The Knight Blog

My talk at Pycon India 2025

· Rajul Jha

Outside

Table of contents

A Long Shot Thrown Into the Void

I submitted a proposal for a talk at PyCon India sometime back in March (I don’t remember exactly when, which in itself should tell you how little faith I had in the outcome). I had close to zero hopes. I’d never delivered a proper conference talk before, and the idea of my proposal being chosen felt like tossing a message in a bottle into the sea and fully expecting it to sink. Still, I sent it off, half bravery, half recklessness and promptly forgot about it.

The Email That Changed Everything

Come May, an email arrived from the PyCon India team. My talk had been selected. I remember staring at the screen for a few seconds longer than necessary, as though the words might rearrange themselves into something more sensible. Surely this was meant for someone else. I took a step back, read it again, re-affirmed the claim (twice), and only then allowed myself to react. I told my family. I told my friends. The news travelled faster than my own understanding of it, and suddenly, this long shot had become very, very real.

The Talk and Its Roots

By the way, my talk—“Automating License and Copyright Scanning inside CI Pipelines using FOSSology”—was something I had worked on during GSoC back in 2024. By the time PyCon rolled around, I was already neck-deep in something else within FOSSology. I informed my mentors, announced it during our community call, and was met with encouragement that felt equal parts reassuring and terrifying. There was no backing out now.

Slides, Rehearsals, and Two Cool Humans

Preparation for PyCon came with its own rituals. Slides had to be submitted. A rehearsal had to be done. I met Bhavin and Arockiaraj from the PyCon organizing team—two impossibly cool humans who somehow made the whole process feel less intimidating.

Days passed in a blur of Slide decks being created, deleted, and resurrected—probably a thousand times. I asked my mentors what to include. I asked my brother. I asked my friends. No one seemed to know, which I should have taken as a sign—but hindsight, as always, is smugly intelligent.

The Dangerous Allure of a Demo

Then I came up with an idea: remove this shit, do a demo.

Now, demos are trichotomous events. They can go:
a) Good
b) Bad
c) Catastrophic

Summoning a bravery I didn’t know I possessed, I went ahead and did the demo during rehearsal. Which of the three categories it fell into is a better question for Bhavin and Arockiaraj. They calmly advised me to keep a recorded backup video—just in case. Looking back, that advice probably leaned toward option b) or c).

When Life Decides to Intervene

And then, life happened. Work happened. College happened. My new FOSSology project happened. And then, cruelly and dramatically, the day of the conference arrived, and so did my college exams. The schedule was less than 24 hours away from forcing me to potentially miss a talk I had been preparing for months.

But, well… having one back in college wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. (I hope :))

Arrival at PyCon India

Outside

I flew to Bengaluru the night before PyCon. The city greeted me kindly. I slept well, reached the venue early the next morning, and met the organizers, volunteers, and the buzzing team that makes conferences feel alive before the audience even arrives.

My talk was the last one of the day, right before the keynote—which meant I had hours to spare. Hours that I spent talking to people, listening to their stories, and collecting goodies (wicked smile).

People, Booths, and Forgetting the Obvious

I flew to Bengaluru one night before PyCon. Had a calm day, slept well through the night, reached the venue early morning, met the organizers, volunteers, team etc. My talk was the last talk of the day before the keynote. So, I had a lot of time interacting with people, listening to their stories, collect goodies 😏.

I met a lot of new people, even though I had family there. I tried not to sit in a bubble. I got out of my comfort zone and talked to a lot of people. One of them was Shakti Kannan, who also happened to be the opening keynote speaker. His take on tech, life and Python was inspiring. There were a bunch of booths of various companies including AWS, Algorand, Happyfox, CodeRabbit, Straive and many more..

I visited them one by one and talked with engineers there. Some quizzing happened, some people were discussing about their fav tech stack, some were fighting about the best open source LLM, their was a panel discussion going on about “Vibe Coding, yay or Nay!?”. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I seemed to forget that I had a talk to give. I came back to my senses somewhere around lunch.

The Final Rehearsal Spiral

I decided to rehearse one final time with my brother, and proceeded to make an alarming number of last minute changes. There is no such thing as a “final, most polished” version, and this rehearsal proved it.

I practised the jokes. Refined the opening story. And then, in a moment of sudden clarity (or madness), I decided to give up the demo altogether. I couldn’t wrap it up in under 20 minutes.

Yes, I abandoned the demo in the final rehearsal.

Now all I had was a boring PPT.

Becoming a Showman (Reluctantly)

So I leaned into humour. I practised delivery. I thought like a showman while still trying to stay technical. I balanced jargon with jokes, education with entertainment. I rehearsed five more times.

And then, somehow, I was ready.

The Talk Itself

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Just before my talk began, there was a snacks break—which did wonders to break my momentum. But eventually, the moment arrived. And oddly enough, I wasn’t scared at all.

I started with my story. Transitioned into the tool. Talked about FOSSology and FOSSOps. Everything went according to plan too well, compared to what I had imagined.

None of the questions I had rehearsed were asked. Instead, I was asked things I genuinely found interesting, and I welcomed them with open arms.

Somewhere in the front row, a sketch artist was quietly drawing a live caricature/diagram of the talks, not AI-generated, but thoughtfully hand-drawn. Huge shout-out to them.

Outside

Ending on a Familiar Note

And now that I look back, I realise I’ve spent ten sections talking about the experience and almost nothing about the talk itself.

For that, you can read my other blog, where I dive into the technical side of FOSSOps:
https://rajuljha.github.io/posts/gsoc-24-project-report

And yes, Live long and prosper. 🖖

~ Rajul