Last week, Monday 24 – Wednesday 26 February, was a truly historic event. The first COMMON event in India. I was lucky to be invited to make some presentations at the event.
The conference was organized by COMMON Americas, in collaboration with Programmers.io, and hosted in the city of Pune.
Before I left home it was announced that the conference was sold out. Which added to my excitement to be involved.
I was most impressed by the attendees' thirst for knowledge for the latest about the IBM Power sever and the IBM i operating system. While helping at the registration desk I was surprised how many people recognized me and the other USA based IBM Champions who were attending the conference. I soon lost count of the number of times I was asked to appear in someone's selfie. There was a range of experience there, from people who has been working with IBM i for decades, to students who want to learn about whether this was an environment they could have a career in.
The subject matter of the presentations covered a wide variety of subjects: AI, Java, REST APIs and web services, open-source languages and tools, RPG, and SQL/Db2 for i. The presenters were a mix of IBM Champions, both Indian and American, along with a variety of local experts all eager to share their knowledge.
All of the sessions were packed with barely an empty seat, and the audience was not shy to ask questions during and after.
During breaks and meal times I enjoyed myself "hanging out" with as many people as possible. Quizzing them on what they were getting out of the conference, and how they were going to uses it when they returned home.
I want to thank everyone who attended, whether as a presenter or as an attendee for making this an excellent conference. And I look forward to learning that there will be more conferences like this in the future, regardless of where I am involved or not.
On a lighter note: Marina Schwenk has the honor for the most unusual attendee for one of her presentations. A cat became trapped in the conference room, running back and forth until it found its way out.
IBM Champions: Gajendar Tyagi, Simon Hutchinson, Ranga Deshpande, Marina Schwenk, Nirmal Kumar Khatri, Charlie Guarino