Technical Conference: The wild card for networking

I went to my first in-person technical conference as a speaker. Although as a speaker we share our experiences with the audience, little did I know I'd be gaining way more back just by attending.

Note: My blog will be covering the impact of international technical conferences. The experience and impact vary on national and regional levels.

Part One: I know little about tech

Get Inspired

By meeting other folks like you from across the globe, you may think only the best and the most successful people make it to conferences. You couldn't be more wrong. A lot of conferences encourage and consist of first-timers. If you are a person who loves technology, wants to share ideas with other folks in your community, and is willing to keep an open mind to learn more, you are a first-timer and should attend the conference.

Linux Foundation events are a great place to find first-timer conferences.

A place for everyone

Tech conferences are extremely welcoming and safe spaces for everyone regardless of their background.

The Linux Foundation, for example, has strict regulations to make sure every attendee feels welcome at the conference.

Pronoun stickers and safety instructions encourage inclusive and welcoming communication among attendees.

Travel funds

Linux Foundation has dedicated travel funds and scholarships for most of its events to aid folks who are extremely passionate to attend a conference but are restricted due to travel funding.

My travel to Open Source Summit was funded by the Linux Foundation as I was a first-timer, passionate, and a speaker.

Ice-breaker events

Travel the city, participate in mini-events, and go out to conference or sponsor parties. There's lots of fun involved in a conference, in most cases more than you can consume.

Trust the numbers

Read the post-event report for Open Source Summit North America 2022 to know detailed statistics about the conference.

Part Two: I know a lot about tech

Inspire others

By sharing your story, you will be meeting lots of newbies interested in your domain of expertise. Talking to them and sharing your experience is a great way to inspire and help out beginners in tech.

Network for better opportunities

You may be extremely talented with tons of open source contributions, but to grow, you need to let others know of your contributions. At conferences like Open Source Summit, you get to meet a lot of technology world leaders, startups, and big tech companies hunting for talent like yours. All you need to do is network with them and speak for your work.

Left: Shivay Lamba (DevRel at Meilisearch). Center: Hilary Carter (Director, Linux Foundation Research).

Grow beyond expertise

I am familiar with quite a handful of open source technologies. That's why at Open Source Summit, I threw myself among Cloud Native talks and conversations, becoming a beginner again and exploring a new learning curve ahead of me.

This realization is equally exciting and important for my growth as a developer. As we gain expertise in a specific technology, the growth slows as exploration goes down.

Note: If you have attended a handful of conferences and can afford to travel, let others have the scholarship or travel funding event if granted.

Part Three: My Talk

Take a look at my lightning talk at Open Source Summit North America as I share my experience of using rejections as an asset to become a better community leader.

About Me

I am Ashwin Kumar Uppala, a final year engineering student from the Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology, Hyderabad, India. I am the co-founder and lead of Hackerabad, an MLH Coach and Top 50 candidate, a GitHub Campus Expert, a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador, and a CodeChef Chapter Leader.

In the past 15 months, I have won 12 Global Hackathons and got accepted to speak at 5 international developer conferences named Open Source Summit, KubeCon, DevOps World, DevConf US, and CodeBar Festival.

Feel free to connect with me over Twitter.