Nomination | Ashutosh Pandey - 2026 GB Elections

[Ashutosh_Pandey]

After discussions with @Shree_Kumar, I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring.

About me:

Name: Ashutosh Pandey
Bio: I am a Compiler Engineer who has spent the last 7 years building various communities, meetups and the ecosystems to sustain them. I’ve been involved in 50+ Hackathons in some or the other capacity (participant, mentor, organizer, jury)
Location: Bangalore
Personal site/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashupdsce/ , https://x.com/ashpande18
Home community: LLVM Social Bangalore , Point Blank
Years of association with FOSS/digital commons: 7+ years (Point Blank), 5+ years (LLVM Bangalore).

About my work:

Some of the things I’ve been involved in:

• LLVM Social Bangalore: I co-organize LLVM Social Bangalore, a recurring meetup for compiler engineers, researchers, students, and PL enthusiasts. The community has grown from roughly 600 members to 3,500+ members, with 50+ events around LLVM, Clang, MLIR, GCC, compiler infrastructure, language tooling, and related systems topics. This is now the largest compiler meetup in the world.

• Making compiler tooling more accessible: Through LLVM Social, I helped organize and present a 10-talk “Introduction to Common Compiler Tools” series, which introduced 800+ developers to LLVM IR, Clang, opt, llvm-mc, and the broader compiler toolchain.

• IICT — Innovations in Compiler Technology: I helped build IICT as a dedicated India-focused workshop for compiler researchers, industry engineers, students, and open-source contributors. IICT started with 200+ attendees in 2024, grew to 380+ attendees at IISc in 2025, and I am serving as Chair of the Organizing Committee for IICT 2026.

• SEGFAULT Hackathon: I organized SEGFAULT, India’s first compiler-themed hackathon, co-located with IICT 2025. It brought together 48 teams and 100+ participants to build projects around compiler frameworks, domain-specific languages, program analysis, AI/ML compilers, and developer tooling. SEGFAULT will be returning at IICT 2026.

• IndiaFOSS Devrooms: I managed the Compilers, Programming Languages and Systems devroom at IndiaFOSS 2025 (India’s biggest F/OSS conference), curating talks that introduced a broader FOSS audience to open compiler/tooling work. The devroom is also returning for IndiaFOSS 2026.

• Point Blank: I founded Point Blank at Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering in 2019. It started as a student tech community and has grown into a strong pipeline for open-source, hackathons, systems work, and peer-led mentorship. Members and alumni have contributed to several open-source ecosystems and regularly volunteer at IndiaFOSS, Rust India, IICT, LLVM Social Bangalore, and other technical communities. Point Blank is now nominated for Student community of the year at IndiaFOSS awards 2026.

• Student open-source pipeline: Through Point Blank, we’ve helped students move from “I don’t know where to start” to contributing to real open-source projects. The community has produced GSoC 36 contributors, mentors, 90 SIH winners, ICPC regionalists, and engineers who have gone on to work at companies including AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Visa, and others. Combined, Point Blank mentees have produced 1100+ Pull requests across 178 projects!

• Talks and workshops: I’ve delivered talks and workshops on FOSS, systems, compiler tooling, and how to get started in low-level engineering at venues including FOSS Talks 4.0, IIT Hyderabad, CDAC SuperComputingIndia 2025, IndiaFOSS, LLVM Social Bangalore, and other community spaces.

• Hackathons and SIH: I’ve been involved with hackathons as a participant, organizer, mentor, and judge. I have served as a Smart India Hackathon evaluator and mentor, including evaluating hundreds of ideas and serving as one of the AICTE mentors for SIH 2025. I have also judged or mentored events such as Sandbox, Aventus, Hackman, CentuRITon, HackColossus, Zenith, and others.

