15 October, 2019

PyCon India 2019 wrap-up

Pretty fun weekend, I'd say

   I'm writing this article as I sit in class, back on the grind. Last
   weekend -- Oct 12th and 13th---was PyCon India 2019, in Chennai, India.
   It was my first PyCon, and my first ever talk at a major conference!
   This is an account of the all the cool stuff I saw, people I met and
   the talks I enjoyed. Forgive the lack of pictures -- I prefer living
   the moment through my eyes.

Talks

   So much ML! Not that it's a bad thing, but definitely interesting to
   note. From what I counted, there were about 17 talks tagged under "Data
   Science, Machine Learning and AI". I'd have liked to see more talks
   discussing security and privacy, but hey, the organizers can only pick
   from what's submitted. ;)

   With that point out of the way, here are some of the talks I really
   liked:
     * Python Packaging - where we are and where we're headed by
       [1]Pradyun
     * Micropython: Building a Physical Inventory Search Engine by
       [2]Vinay
     * Ragabot - Music Encoded by [3]Vikrant
     * Let's Hunt a Memory Leak by [4]Sanket
     * oh and of course, [5]David Beazley's closing keynote

My talk (!!!)

   My good buddy [6]Raghav and I spoke about our smart lock security
   research. Agreed, it might have been less "hardware" and more of a bug
   on the server-side, but that's the thing about IoT right? It's so
   multi-faceted, and is an amalgamation of so many different hardware and
   software stacks. But, anyway...

   I was reassured by folks after the talk that the silence during Q/A was
   the "good" kind of silence. Was it really? I'll never know.

Some nice people I met

     * [7]Abhirath -- A 200 IQ lad. Talked to me about everything from
       computational biology to the physical implementation of quantum
       computers.
     * [8]Abin -- He recognized me from my [9]r/unixporn posts, which was
       pretty awesome.
     * [10]Abhishek
     * Pradyun and Vikrant (linked earlier)

   And a lot of other people doing really great stuff, whose names I'm
   forgetting.

Pictures!

   It's not much, and I can't be bothered to format them like a collage or
   whatever, so I'll just dump them here -- as is.

   nice badge awkward smile! me talking s443 @ pycon

C'est tout

   Overall, a great time and a weekend well spent. It was very different
   from your typical security conference -- a lot more chill, if you will.
   The organizers did a fantastic job and the entire event was put
   together really well. I don't have much else to say, but I know for
   sure that I'll be there next time.

   That was PyCon India, 2019.

References

   1. https://twitter.com/pradyunsg
   2. https://twitter.com/stonecharioteer
   3. https://twitter.com/vikipedia
   4. https://twitter.com/sankeyplus
   5. https://twitter.com/dabeaz
   6. https://twitter.com/_vologue
   7. https://twitter.com/abhirathb
   8. https://twitter.com/meain_
   9. https://reddit.com/r/unixporn
  10. https://twitter.com/h6165