vegetarian options while Akashdeep, Yashwanth and I started browsing the non-vegetarian options.\nSamyak and Avadhoot had lost their appetite due to the delay and only chose Veg Manchow Soup, Paneer Angara Kebab, and Cottage Cheese Bao, while Akashdeep, Yashwanth and I were absolutely starving and chose Murgh Chilada Kebab, Tandoori Jhinga, Butter Garlic Prawns, Fish and Chips, Chicken Chipotle Pizza, and Paprika Chicken Pizza.\nTandoori Jhinga (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Butter Garlic Prawns (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Fish and Chips (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Cottage Cheese Bao (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Chicken Chipotle Pizza (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) Paprika Chicken Pizza (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0) While waiting for the food to arrive, Akashdeep asked us to share our most memorable experiences from both Day 1 and Day 2. I started by sharing my overall experience, highlighting the deep conversation with Swamprakash and a weird incident where an attendee grabbed an entire stack of 50 stickers for themselves. Yashwanth said his funniest moment was witnessing Samyak writing a note saying \u0026ldquo;We are the Fedora Project booth and not the registration desk\u0026rdquo; for those attendees who thought the immense crowd meant it had to be the registration desk. Akashdeep mentioned that for him, the most memorable encounter was discovering that Red Hat employees were interested in contributing to upstream projects, including the Fedora Project.\nMeanwhile, our lunch arrived and we started digging in as the hunger was overwhelming at that point.\nAfter sharing laughs and reflecting on the incredible experience we had over the two days, we started booking our rides home. While waiting for the rides to arrive, we took a final photo to capture the moment. After that, we bid farewell to each other and left for our respective homes/hotels, tired but fulfilled.\nGroup Photo After Lunch (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nCommunity Dinner at Ishaara Community Dinner at Ishaara (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nBefore DevConf.IN 2026 even started, Samyak created hype for the grand Community Dinner at Ishaara, a unique restaurant that employs specially-abled people, offering both great food and a meaningful dining experience. The dinner was supposed to include Matthew, Karen (Matthew\u0026rsquo;s wife), Sayak, Sudhir and the four of us - Akashdeep, Samyak, Yashwanth and me.\nThis was much anticipated by all of us, but due to a booking mishap, the reservation was confirmed at the wrong Ishaara location, Ishaara, Wakad, about 30 kilometers away on the other end of Pune, instead of Ishaara, Viman Nagar. Akashdeep had to create a new reservation at the correct location while Matthew and Karen unfortunately ended up at the Wakad branch. This dropped the count by two. Then Samyak informed us that he had a high fever and wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to join us. Sayak also had to take rain check reducing the count by two more.\nIn the end, after sorting out this mess, only four of us (Sudhir, Akashdeep, Yashwanth and me) were there for the much-awaited Community Dinner at Ishaara, Viman Nagar. Disappointing, but we made the most of it!\nAkashdeep and I reached the restaurant around 8:00 PM, and Sudhir joined us shortly after. The restaurant\u0026rsquo;s inclusive approach of employing specially-abled staff made the experience even more meaningful. While we were waiting for our table, I started talking with Sudhir. I told him about my involvement with the Fedora Project and the contributions I\u0026rsquo;m currently working on. I learned that he\u0026rsquo;s a Senior Manager at Red Hat and leads a team that maintains PyTorch for enterprise AI workloads on Red Hat platforms and even contributes to the PyTorch upstream.\nMeanwhile, a staff member at Ishaara took us to our table. Yashwanth was running a bit late due to high demand for cabs at that time in the evening.\nAfter a while, Yashwanth arrived. Shortly after, Akashdeep ordered the first item for our dinner - a single Bhuna Gosht Pizza. Sudhir mentioned that he had already had dinner with his team and wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be eating much as he was just there to keep his promise and get to know Yashwanth and me.\nSudhir left after that, and the three of us remained. Since we all had lunch very late in the afternoon, we weren\u0026rsquo;t that hungry and felt almost full. So we just ordered a plate of Lucknow\u0026rsquo;s famous Galouti Kebab to cleanse our palate.