Call for speakers for the “FOSS for everyone” themed March meetup closes tomorrow!
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FEBRUARY 2024 MEETUP RETROSPECTIVE
By FOSS United Bangalore Team
Theme: FOSS Workshops
STATS
Total Attendees: ~40
Women attendees: ~16
THE GOOD
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We conducted our first workshop in February 2024
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Smallcase provided a really nice venue
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Meetup started around 11:15 and ended by 14:30. We were able to start a bit earlier than usual but the workshop end got slightly extended. Nemo and Vivek did a great engaging workshop with a full hands-on activity which the audience really enjoyed
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Venue also conducted a nice small interactive quiz along with prizes which stirred up the audience nicely
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Break in the middle again proved to be nice for networking, there were engaging discussions everywhere
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A great bump in women’s participation since the last few meetups, Join The Dots an NGO sending women attendees for the meetup was amazing to see.
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Asking the audience to give a quick introduction and how they are using FOSS helps in engaging the audience before we start the meetup. We have been doing this for the past few meetups and it’s been working out well.
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We also tried starting the meetup relatively early i.e. 11 AM this time and people nevertheless showed up on time, so that was an encouraging point!
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Snacks provided from the host were nice and prevented the audience from going super hungry.
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Being able to follow workshop from any point was a good upside
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Nemo and Vivek took the workshop together, while Nemo spent more time hosting whereas Vivek kept helping everyone. So having another knowledgeable person with a host helps a lot!
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Overall, trying a workshop for the first time was a really good idea!
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This time it was Shrilakshmi’s office and she took full responsibility of making sure that everything is taken care of at the venue right from stage, camera, snacks and everything.
THE BAD
- We had a bunch of complaints around registration, quite a few people showed up but their names were not in the google sheet exported. This was probably because list monk had a recent upgrade so going forward in march meetup onwards we decided to use the FOSS United platform to accept registrations and hopefully this will not happen again.
- It seemed like there was some disconnect at times, this seemed to have arised due to the host using few terms the audience were not that familiar with. Some people came without laptops. Solving problems like this is tricky, but a good starting point could be understanding demographics of attendees, specially in workshops so that for e.g. if a lot of new grad software engineers are attending workshop host can tailor workshop in particular manner
- There were pacing difficulties, few participants felt it was a bit fast, and host felt they were not able to complete as much in detail, but again this point seems to stem from same problem as discussed in last point
- Small activities conducted by hosts prevents fatigue in between talks, we can continue upon the same, we did not do this
- One thing we noticed while talking to participants was it was in between their lunch time and hence a lot of them were hungry. This was first time starting the meetup at 11 am and one of the reasons was that 2 pm a lot of folks including us come to the meetup without lunch which often makes it difficult, however, we need to break early when starting at 11 am so people get a good snacks break and also finish the meetup slightly early so everyone is free by lunch time.
THE UGLY
- Nothing seemed super ugly in this meetup!
All wrapped, it was a fun and engaging first workshop, with many more to come! We will keep improving and do better in the next upcoming workshops. One of the main highlights was a bump in women participation and we hope to continue and get better in future meetups.
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April Meetup 2024
We are happy to inform you the CFP for our April 2024 event themed “FOSS Workshops” is now live!
Date: Saturday, 27th April, 2024
Time: 11 am IST
Venue: MapleLabs, koramangala
CFP
CFP - FOSS Meetup BLR April 2024
Registrations opening soon!
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April 2024 Meetup
CFP Closing soon for our “FOSS Workshops” meetup (1 day to go)
Reserve your seat now!
Celebrating 2 years in May 2024!
Date: 25th May
Time: 11 AM
We are excited to announce Call for Speakers is now live!
Submit your proposals!
CFP
https://platform.fossunited.org/events/blr-may/cfp
Registrations
https://platform.fossunited.org/events/blr-may/rsvp
April 2024 Meetup
We are excited to announce that Aman Manapure will be facilitating the FOSS Workshops on the topic “Mastering Docker”!
Register 
RSVP for FOSS Meetup April 2024
March 2024 MEETUP RETROSPECTIVE
By FOSS United Bangalore Team
Theme: FOSS For Everyone
Stats
- Total RSVP: 395
- Total Attended: ~230+
- Students: ~100+
- Women Attendees: ~50+
The Good
- The venue was well set up, thanks to Navi. Everything was set up, from the video recordings for the meetup to arranged chairs, and people at the front desk to guide meetup participants to the venue at the top floor. The venue was also spacious, allowing us to host a large number of audience.
- Meetup started on time at 11:00 with two wonderful hosts - Shrilakshmi and Fenil and ended on time by 14:45 with a great panel discussion.
- We had many students participating in the meetup, as well as women. Once again we were happy to see the women from Join the Dots. Some of them had traveled from Andhra for the meetup. It also drives the FOSS team to provide greater value in the meetup.
- We started the meeting by asking the audience for a quick introduction of them and the projects they are working on currently.
- The talks were diverse and engaging. We had two talks on the tech-policy side (one of which was about using an open-source tool, ScanCode to detect licenses and copyright issues), one technical talk, and one hardware talk.