• Social media outreach: Through LinkedIn, I regularly share opportunities, events, technical resources, student guidance, and thoughts on compilers, FOSS, systems engineering, and community building. The goal is to make deep technical fields feel less intimidating and more reachable for Indian students and early-career engineers. I received the Top Voice badge on LinkedIn and have 21,000 followers.

• Fun OCAML 2027 : Working with Prof. KC Sivaramakrishnan from IIT Madras to organize FunCAML OCaml event in Bangalore, India. I am also closely working with him on his Functional Programming Launchpad initiative, which is a center at IITM.

• ACM SIGPLAN INDIA Chapter : I am one of the initial 15 members of this chapter, which will oversee compiler education and outreach across the country.

  My FOSS/digital commons journey: Like many others, my FOSS journey began with Google Summer of Code. I was a mentee with Arduino in 2020 where I worked on transpiling C/C++ (Arduino) code to Micropython. My other experiences include being a Linux Foundation Mentee with ELISA (Intel Mobileye) where I worked on enabling code coverage for the GNU C Library for ISO 26262 standards. I interned at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and also for Element14 (Open Source Hardware). Since 2021, I’ve been working with the Compiler team at AMD, which upstreams code to the LLVM and GCC compiler infrastructures.

  How and when I came across the FOSS United community: I gave a talk at IndiaFOSS 2024 : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wegPULgNDWI](https://LLVM Bangalore @ IndiaFOSS, Scaling a niche community to 2100 members and beyond!)

  Why I am running for the Governing Board: I believe FOSS United has immense potential to reach every single university in India and help students build the next generation of digital commons. My experience with building similar communities at scale could be of use to FOSS United.

  Why would I be a good fit (What prior long-term volunteering experience do you have): Building and scaling Point Blank, LLVM Social Bangalore, Innovations in Compiler Technology Workshop and the SEGFAULT Hackathon has given me a good idea of the kind of problems FOSS United and IndiaFOSS have to tackle on a regular basis. Moreover, I’ve been involved with IndiaFOSS as a devroom manager since the last 2 years, and consequently know FOSS United leadership quite well already.

  Things I would like to focus on as a GB member: Improving the Season of Commits programme, Improving the student clubs programme as well as FOSSHack. These three are where I feel I can contribute the most.

  Optional: Anything else you’d like to share with the community. For instance, what impact or change do you want to bring about in the FOSS United or the Indian FOSS community?

I would like to introduce more people to the idea of FOSS contributions beyond code - running communities, advocacy, mentorship etc. All are meaningful ways to contribute to FOSS.

[amruth_pillai]

Can’t think of anyone else who deserves this more!

[Pratik_Singh]

I’m Pratik Singh, working as a DevOps engineer at GitLab.
I wouldn’t be 10% of an engineer if it was for @Ashutosh_Pandey . He has mentored me over the years. He introduced me to Open Source. I went ahead and got awarded the Linux Foundation Scholarship. Started my DevOps journey, after he introduced me to CNCF. I was a GitHub extern because introduced the program to me. I failed to get into Google Summer of Code, but I still in touch with contributors of the org to help them. He has founded the organisation Point Blank back in 2019. And I’m proud to tell I was the first recruit of this community. He motivated me to go beyond code. I have started communities, and contributed to several over years. He encouraged me to share my ideas over events. I have given talks at Open Source Summit, Kubecon, FOSS in the North, DevOps Days, FOSSASIA and several others.
I still contribute to CNCF projects and some more projects over the years.
Everything is possible because of the mentorship he has provided to me and several others!

[Arun]

I would like to endorse Ashutosh. I have been following his community work/contributions for the last 4-5 years, like organizing the compilers meetup, point blank community. He brings in a lot of energy, dedication to the community. Above all, he works with lots of students, guiding them, mentoring them which I feel is much needed.

