Blurring the lines between Communities that organize IndiaFOSS and those that participate in IndiaFOSS
When we look at IndiaFOSS 2025, we see a clear distinction between the communities that organize the conference and those that participate in the conference. For instance, most of the volunteers of IndiaFOSS 2025 are also active volunteers of a FOSS United Community, for instance a city chapter or a student club. But we were able to platform a significant number of Project booths and Community Partners, including multiple booths that had 2 or more participants. [Check and insert the number of free tickets that are provided to each booth. I think 2 free tickets are provided AFAIK].
This put us in a weird space - the event was vibrant, and from what we’ve heard, the booths had a great experience overall, but the event volunteers were overburdened. We cannot afford to repeat the same situation this year.
Additionally, IndiaFOSS is moving away from a “conference”-focused branding to a “festival”-focused branding. While this rebranding is necessary, we will only be doing lip service to rebranding if the people who organize the festival don’t meaningfully represent the people who participate in the festival. Every year, we have noticed how IndiaFOSS has become diverse and vibrant, thanks to the inclusion of a broader range of communities in the event.
The time has come to move from participation to creation/curation.
What could IndiaFOSS 2026 look like?
The following things are happening during the festival
- Talks, Panel discussions, Birds of a Feather, and Workshops
- Sponsor Booths (downstairs)
- Community and Project Booths (upstairs)
- Devrooms
Community and Project Booths
Seeking additional volunteers from the Community and Project Booths feels like the easiest way forward. We had 60 booths and 4 community partners last year, and if we could get at least 1 good volunteer from them, we would have more than 50 volunteers. For IndiaFOSS 2026, we are expecting to feature close to 100 communities and projects, so we should be able to choose from a large sample of potential volunteers.
Sponsors
We could ask the Sponsors to consider chipping in volunteers, either for pre-festival volunteering help, or for on-the-ground help during the festival. In the past, a few sponsors have offered us help with volunteering. Volunteers from a sponsor can lend credibility to the org as they are willing to go beyond financial support. COSS organizations get a 50% discount on the sponsorship amount, so we could nudge them harder to nominate a few volunteers.
Volunteers from a sponsor will also hopefully make them better understand the kind of effort that goes into organizing a festival like IndiaFOSS, and convince them to stay involved with the festival/FOSS United long term.
Devrooms
Devrooms were already stretched last year, in terms of volunteer capacity. Most of the devrooms were operating with 2-4 active volunteers, which wasn’t sufficient to keep up with the festival volunteers. Devrooms were experimental last year, but they are definitely a part of IndiaFOSS going forward, and if we want to strengthen our relationship with the devroom organizers/organizing communities, we should consider both offering them additional support and also seeking additional support from them.
How can we get “good” volunteers from the Communities that participate in IndiaFOSS?
Asking Community and Project Booths, Sponsors, and Devrooms to recommend volunteers is easy. Filtering and working with them is the hard part. What incentives can we establish to ensure that we end up with “good” volunteers?
The carrot
We’re changing Community and Project Booths this year - by default, a booth will only be approved for 1 day, and the bar will be higher if they seek a booth for both days of the event. We could use active volunteering to decide whether a booth will be granted for only one day or both days of the event.
Active volunteering from the Booths also opens up the possibility of the FOSS United Foundation continuing to engage with them in the future. For instance, an active Project Booth could be eligible for financial aid to participate in other events in the future, and an active Community Booth could be eligible for financial aid to organize their own events and/or co-organize events with the FOSS United community.
The stick
This is pretty easy - a “bad” volunteer will tarnish the reputation of the community that recommended them. Reputation loss directly leads to a reduced likelihood of the community participating in IndiaFOSS in the future. For instance, if a community or project booth recommends a volunteer who doesn’t follow through, it will reduce the chances of the community or project booth getting a spot next year.
In addition, a “bad” volunteer will reduce the likelihood of round-the-year engagement or support from the FOSS United Foundation.
Existing evidence
The FOSS United Foundation has engaged, financially supported, and worked with the following Project and Community Booths before and after IndiaFOSS 2025 - XenevaOS, FOSS MEC, Zasper, Rethink DNS+Firewall, CircuitVerse, Prav, FOSSEE, KDE Community, OASIS, Takshashila Institution, SFLC.in, OSM India, Build for Bharat Fellowship, etc. IndiaFOSS is a high signal-to-noise festival when it comes to discovering new Projects and Communities, and it’s a win-win for the Communities and Projects, enabling them to get to know one another and hopefully work with one another.
Second-order benefits
Organizing community events is a skill that requires significant practice, and we need a lot more people in the Indian FOSS/Digital Commons ecosystems to understand how to organize events that are frugal and inclusive. Enabling volunteers from a diverse range of Communities and Projects to practice this skill opens up the possibility of them organizing their own events in the future.
At the very least, it makes a larger group of people appreciate the sweat and tears (thankfully no blood so far) that go into making IndiaFOSS happen.
Making this happen
- Call for proposals/booths/devrooms/sponsors will include messaging about call for volunteers
- Community and Project Booth applications will specifically request that they share the call for volunteers within their respective communities/projects, and to nominate one or more volunteers to help organize IndiaFOSS. The applications will also include messaging about the fact that active volunteering ahead of the event will increase the chance of getting approved, and getting a booth for both days of the event
- Conversations with potential sponsors include messaging about the call for volunteers, e.g., request that the call for volunteers be shared with relevant people internally, and that the sponsor nominate a few people as potential volunteers
What would this look like?
~70 volunteers for IndiaFOSS 2025 Co-chairs, volunteers, devroom managers, reviewers. This number should likely be closer to ~100 volunteers across various volunteering activities for the event, including before the event and during the event.
The “bigger” picture
The messaging about FOSS United Foundation has changed in 2026. An important aspect of our work at the Foundation is to create a “tightly networked” FOSS ecosystem in India, and moving IndiaFOSS to seek deeper participation from the respective communities is a step towards building this “tightly networked” FOSS ecosystem.