- The panel discussion on Sustainability in FOSS covered a core issue concerning FOSS projects. The Panel covered a wide range of topics on how FOSS projects can survive, how monetization can be done, and open-source business models, and the insights from the panel discussion were useful. All the Panelists shared their experiences and insights and the Panel was well moderated by Vasundhara resulting in more impactful discussions.
- The demo in the hardware talk by Amit captured the audience. There was DIY hardware stuff, arranged on a table (once again, thanks to Navi for a great venue) and it engaged everyone in the meetup.
- The audience count turned out to be very high (exceeding beyond expectations) but huge thanks to Navi, they handled it so well and also ordered food twice to ensure everyone was served.
- The recording quality was awesome, and undoubtedly the best till now. We will be uploading it soon. Thanks to Navi for providing such high-quality recordings.
The Bad
- A college has asked students to attend the meetup for marks. The students have to attend the meetup and send their geo-tagged location to verify their attendance. This led to a large influx of students, which is one way good but the incentive structure seems bad.
- Audiences were chatting during the talk, causing disruptions to the speaker as well as other audiences.
The Ugly
- One of the speakers ended up using some abusive words during the talk. We should strictly prohibit this going forward and to make sure this doesn’t happen again, we have added this in the presentation guidelines as well and MCs will also communicate this to the audience before starting the meetup.
Overall the meetup turned out to be absolutely amazing! Highest audience count and highest women participation. The talks were very engaging and diverse as well.
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March 2024 Meetup
The video recordings from our March 2024 meetup themed “FOSS for everyone” are now up on YouTube! 
May Meetup 2024
The CFP for our May 2024 meetup themed “FOSS For Everyone” closes in a week!
Date: 25th May
Time: 11 AM
May 2024 Meetup
CFP Closing soon for our “FOSS For Everyone” themed meetup (1 day to go)
Reserve your seat now!
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May 2024 Meetup
Delighted to share that Shree Kumar, Dammalapati Sai Krishna, Anwesha Sen, Poruri Sai Rahul and Jayasri Vaidyaraman will be joining our exclusive panel discussion on “FOSS and Public Policy: Why should we care?” for our 2nd-year anniversary celebration. 
Register now
RSVP for FOSS Meetup May 2024
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APRIL 2024 MEETUP RETROSPECTIVE
By FOSS United Bangalore Team
Theme: FOSS Workshops
STATS
Total Attendees: ~27
Women attendees: ~10
First time Speaker: 1
THE GOOD
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We conducted our second workshop in April 2024
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MapleLabs provided a really nice venue
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The meetup started around 11:30 and ended by 14:30. Aman took this first workshop and did a nice engaging workshop with a full hands-on activity which the audience enjoyed
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Break in the middle again proved to be nice for networking, there were engaging discussions everywhere
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We again saw great participation from women! Their count has been steadily high since a few meetups
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Quick intros helped everyone get to know each other better from the get-go
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Considering it was a workshop we had a small targeted group, which allowed engaging exchanges and better doubt-solving across the board.
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We continued with our timing of 11 AM, participants always show up on time, thanks to them
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Snacks provided by the host were nice and prevented the audience from going super hungry
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A Handy GitHub repo to follow along helped participants who were stuck due to technical issues catch up fast
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We faced internet issues on the venue, but having online code katas was helpful to not over bulk network requirements with heavy docker images
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Speaker buddies were from the FOSS Team itself this time, they were able to help the audience nicely alongside Aman and it was also encouraging to see everyone helping each other out in general!
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We also started collecting feedback anonymously from the audience starting this meetup onwards. This feedback will be shared with the Speakers and it will help us prepare our future meetups better.
THE BAD
- It seemed like there was some disconnect at times, this seemed to have arisen due to the host using a few terms the audience was not that familiar with. Explaining complex topics can lead to such situations, a good starting point to target this would be more closer inspection of content with speakers
- Small activities conducted by hosts prevent fatigue in between talks, we can continue upon the same, we did not do this
- The snacks arrived ahead of time, but there was a delay in having a break in the workshop. We have been communicating this n with the Speakers but we need to do it better so they are well aware of pausing at the right time.
- In a few scenarios the Speaker was stuck with technical difficulties in demos, and that resulted in a significant break in between presentations distracting participants
- We were not able to start the meetup on time due to internet and technical issues with the venue provider
- Network issues were more frequent during the whole workshop, this distracted participants from the main topic several times.
- While the Speaker showed great effort, there were occasional technical challenges, such as difficulties before starting new concepts, a broken QR code.
To enhance future presentations and ensure a positive experience, have started scheduling meetings with the Speakers to communicate effectively and set clear expectations. Additionally, we will try to review the slides (provided they are shared at least two days before the meetup.)
THE UGLY
- Nothing seemed super ugly in this meetup!
Overall, our second workshop was a good engaging one and we would like to keep doing it more in the future!
July Meetup 2024
We are excited to announce that the CFP for our July 2024 event themed “FOSS Workshops” is now live!
Submit your proposals!
Date: Saturday, 20th July, 2024
Time: 11 AM IST
CFP:
CFP - FOSS Meetup BLR July 2024
Registrations opening soon!
The CFP for our July 2024 meetup themed “FOSS Workshops” closes in a week!
Registrations opening soon!