\nGalouti Kebab (Shounak Dey, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nWhile enjoying the Galouti Kebab, Yashwanth mentioned some of his future goals around the Fedora Project and asked Akashdeep what the best place would be to submit a proposal if he had one.\nAkashdeep explained in detail and told him to first categorize the proposal based on the Priority Matrix and then post it on the Fedora Project Discussion forum.\nAfter Dinner (Akashdeep Dhar, CC BY-SA 4.0)\nAfter dinner, we wrapped up and said our goodbyes. Akashdeep and I waited for Yashwanth to get his cab, and then we started looking for ours. Soon all the cabs arrived and we bid farewell with heavy hearts and a determination to meet again at a similar event.\n← Back to DevConf.IN 2026 Overview ","permalink":"https://sdglitched.github.io/blog/devconf-india-2026/day-2/","summary":"Day 2 at DevConf.IN 2026 - Deep conversations, booth hopping adventures, Matthew Miller\u0026rsquo;s inspiring talk, engaging with budding Linux enthusiasts and ending with a community dinner.","title":"Day 2: Deep Conversations \u0026 Matthew's Talk"},{"content":"Hi, I\u0026rsquo;m Shounak Dey.\nI am a Senior Data Engineer and an active open source contributor ocused on building reliable, scalable, and community driven software systems.\nWith over 4 years of professional experience in data engineering and backend development, I work at the intersection of data platforms, distributed systems, and open infrastructure. My work spans enterprise grade data pipelines as well as large scale open source platforms used by global developer communities.\nWhat I Do Professionally, I design and optimise data systems that enable organisations to make reliable, data driven decisions. My experience includes building and maintaining end to end data pipelines, improving database performance, and ensuring operational stability across production environments.\nWhile I love solving enterprise data challenges, my technical roots run deep in the open source community. I am a dedicated contributor to the Fedora Project, where I help modernise and strengthen services used by millions worldwide.\nI strongly believe that good software should be free, transparent, and customizable. Open source allows engineers to solve problems that impact people at scale and contributing to such systems is a responsibility as much as it is a passion.\nEngineering Philosophy I approach software engineering with a systems mindset:\nBuild for reliability before scale Automate wherever possible Treat testing as a feature, not an afterthought Prefer simplicity over cleverness Design software that other engineers can confidently extend Across both personal and professional projects, I consistently prioritise maintainability, observability, and long term sustainability.\nOpen Source \u0026amp; Personal Projects Beyond professional work, I enjoy building tools that solve real world problems.\nSome highlights include:\nA cross platform desktop application for managing game equipment loadouts using Python, PySide6, and OCR pipelines - Loadouts for Genshin Impact Fully asynchronous backend systems built with FastAPI and PostgreSQL - FastAPI-eCom Contributions to Fedora Infrastructure services including Fedora Badges, messaging infrastructure (W2FM and W2FM-Messages), repository and mirrors systems (Mirrormanager and MDAPI) and much more. Many of these projects maintain near or complete test coverage, reflecting my focus on production grade engineering practices even in personal work.\nTechnical Focus Languages: Python, Go, React, SQL\nData Systems: ETL pipelines, Data Warehousing, PostgreSQL, Oracle\nInfrastructure: Docker/Podman, CI/CD automation\nPractices: Testing, Performance Optimisation, Distributed Systems Design\nLooking Ahead My long term goal is to grow as a FOSS maintainer and Platform Architect, contributing to infrastructure that empowers developers and communities at global scale.\nI am particularly interested in building resilient platforms where data systems, backend services, and open collaboration intersect.\nBeyond Engineering Outside of software development, I’m an adventure enthusiast who enjoys cycling, photography, and gaming — interests that continuously inspire creativity, patience, and curiosity in both life and engineering.\nI build software that scales reliably and empowers communities.\n","permalink":"https://sdglitched.github.io/about/","summary":"Learn more about me","title":"About Me"}]