Barcamp Bangalore 2022

Barcamp is something I appreciate a lot. There is literally no other event which is anywhere close to what Barcamp is. I may be saying the cheesy line from the Maggi hot and sweet sauce ad, but "it's different". I dont know about any other event where we have people come and talked about so many varied topics with enthusiasm, other than Barcamp Bangalore(BCB).

During the pandemic it was shutdown. I think each one of us had our own share of troubles with the pandemic. Everything was quiet on all channels during the pandemic till Dr. Sanjay decided to ask "Any plans for next barcamp?" in April 2022 on BCB Telegram group. No one replied to that. But then he persisted and was more direct with his offer in July 2022.

Any plans for next barcamp?

Let's do it in RV University in September. Next to Pattanagere metro station

I could not help but not reply to that message and people just joined in. Let me tell you that of all the folks who replied, only Bibhas and me were in Bangalore. Rest were spread across the world. I dont know of any other place where people come up and volunteer for an event which is not in their city (or country) and they might not even attend.

Though there were a bunch of people  who helped make the event happen, a special shoutout for Sathyabhat, Bibhas and Aditi who were the key folks to doing the event setup. There were a bunch of students from RVU and other planners who are listed here.

Sathya took care of the servers (which he solely manages), devops, social updates, emailers being sent besides keeping a list and tracking every task every Sunday. Everyone who knows him, knows Trello and how much he uses them. Never seen anyone do that better. Also, let me point out that Sathya is in Australia and did not attend BCB but made it happen.

The refreshing design update on the website was thanks to Bibhas and Aditi. Bibhas updated the Wordpress Theme for the website to look fresh. I am sure a lot of eyes roll when Wordpress and PHP are mentioned and it's a difficult task but Bibhas did it with ease. Aditi did an amazing job of designing the logos, colors and stickers. I think the way she navigated around us techies, giving us design knowledge, was really one of the best parts of the BCB planning for me. I would also add that with Bibhas, Aditi and me being the only folks part of the planning team who were in Bangalore, and me falling sick the week before BCB, Bibhas had to step up with sorting out the logistics alone.

I should also mention that our sponsors were more than willing to help us make the event happen. Our talks with them got initiated and finalised within a couple of days -- shortest period ever that I have witnessed. I am thankful to Vishal(FOSS United), Prashanth and Jeevan(Hoochat) for that.

I want to add that the sessions at the event made all the work that we did and all the Sunday mornings that I spent worthwhile for me. Talks like Zswigmato and the City, Paying my bills with ‘free’ programming ebooks, UX Design Practice – Evolution in India were really fun and a learning experience for me. Another session about Industry Mentor Co Entrepreneurship had a good discussion which I enjoyed. I hope I can help in some way in the future in that aspect. But by no means these were the only good sessions(being a planner means, I cant attend sessions sometimes because you have to be somewhere else), when we get the videos of the sessions, hopefully we will be able to get them and put them on YouTube for everyone to watch.

I hope we get the next Barcamp Bangalore in April sometime. I would love it if some more folks from Bangalore participated in getting the next Barcamp running. We need folks who can help build a social stream, schedule app and session scheduling tool for BCB. If you are keen, please ping us on BCB Telegram or Discord.

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