[skysingh04]

I’m Akash Singh, I work as a Devops and MLOps Engineer at Sabi and the Cloud and Devops Devroom Manager at IndiaFoss this year.
Without a doubt @Ashutosh_Pandey is the reason me and so many engineers at Point Blank are the engineers at we are thanks to him. He is one of the pillars that keep our OSS community running purely due to his guidance and mentorship.
I owe my entire open source career across years of mentorship programs like GSoC and LFX and contribution to the CNCF landscape to him. Thanks to him, me and so many others guided by him travel across the world and India also teaching and mentoring upcoming OSS contributors just like he did across so many years for us.
He is still the person we all would reach out to for any and all things FOSS, he has my full endorsement for the elections.

[Rahul_K]

I have been a part of Point Blank for over 4 years now. @Ashutosh_Pandey is an exemplary leader. He is passionate about what he does and has guided several students towards success. I genuinely commend his efforts towards open source community contributions.

[Rishabh_Lakhotia]

Running a community needs a selfish leader for whom the community as a whole is more important than oneself, and I don’t think I have ever seen someone as good as Ashutosh in that regard. He has always put others first even at the cost of himself, especially while managing PointBlank as I have witnessed first-hand.

The community needs more people like him, and he truly deserves it!

[rahul_jagwani]

I am Rahul, Founding Engineer at Breathe ESG. Without @Ashutosh_Pandey, I don’t think I would have been a good engineer. He has mentored me for Google Summer of Code along with a lot of students. He truly is a great example of an exceptional and deserving leader.

[aj_183]

Ashutosh has been the mentor I was looking for. I was immensely benefited from the community (PointBlank) Ashutosh has built in our college. He is very approachable and always there to help his fellow engineers out.

[soumya_pattanayak]

I’m Soumya. I co-founded Point Blank with Ashutosh in 2019, and having worked with him on the community for more than 7 years, I can wholeheartedly endorse him.

His dedication to spreading open source is awe-inspiring. Over the years, he has mentored countless people into participating in OSS, make their first contribution, helped foster and grow communities, and has probably put in more work behind the scenes than anyone else to keep them going.

More than anything, Ashutosh genuinely cares about the people in these communities. He’s there for every deadline, new opportunity, talk, project, and competition, making sure more people get the chance to participate in open source.

I can’t think of many people better suited for the FOSS United Governing Board, and I’m very happy to support his nomination.

[alfiyafatima09]

I am Alfiya Fatima, a technology consultant at Microsoft. I have always seen Ashutosh Bhaiya as an inspiration. No matter what the situation is, he always stands for the good of the community . I have seen him being there for the community during Open Source programs like Gsoc and LFX !!!

It’s been 3 years in Point Blank, and I see him as a versatile person who involves himself in Open Source, Competitive exams, Conferences and Talks, Mentorship for the hackathons, Discussing random interesting ideas, Talking about Physics, Space, Compiler theories and what not!!

I have always admired how effortlessly he shares what he knows and gives back to the community. I can confidently vouch for him!!

[mohit_agarwal]

@Ashutosh_Pandey is the GOAT.
I had the opportunity to work with him, co-founding pointblank.club, and no one understand and care about community more then @Ashutosh_Pandey.
It will be a win for the open source world to have @Ashutosh_Pandey taking charge.

Vote for @Ashutosh_Pandey

[gaurav_sarkar]

I’m Gaurav Sarkar, a researcher, builder, and founder working in AI.

I genuinely wouldn’t be where I am today without @Ashutosh_Pandey

He has been one of the most important mentors in my journey and has guided me through some of the biggest decisions and opportunities in my career.

From the very beginning, he encouraged me to explore beyond academics and just start building. He introduced me to communities, research, open source, and opportunities that I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own.

He guided me through my MITACS journey, helped me understand how research works, and encouraged me to apply for opportunities like Google Summer of Code, SIH etc. More importantly, he taught me how to approach these opportunities, how to reach out to people, and how to keep going even when things don’t work out.

A lot of my journey in AI and research started because he pushed me to take that first step.

