GUADEC 2023 - My first conference as an organizer

Hey everyone!

In this blog, I'm happy to tell you about my time planning and going to GUADEC 2023 in Riga, Latvia. GUADEC is a big yearly event for the GNOME community. It's a week filled with interesting talks and workshops that bring lots of GNOME developers, users, supporters, and community members together.

Let's begin

After attending GNOME Asia 2022, held in Malaysia, I was stoked to participate and organize GUADEC 2023! I reached out to Kristi, and she was delighted to have me join the organizing team.

The preparations for the event began in January 2023, when our organizing team began outlining all the necessary details and the schedule for the event. Since I was new to this, I was assigned the task of finding interesting places to visit in Riga and researching transportation options for attendees. Deepesha Burse and I collaborated on this, and we shared our progress every Wednesday during our meetings.

As the conference date approached, my responsibility was to keep the website information up to date and to provide visa letters to participants who needed them in order to attend the event.

The conference was gradually coming together, and I was getting more and more excited about attending my first GUADEC in person. This trip to Europe would also be my very first one.

Pre Regsitration Event

The pre-registration event is a fantastic opportunity to connect with others who are attending GUADEC. For those who arrive early, they had a chance to meet and chat with fellow attendees, pick up their badges, and enjoy a pleasant drink. This event took place one day before the official conference days. I had the pleasure of meeting the local team from Riga, which included Peteris, Rudolfs, and Aija—very helpful individuals. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kristi, Anisa, Caroline, and Melissa, who were incredibly supportive throughout the organizing process.

Conference Days

The conference took place from July 26th to July 28th. The primary location was the University of Latvia Academic Centre. There were many fantastic talks scheduled, and I had the opportunity to attend a few of them.

As an organizer, my role involved coordinating with volunteers to ensure that the speakers could deliver their talks without any issues. This allowed me to interact with many outstanding speakers beforehand and make some valuable connections.

All the talks are available on GUADEC 2023 YouTube Playlist

The first day was really nice. I got to attend the talks I was excited about, like "Jack of All Trades: Embracing Versatility in a World of Specialization" by Jakub Steiner, "Community building and best DEI practices in Free and Open Source Communities" by Anisa Kuci, and "GNOME Design: State of the Union" by Allan Day, Cassidy James Blaede, and Jakub Steiner.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Jakub, who is the main designer at the GNOME Foundation. He had been a great help to me during my GSoC'22 project.

After that I attended "Communication matters: a talk about how to talk online" by Allan Day.

All in all, the first day was fantastic. We had interesting topics, met wonderful people, and had a great experience overall.

I tried to attend talks during the conference every day, but most of the time, I was busy with volunteer work. On the second day, I managed to attend Aryan's and Pooja's talk on "How to add 16.67% more users and contributors: A guide to creating accessible applications." This gave me some valuable insights into accessibility and why it's crucial to follow guidelines to make apps/websites accessible to a wide audience.

The lightning talks on day two were a real highlight due to their interesting topics and engaging delivery. I particularly enjoyed Melissa's and Pedro's talks.

On the third day, I had a great time listening to the talk titled "VanillaOS - not just another distro" by Pietro and "Building Student Communities to Foster OSS" by Hrittik. Later in the day, I attended the GNOME Intern lightning talks, which brought back memories from my GSoC period. All the GSoC and Outreachy interns shared updates about their projects, which I found quite interesting to listen.

We also took a group photo with all the GUADEC participants, and it was enjoyable to pose for the picture. It was quite funny, and I wish I had recorded the behind-the-scenes moments.

At the end of the third day of the conference, we had a GUADEC dinner arranged. It was a nice opportunity to chat with people in a relaxed setting. The food was delicious, and the desserts were the perfect finishing touch. Throughout these days, my main focus was on networking and ensuring the event went smoothly.

BoF Days

The conference took place in the main building of the University of Latvia on Saturday, July 29th, and Sunday, July 30th.

On these days, there were some interesting BoF (Birds of a Feather) sessions planned. These sessions weren't recorded, but you can download some of the presentations from the schedule.

Conclusion

I would like to thank the GNOME Foundation for sponsoring my trip. I am grateful for the opportunity to attend and it wouldn't have been possible without them.

I went on my first-ever trip to Europe, and I really liked it. Riga is a beautiful city with a lot of interesting history and culture. I think everyone should visit it at least once.

This was my first time going to GUADEC, and I'm already excited about next year's conference. I enjoyed the talks, the chats with people, and how friendly everyone was during the event.

GNOME Asia 2023 is happening this year in Kathmandu, Nepal from 1st - 3rd December. Do register for it! I hope to meet everyone again soon in future GNOME events.