Ten years of Hasgeek

Happy Birthday, Hasgeek!

I can’t believe ten long years have passed by. The memories of PHP in the Cloud are still fresh in my mind.

I have a strong association with Hasgeek. I’ve been an attendee, a speaker, a volunteer for many Hasgeek events, and a friend of Hasgeek in general. Through these events, I’ve learned a lot, met great people, and had wonderful conversations.

When I moved to Vizag for a brief while, Hasgeek events were one of the things that I missed dearly. I made sure I fly down to attend at least a couple of events every year.

I have learned a great deal about running conferences and building communities by watching Hasgeek at work! I admire their focus on the community, trying hard to raise the quality of talks, never-ending experiments to improve the overall experience. Many of those learnings came handly when I lead PyCon India for a couple of years.

In fact, PyCon India may not have survived without the support of Hasgeek at the right time. PyCon India 2012 was supposed to happen in Pune, but a couple of months before the event, the Pune team declared that they won’t be able to run the event.

I’ve called Kiran and asked if Hasgeek can support running PyCon India in Bangalore. Kiran readily offered the venue reservation they had at Dharmaram College, lent their internet line, lent their equipment, and trained volunteers for video recording. We even ran CFP on Funnel and website on event frame, softwares built by Hasgeek, worked with the designers who have previously worked with Hasgeek, and used the same caterer that served food for Hasgeek events.

I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the courage to take up the challenge to lead PyCon India that year without the support of Hasgeek.

Even today, Hasgeek is my go-to place for discussing new ideas. Running a BoF at a conference, conducting a workshop on a new technology, or even a series of discussions around a niche topic.

I’m quite excited about the new avatar of Hasgeek, and I’m sure this decade is going to be double as exciting as the previous one!

All the best, Hasgeek!