- FOSSASIA 2014, Cambodia - conference without Py.
- FOSSASIA 2016, Singapore - conference with Py.
This is how I may summarise the conference.
FOSSASIA, the conference which I have my most fond memories of, this year it was in Singapore.
From last time in Cambodia, year 2014 and this year my life has taken a full turn I am a mother of a 16 months old now, who loves to run in the middle of the talk, whenever mamma is in the middle of the discussion she has also some important inputs to give on that and most importantly when mamma prepairs her slides just shout at the top of her voice. Ohh what an experience it was.
We were there in Singapore 3 days before the conference the reason was twofold -
Kushal had some office and conference related stuff, and
To settle Py down in a different environment so that she does not create a much trouble for us, but this plan just failed like anything.
The only place we went apart from going to the Maxwell Food center before the conference, is the Hackerspace Singapore. What an amazing place it is. It was my first ever visit to any hackerspace. The place has all fascinating stuffs to create something anything new and exciting. It had things technical to cooking stuffs. It had a room full of 3d printers, the thing on which we are having the most discussion and fights whether to buy it or not, people were doing things on it. I loved the posters over there they were so cool. Not to miss that I had the best dinner of my trip, thanks Luthar for suggesting that.
17th we had the all the speakers invited at the Red Hat office Singapore, but thanks to Py I missed it cause she slept at 8 in the morning. But I did manage to go by the lunch time and meet some of the speakers. After having a quick lunch I went to the Red Hat office and started working on my slides. While Py was busy with her Daddy and her new found friend in the office Harish Pillay helped me with my talk. Got some really great inputs from him. Most importantly Harish did give a bottle of Woodwards Gripe Water for Py. It was proved to be quite and help, thank you so much Harish. For dinner we went the steam boat, at Beach road. The names were confusing enough to make people believe that we have sailing boat party near beach road. I met many speakers there also some old friends.
Day 0 of FOSSASIA
18th morning we woke up early and quickly rushed to the conference venue the Science Center. While entering, never miss to mention we saw a big model of Singapore Flag made by lego it was just so perfect and lovely. At the registration desk, near main entrance, I saw Hong Phuc and Mario after such a long time it was so good to see them. I was so surprised how come Hong Phuc is looking the same, isn’t 2 years have past since the last time. The registration was done and I got my first badge as a speaker in a foss conference, yeah. I have attended conference before this but this time it was so different.
Hong Phuc opened the conference in a grand way. She welcomed us to FOSSASIA 2016 and made it clear that if we have any problem then go to the FOSSASIA team not her as she was very busy :). Mario was the next one to speak. He discussed about the theme of this year’s conference - internet of things. Py was really bored by this time and decided to run. Me and the other poor soul, Kushal were trying to catch Py turn by turn.
Harish gave a talk on what happened to him on his way to science center. In his keynote Harish gave a brief history about the FOSS movement, the four freedoms as guaranteed under Free Software and what is the present scenario. He had put it in a very light manner engaging everyone on his talk. In the next session Bunnie Huang talked about his project,from Burning Man 2015. UNESCO people also gave an interesting talk and a real picture of what [UNESCO] (http://en.unesco.org) is doing that it is not only declaring the world heritage sites :) contrary to the public notion. Another interesting talk was there from the Singapore Post about Rethinking Drone Delivery with open Source. Cat Allman gave an insider view of Google’s working on the field of open source.
Lunch was eventful. Py snachted food from someone else’s plate, ate everything plastic glass, plate, spoon but not her food, toppled Kushal’s plate and so on. At 3:30 pm Kushal had his talk on micro bit at the eco garden hall. After almost half an hour’s search we found the hall. The talk was good and basic I did understand it overall.
Day 2 of FOSSASIA
I was in a little late that morning. Again the little mischievous Py managed to fall with her pram at the MRT station. And after an hour of crying, a process to calm her down and understanding if she is really hurt or just scared I managed to reach the venue. I joined the key signing party. Spent some time at the Center for Internet and Society booth. I have heard of it before. I got to know about the Singapore chapter there in more details. At 4.30 pm was the ending ceremony. But it could not get started on time because the power went off, some real engineering problems indeed. Hong Phuc and Mario ended it by conveying their thanks and gratitudes to everyone. Apparently there were 200 plus speakers of 32 different nationality with 1000+ attendee. They invited all the speakers to share their experiences. I had to leave the hall, and I guess the reason is by now known to everyone.
I could not say this that time but I will take the opportunity to thank FOSSASIA for giving me the platform and introducing me to this new world.