Over the years, that led me to fellowships and internships with Hugging Face, OpenMined, Mitacs, Wells Fargo and eventually roles at Intel and AMD.

He was also one of the people who constantly pushed me to share my work instead of just keeping it to myself — whether it was research, projects, or ideas I was experimenting with.

Today, I’m building Indilingo, working on AI-powered language learning, and building SuperLazy, a memory and context layer for AI agent fleets. I’m also fortunate to be doing research in LLMs and have had the opportunity to publish work at conferences like ACL and EMNLP.

Looking back, there are so many moments where I can trace an opportunity back to a conversation with Ashutosh Bhaiya.

But what I value most isn’t just the opportunities.

It’s the mindset he gave me.

To be curious.
To build.
To reach out.
To contribute.
To share what you learn.
And most importantly, to help others once you’ve learned something yourself.

A huge part of where I am today is because someone believed in me before I had much to show for it.

Thank you, Ashutosh Bhaiya, for always guiding me, pushing me, and believing in me.

I hope I can pay forward even a fraction of what you’ve done for me and for so many others.

[calan_pereira]

I’m Calan Pereira , working as a SSE at a hedge fund analytics company [Arcana Analytics] formerly worked at Directi.
@Ashutosh_Pandey Was a great mentor for all of us back in my batch of 2019 and he has held that till date, he is one of the most approachable person when it comes to guidance and mentorship and also any doubts or generic advises , he always answers the questions with a very logical answer. Apart from this he is extremely good at his work in compilers and has a very deep knowledge on wide varity of topics, that pretty obvious when u actually talk to him and get to know him.

[prakhar_tibrewal]

Hey, I’m Prakhar, SWE at JP Morgan Chase.
I have known @Ashutosh_Pandey since my first year of college when he was building Point Blank.
With Ashutosh, building a tech community has never been about just running a club or ticking off hackathons and contests. He genuinely cares about the culture—mentoring juniors, helping people get hands-on with real tech, and showing everyone what giving back actually looks like. He completely lives the open-source mindset: building alongside others, sharing knowledge freely, and constantly lifting people up around him. He’s the backbone of our community, and he truly deserves this.

[yashwant_singh]

Having known Ashutosh for years, as a college senior, fellow member of a coding club, a colleague and most recently as a person leading the effort introducing and educating people about a foss and compilers. I can confidently say Ashutosh has to be one of the best people I know for the job. To this day he finds time to mentor juniors, guide them and help them network in vastly diverse sub domains of computer science. I would not repeat the multiple things he manages or have managed in the past, just highlighting he does have the track record.

Cheers!!

[aman_lodha]

I’m Aman Lodha, I’ve known @Ashutosh_Pandey for the better part of a decade, and I can confidently say that he’s someone I would trust to build and nurture a community.

His technical expertise is already out in the open, but what truly sets him apart is his ability to build strong interpersonal relationships, think deeply about the long-term future of a community, and consistently make himself available to his peers and fellow community members.

Ashutosh is relentless and consistent in his pursuits, and he brings the kind of commitment, thoughtfulness, and dependability that strong communities are built on. I genuinely believe the FOSSIndia community would benefit immensely from having someone like him involved.

[sreeniketh_madgula]

@Ashutosh_Pandey, his reputation precedes him, needless to say in the world of open source.
As his college junior, I’ve always looked up to him as a mentor. He has guided numerous students and aspiring developers through hackathons, tech meetups and open-source programs such as GSoC, LFX etc., helping them not just with technical skills but also with finding their place in the broader community.
He has also made sincere efforts as a leader to build a culture of exploring technology, going deeper into it, and ultimately giving back to the community.
As one of the founders of Point Blank, he has helped create an ecosystem which helps students make the most of their four years at college, honing their skills and shaping their futures in tech.
The number of people who have benefited from his mentorship is itself a testament to his contribution. I’m glad to add my voice in support of his nomination.