This is an account of my experience as a volunteer on the organizing committee of Kubernetes Community Day Bangalore 2023.
The event was scheduled for June 2nd and 3rd, at Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore. The preparations began much earlier.
The Start
In early February I came across a Twitter post calling for event volunteers. I believe we grow richer with diverse experiences, and helping organize a large-scale tech event is something I hadn’t done before. Without a second thought, I filled out the form to express my interest and motive behind volunteering for the event.
I heard back in a few days, we had our first kickoff call
The team was very diverse and included folks who are working and studying, both in technical and non-technical domains. The more diversity, the better, as different perspectives will be addressed.
From then on we had weekly cadence calls. Each week we discussed the various verticals — food, swags, venue arrangements, student scholarships, speaker coordination, CFPs, and, so on.
Meeting in-person (Part I)
The first team in-person team meeting was held on March 31st. Our responsibilities were divided and allocated.
We worked in smaller teams under the supervision of other experienced folks and completed the tasks assigned. I will iterate on the fact that each of us had our own day jobs, this was an additional responsibility we had all taken; the goal was clear and simple — ensure that the sponsors, speakers, and attendees have an amazing and unforgettable experience!
In addition, there were 11 workshops leading up to the event which each of us moderated. We also visited the venue multiple times before the event to ensure everything was in place and all the logistics were set up.
Meeting in-person (Part II)
I missed this one since I was on my way to Belagavi to attend the VTU athletic meet (covered more on this in my previous blog)
Pre-event week
Around 800 tickets were sold, to make the final checks, we visited the venue, and unloaded swags — t-shirts, laptop bags, etc
On Day 2, a 5 KM run was scheduled at Lalbagh, I was on the sub-team responsible for the run. We mapped the route at Lalbagh, a few days prior.
Event schedule for Day 1 and Day 2 — https://community.cncf.io/events/details/cncf-kcd-bengaluru-presents-kubernetes-community-days-bengaluru-2023-in-person/
Day 1 (2nd June)
Day 1 started with a keynote on the State of Kubernetes and CNCF. This was followed by talks and demonstrations. There were 2 tracks happening in parallel. I was tasked with speaker management in Auditorium 1 for the first half of the day. I got to learn a lot about Kubernetes and its recent advancements. In the evening I coordinated the lightning talks. I particularly liked the lightning talk on Chaos Engineering.
Sketch notes summarising the talks/demonstrations were definitely one of the highlights for me!
Day 2 (3rd June)
Day 2 started early, attendees joined us at Lalbagh for a 5 KM run. Post the run, reached the venue and got ready. The dress code was traditional. The day started off with a keynote by Vishal Biyani, followed by various talks and demos. The talk on eBPF and its applications interested me the most 👀
I had a similar responsibility of coordinating the speaker talks in Auditorium 1 followed by the lightning talks in the evening. The day concluded with a band performance.
Key Takeaways
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to volunteer and be a part of KCD BLR’23. I could see and experience a lot of event management and organization aspects in close-up. The inclusion and diversity of the speakers was phenomenal; there were a lot of woman speakers. I got to meet and network with folks working on very interesting problems in the tech industry. Yet again, I realized the power of open-source and communities.