My experiences at conf.kde.in 2015

Last year I really wanted to attend conf.kde.in but couldn’t because my train tickets were not confirmed by the time it started. So, I had made up my mind right then, that I will definitely attend it the next year by all means. So, this year I applied and was accepted as a speaker too. But tragedy struck again, when some college issues clashed with the date of my flight, so I had to reschedule it once, and then one more time due to one more clash, after which I could finally reach Amritapuri in the evening of Day 1 of conference when it was already over. So, yes I was sad as I had missed the first day, but that also meant that I should make the best of the second day for sure.

The second day of conference started with some great south-Indian breakfast, where I met up with some of the important people like Shantanu, Sinny, Pradeepto and others. The first talk for that day was supposed to start from around 10:00 am, and I was the one to speak in it. I spoke on the ‘Interactive Tours’ feature that I had implemented in Marble last year, and it was pretty well received (I hope). My talk was followed by the rest of the other talks of the day, which were all pretty awesome, and very interesting as well. I got to meet Devaja, Rishab, Pinak, and the rest of the speakers during the talks, and I loved to interact with each one of them.

After a couple of talks after mine, I was asked by Sinny Kumari whether I would like to volunteer in a qml workshop which was being held in one of the labs. I didn’t wanna miss this opportunity, so I said “yes”, and went to the lab with her. The workshop started in a few moments, after everyone settled down. It was Shantanu who was explaining most of the stuff, using his computer screen as a projection, with me, Sinny, Pradeepto and Pinak helping the attendees in their computers in case they needed help or had some query. It was a very productive session, amazingly led by Shantanu, and I loved every moment that was spent in it.

Well, the day ended with an awesome lunch, and a few more talks for the day. We were often approached by students from their college, asking us about our experiences with KDE, and how to start contributing. I answered them with my personal experience with Marble, and it went really well, with some good feedback from both parties. People were very enthusiastic and I loved spending time and exchanging information with them. After the end of all the talks, we went out for some sightseeing, rode a boat 😛 , saw some awesome views from a high building rooftop, went to the beach, had lots and lots of fun.

and then finally came back, where we were invited to a lab, where each of the speakers and the students were saying their last viewpoints about the conference, what they liked about it, what could be improved. We told them about our awesome experience and that we would love to come back here again. Speakers who were still in college were asked how they keep open-source contributions alive in their respective institutions, I told them about our the GNU/Linux users’ group of my college and the events that are organized by it. Pradeepto told us some really interesting and funny stories about KDE, which were really both fun and motivational to listen to.

After all was said and done, all the speakers were given a certificate of appreciation, along with some books, and we walked back to the guesthouse. We had our very final celebration at night after returning back, with an awesome chicken and beer party in one of the rooms, till 1:30 am in the night. I think it would be fair to say that this was the best day of my life, and I am very glad to have bunked Durgapur for my flight the previous day, otherwise I would have missed out on all of these amazing moments, which have now turned into memories for life. Thanks to KDE, and especially to Dennis, without whom I wouldn’t even be in this position right now. Thanks to the organizers of conf.kde.in and everyone else associated with it, for making my day special. I would love to come back to the next conf.kde.in and the next and the next. Thanks a lot! 🙂