1   15 October, 2019
 2
 3PyCon India 2019 wrap-up
 4
 5Pretty fun weekend, I'd say
 6
 7   I'm writing this article as I sit in class, back on the grind. Last
 8   weekend -- Oct 12th and 13th---was PyCon India 2019, in Chennai, India.
 9   It was my first PyCon, and my first ever talk at a major conference!
10   This is an account of the all the cool stuff I saw, people I met and
11   the talks I enjoyed. Forgive the lack of pictures -- I prefer living
12   the moment through my eyes.
13
14Talks
15
16   So much ML! Not that it's a bad thing, but definitely interesting to
17   note. From what I counted, there were about 17 talks tagged under "Data
18   Science, Machine Learning and AI". I'd have liked to see more talks
19   discussing security and privacy, but hey, the organizers can only pick
20   from what's submitted. ;)
21
22   With that point out of the way, here are some of the talks I really
23   liked:
24     * Python Packaging - where we are and where we're headed by
25       [1]Pradyun
26     * Micropython: Building a Physical Inventory Search Engine by
27       [2]Vinay
28     * Ragabot - Music Encoded by [3]Vikrant
29     * Let's Hunt a Memory Leak by [4]Sanket
30     * oh and of course, [5]David Beazley's closing keynote
31
32My talk (!!!)
33
34   My good buddy [6]Raghav and I spoke about our smart lock security
35   research. Agreed, it might have been less "hardware" and more of a bug
36   on the server-side, but that's the thing about IoT right? It's so
37   multi-faceted, and is an amalgamation of so many different hardware and
38   software stacks. But, anyway...
39
40   I was reassured by folks after the talk that the silence during Q/A was
41   the "good" kind of silence. Was it really? I'll never know.
42
43Some nice people I met
44
45     * [7]Abhirath -- A 200 IQ lad. Talked to me about everything from
46       computational biology to the physical implementation of quantum
47       computers.
48     * [8]Abin -- He recognized me from my [9]r/unixporn posts, which was
49       pretty awesome.
50     * [10]Abhishek
51     * Pradyun and Vikrant (linked earlier)
52
53   And a lot of other people doing really great stuff, whose names I'm
54   forgetting.
55
56Pictures!
57
58   It's not much, and I can't be bothered to format them like a collage or
59   whatever, so I'll just dump them here -- as is.
60
61   nice badge awkward smile! me talking s443 @ pycon
62
63C'est tout
64
65   Overall, a great time and a weekend well spent. It was very different
66   from your typical security conference -- a lot more chill, if you will.
67   The organizers did a fantastic job and the entire event was put
68   together really well. I don't have much else to say, but I know for
69   sure that I'll be there next time.
70
71   That was PyCon India, 2019.
72
73References
74
75   1. https://twitter.com/pradyunsg
76   2. https://twitter.com/stonecharioteer
77   3. https://twitter.com/vikipedia
78   4. https://twitter.com/sankeyplus
79   5. https://twitter.com/dabeaz
80   6. https://twitter.com/_vologue
81   7. https://twitter.com/abhirathb
82   8. https://twitter.com/meain_
83   9. https://reddit.com/r/unixporn
84  10. https://twitter.com/h6165