All about Open Source Summit Europe 2022

All about Open Source Summit Europe 2022

My First International Conference Experience

How I applied?

Since I came back from my trip, I have received numerous messages asking how I attended the conference and how I applied for it. I therefore made the decision to blog about it in order to answer all of your questions.

The first step is to be aware about the upcoming conferences. Remember the conference dates or bookmark them so that you don't miss to apply to them.

Then, if you want to be a speaker at the event, then you must submit a CFP or a proposal of your talk. This has to be done way before the actual conference dates, so be prepared for your CFP well in advance. You have research about some new topic that have never been spoken in previous conference or if you don't have a new topic, you can enhance any previously spoken topic, to present it in a good and effective way.

If you are a student and want to just attend the event to have some exposure, experience and knowledge about the trending technologies, you can apply for scholarship by describing why you wanna attend this event and why you should be given the scholarship.

I wanted to be a speaker, so I, along with my co-speaker Akshat Khanna submitted a CFP and applied for scholarship, as we were college students and were not having enough funds to manage our travel. Luckily, our talk got selected and we also got travel scholarship😊

The VISA process

Things grow trickier once your scholarship application is approved. The scholarship results are typically announced around a month before the event, so we must immediately begin the VISA application process and gather all required documents from our college and offices. Most of the documents include your college/office NOC, leave application approval, cover letter for VISA, all necessary documents related to your trip, including hotel bookings, conference tickets, travel insurance, etc.

If you have all the necessary paperwork, the VISA application procedure goes rather well. However, you should plan your appointment as soon as your scholarship is announced because sometimes it might be difficult to get a VISA appointment. Be ready for the situation and plan in advance so that you have buffer time to get your VISA before your trip.

The Convention Centre, Dublin

20220913_074226.jpg It was a long day, baggy eyes, headache, we were experiencing jet lag, but as soon as we landed on the Dublin airport, all of it vanished, as it was my first time going on an international trip💕 We arrived at night and rested. We travelled to the Convention Center, where the event was held, the following morning. Everything at the convention centre was handled quite well. We were given masks, sanitisers were kept everywhere and people were maintaining social distancing. After collecting our badges, we started attending the talks. They were really good and we learned a lot of new things from the speakers. Many talks were based on Kubernetes and it's internal components, how to make use of the them effectively. My own talk was on "Security with Certificates in Kubernetes".

After attending them, we interacted with few people and learned about the technologies they work on. There were people from all over the world With the other attendees, we had dinner at the renowned "Guinness Brewery" in the evening, and we had a great time there.

The following day began with "River Liffey" boat tour which was organised for attendees. There, we saw several 🚢 ships. After that, we returned to the event where the sponsor booths had just begun and we spent the entire day there. Around 50+ different firms and startups, including Amazon, IBM, and RedHat, had their booths during the event. On that day, we made a lot of connections and interactions. We also received some amazing goodies. I also got the chance to meet several famous people, including Swift from MLH, which made me very happy. The day was fantastic!

Beige Minimalist Sweet Memories With Lover Photo Collage.png

I was both anxious and delighted on the third day when my talk was planned because it was going to be my first-ever international in-person talk. We went to Linus Torvalds' keynote speech in the morning. Then we gave our talk. Giving a talk in front of so many people on stage was such a surreal feeling. After giving the talk, I was really happy. The video of our talk is available on YouTube here. After our talk, we went to some more booths to pick up more freebies.

The final day began with a Vintage Bus trip, during which we travelled throughout Dublin. After returning back, we attended few talks, interacted with some more folks, and took a group photo with the Indian flag.

Untitled design (1).jpg

Things that I learnt

Always try to speak at or attend such conferences because it exposes us to more people than what we often do.

Connecting and conversing with as many people as you can will help you communicate better and feel more confident.

I was greatly mistaken about the scope of open source. The individuals working on it have a different mindset, and you can learn a lot from them.

There are a lot of startups with cool products that we can actually use and make our life more productive. eg- Uffizzi, Styra.

Overall, my experience was amazing and I am eagerly looking forward to attend and speak at more such events in future😊