fossmeet in Delhi/NCR

Asked the students at NIT Calicut to share their experience here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/fossmeetnitc/2t6r3Y9oIIA

Acharya Narendra Dev college could be one option, IIT Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamiaya could be another option.

We can try and contact folks at JMILug http://www.jmilug.org/ or https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/linux-user-group-jmi

@praveenarimbrathod - Nice suggestions (Acharya Narendra Dev college could be one option, IIT Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamiaya) Lets contact JMI and IIT Delhi !

I talked to Parin and he has contacts in IITD.

We had a few people from JMI at the Hamara Conference - so i'll reach out to them too.

Hello everyone.
I am Shivam (final year B.Tech Comp. Engg student) from JMI (Jamia Millia Islamia).
According to the academic schedule, we are available before 10th Apr. So, there are 2 options-

1. The tentative dates of our annual technical CSI fest are 3-5 Apr. So, you can organize the event around those dates.
2. Else, there is Holi week or any other weekend you want before 10th Apr and excluding the dates 3-5 Apr.

The tentative dates of our annual technical CSI fest are 3-5 Apr. So, you can organize the event around those dates.

Please don't mix up with other tech events if possible. I know its convenient but we had some bad experiences of crowds ending up else where. Another good reason is that if there are other events are the enthusiastic crowds are busy organising that event and this one might not get volunteers or even attendees.:frowning2:

I know its convenient but we had some bad experiences of crowds ending up else where. Another good reason is that if there are other events are the enthusiastic crowds are busy organising that event and this one might not get volunteers or even attendees.

May be you are right, but in the past, we have organized 2 open events where no such problems occurred. Organizing it with the fest also helped in marketing of the event (we had a very tight budget) which I guess is not a problem here. You obviously have a better experience so you might be right about the mixups and volunteers.

Isn't april too early for an event? We need call for talks and people booking tickets. Wouldnt it all take time? Or is it planned to be a local event where people come from NCR or max nearby states?

Yes, April did seem a little early to me as well, but that's the only time window JMI will be able to provide. After 10th Apr we'll have mid-sems (so, no availability of labs and volunteers) then assignment submission week will start and then end sems will come. So, April is the only time window available.

So, April is the only time window available.

I understand that scheduling :calendar_spiral:

What about some time later like after the summer holidays? We could plan it well if we get more time. In this case the plan is to make a national level event.

What about some time later like after the summer holidays? We could plan it well if we get more time. In this case the plan is to make a national level event.

Okay, so the academic schedule after April will be - End semester exams for almost whole of May. So, if the event can be organized within 1st week of June then we will be able to get the volunteers else majority juniors will go to their homes during the holidays. But with only one week after the exams, I don't know how much preparations we'll be able to do.

Then, during the summer break (Whole June and most of July) I don't know how many volunteers will be available for the organizations. Plus, we'll probably start with our jobs so it's kinda uncertain.

Next is organizing it after the summer break. Now, you'll be able to get a plenty volunteers around that time. But, we (current batch) won't be there. So, you'll have to work with our juniors. We can only help from outside. :)

Plus, we'll probably start with our jobs so it's kinda uncertain.

Ahh now I understand, thanks for explaining. My suggestion would be to go ahead with the first plan of april. We could start small and then probably have some team building ideas and improve the contacts with the juniors. We could plan a bigger scale event later.

@pavithrans this is a great suggestion. We can do a FOSS Meet@JMI 2016.0 as a small event with only Delhi/NCR speakers. Then we can do a bigger 2016.1 later with invited speakers (cfp/talk funnel). This will also give confidence to Shivam's juniors and community gets to interact with them as well.

@shivamrana @shreyas @vik what say you?

General Question on dates:

Isn't april too early for an event? We need call for talks and people booking tickets. Wouldnt it all take time? Or is it planned to be a local event where people come from NCR or max nearby states?

@pavithrans April seems too soon to me

Organizing it with the fest also helped in marketing of the event

I agree it becomes simple as they can be combined but the point I was making is we would be spreading ourselves too thin and the message might be lost. Another good reason to make it a dedicated FOSS event is to bring crowds and volunteers including marketing from other FOSS volunteers spread across the north. Its long time since there was a big event in the north after Freedel . Imagine that crowd and think if you want to combine such a potential event with another event.

I understand I am asking too much by asking to think big but there is a potential and we do have a growing Foss crowd in NCR region and around with no Foss event in big scale. :wink:

@vik - What do you suggest - 1st week of June is okay ?

@praveenarimbrathod - This seems fine, arranging a small event for Delhi/NCR but April first week seems a bit early to me. We can try and arrange it.

@vik - Please suggest ?

