[Inpycon] The Final Chennai Bid

[kausikram krishnasayee]

Here is a detailed explanation of what Chennai has, what Chennai offers, and
more importantly where Chennai is lagging behind.

The Background
============

A bit of rant here. First and foremost deciding on a venue will depend on
deciding the number of people we want to accommodate. the total number of
tracks we want to have and the number of days we want to run the event for.
Without zeroing on these numbers, we will not be able to zero in on a venue
as only some of the venues we shortlisted have 'scalable' infrastructure.
This discussion, i tried to initiate atleast three times on this mailing
list however we never hit on a number. a concrete number here would have
really been appreciable to take further action.

The second issue that came into picture is accessibility of the venue. Again
an ideal venue would be easy to access from the station, the airport and
through busses. so this was also one more criteria that we wanted to look
at.

By November 2010, i got an in principle O.K from Rajalakshmi Engineering
College, Prof. Benedict has been a really supportive person, and there is a
huge student community inside that can help. However, i did not go and
formalise it then, because of these reasons:
   1) i was worried that if our requirements change, may be Rajalakshmi
Engineering College might not suffice the infrastructure required.
   2) Rajalakshmi is not centrally located, and the community might find it
in relatively less accessible.
   3) I was  also talking to a few other colleges.

in case of any of these three happening then a premature commitment would
have lead to a MSRIT vs RV situation which i did not want to repeat. Also it
was practically impossible to proceed to step (3) because we still haven't
concretised numbers, without which we cannot pitch to a college. We could
afford to do it with Rajalakshmi because Mr.Benedict is part of the
community but if we start formally pitching to a coll then its a one way
road and we cannot backtrack our commitments. Colleges down here are very
touchy.

The Team
=======
At various points of time there were atleast 5 - 8 people committing to
helping run pycon india. But it failed to remain consistent. With regards to
this there are two things that one needs to realize:

1) An active python community DOES NOT transate to an active volunteer base.
it takes more then a couple of emails flying around, it requires people to
step out of work and get things done.

2) WE are 8 months behind the Event, as of now apart from Venue there is no
other activity required to be done on the ground. the team irrespective of
the choice of venue (city) WILL EVENTUALLY FORM towards the last two months.

I hope the list members appreciate these two facts.

What Chennai Offers
===============

I had a long talk with Mr. Benedict yesterday and Rajalakshmi is still
willing to host the event. he has also gracefully accepted the fact that if
venue accessibility was a concern, and IF we get a better venue then we can
go with the better venue with Rajalakshmi as a fallback.

some members of ChennaiPy have shown their interest in helping organize the
event from the ground, please have a look at this thread for details:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/chennaipy/g4SrPNO1sjk/discussion

Chennai WILL get a dedicated Volunteer base soon. it requires some time.
please do not compare it with the volunteer base that the second edition of
pycon india enjoyed, but do so with the first edition. this is a new city,
the dynamics are different. But i am confident.

Some Final Thoughts
===============

There are a few things different here. Even Last time most of the activities
including the decision of venue took place much later on. We have just
entered February, and getting a college to commit for a venue at the end of
Sept is just about impossible. It is appreciable that planning for the event
has started much earlier on, but unlike in the US, we are not going to book
a hotel for money, but we are trying to find a college to host it Pro Bono.

The silence in  ChennaiPy, is a bit natural and is not a need for concern. I
have been part of a few volunteer driven events and have seen that usually
ground activities start only about a month before the event. i am trying to
better that record and promise a fully active team atleast 2 months before
the event with most of the ground work taken care of.

With these thoughts i rest my case for Chennai. and will let the community
decide on where to take the next inpycon.

Cheers,
kausik




-- 
Kausikram Krishnasayee
Company: http://silverstripesoftware.com | Webpage: kausikram.in | Blog:
blog.kausikram.in | Twitter: http://twitter.com/kausikram | Email:
kausikram at gmail.com | Mobile: +91 9884246490
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