@vik @praveenarimbrathod I agree its too early. Do it small. :baby: It all depends now on @shivamrana about how to plan a event quickly. Normally if the college guys are comfortable with the date and time then they would do an event very easily as they are experienced in all these issues. What say shivam?
Marketing also could be handled by them for the first event as its small scale. :tada:

@praveenarimbrathod @shreyas It does seem short notice for an event - but it depends on the size and number of speakers. Personally I would rather spend time and effort on the bigger event but am open to both approaches.

I am so sorry guys I haven't replied yet. I had an internship, which ended this Saturday. So, I was busy for the past 2-3 days.

To summarize this whole thing,

• We are planning to organize a mini event (2016.0) this April and then we'll see for the bigger one (2016.1) later during the Summers.
• We (JMI) have to provide the infra for the event and of course majority of the marketing will be done by us as well.

[If something was left, then do mention it.]

I have some questions regarding the requirements.

• What support will we be getting from the Hamaralinux community? (Goodies, Food, Marketing, Volunteers, Speakers, etc)
• If we can get some specifics about the requirements (rooms, labs, auditorium, router, internet) then it'd be easy to move forward and plan accordingly. Also, I know, it mostly depends on the marketing, but still can we know a tentative strength based on your previous meetups?
• What else do they require from us?
• So the fest I mentioned previously, kind of, is getting converted more into a technical fest. So, there will be a hackathon as well. If you want then we can combine the hackathon with this event. This is just a suggestion. If we can't do that then its perfectly fine.
• We are still undecided on the date. Can we fix the date?

@vik @praveenarimbrathod @shreyas

Is the date confirmed now?

@rajudvindane , @shivamrana needs a confirmation from the local community, you @vik or @shreyas .

I met @shivamrana yesterday evening to discuss about the organization of the event. We decided this to be a single day event with 3-4 parallel tracks. Could be multiple days if the people want it to be. Regarding the date we are still uncertain as the dates for the college fest at JMI are still not clear, also they are supposed to schedule some hackathon by some company there. We don't want our dates to conflict with these dates.

@shivamrana - Do you have the final dates for the fest ?

Okay. So things have changed a bit. There's no fest but there are other things that are going to happen around those dates.

• We were also talking to Mozilla and they are interested to have a session with 4-5 talks. So, we can talk to them to be a part of one track out of the 3 we are planning to have. But, we'll have to decide on a date and then talk to them if they are available during that time.

2-3 Apr

• Pretty late for us to even plan for these date.
• There's other event going to happen during which the auditorium will be occupied so, we wont be able to get a place for our keynote.

8-9 Apr

• A bit suitable for us.
• There's also an overnight hackathon on these dates only. So, there was a possibility of this meet happening from 10 am to 5 pm and then from 6 pm the hackathon will continue.
• During these dates there's going to be another fest of another faculty so again Auditorium problems.
• On 9th there's going to be a talk by someone from Amazon on Cloud Computing under the flag of IEEE CS. Timings for them will be from 12 noon to 1 pm. We can get the auditorium for the keynote from 10 am to 12 pm but then it'd be advertised as an IEEE CS event.
• Here there is that problem of crowd getting mixed with other events.

23-24 Apr/30th Apr-01 May

• These dates are quite open for us.
• We'll have final exams from 5th or 6th May so these two weekends are the only ones available.
• I'll have my mid semester exams from 18 till 22, so apart that time, I'll be available for all the preparations.
• We can talk to Mozilla for these dates as well. Hopefully they'll agree.

Taking it on 8-9 April
will mean there would be too many events in your college on the same day at the same time. That is not an ideal situation for any event. People who are supposed to join in at FOSSMeet might get diverted to other events and college fests. That will mean low or very low attendance to FOSSMeet.

On 23-24 April
This will conflict with the dates of GNOME Asia Summit. It is scheduled to be from 21-24 April.

30thApril and 1st may
seems to me as the ideal dates, but I personally might not be able to join in on these dates due to my University exam schedule. Others can go ahead and help organize the conference on the scheduled dates.

Thanks @rajudvindane and @shivamrana .
I also feel that 30thApril and 1st may are the best dates. @vik - Please suggest

@shivamrana - further to our conversation, please can you add your immediate juniors here. We will plan for the Fossmeet !

Yeah. I have tagged all the responsible peoples. Some might pitch in later.
@ashharhasan @pulkitgupta @shikha @fatimamunawwar @maseeraali

Thanks @shivamrana !
@ashharhasan @pulkitgupta @shikha @fatimamunawwar @maseeraali - Welcome to the team.
Can you share the dates for the month of August when we can schedule this meet ?