Aishwary Gathe

Posted on Sep 24

DevFest Nagpur 2026 x GDG Cloud Nagpur

#community #devrel #developers #nagpur

description: "How attending Cloud Community Day Nagpur in 2023 eventually led me to volunteering, organizing developer events, and now working toward DevFest Nagpur 2026."

From Attendee to Organizer: My Journey with GDG Cloud Nagpur

Sometimes you attend an event without realizing that it might become the starting point of something much bigger.

For me, that happened in 2023.

I attended Cloud Community Day Nagpur by GDG Cloud Nagpur.

At that point, I was simply interested in technology and wanted to understand what was happening in the developer ecosystem around Nagpur.

I went to the event, listened to the sessions, met people and experienced something that was quite new to me. experienced the real community vibe. It wasn't only about the technical talks. It was the conversations between sessions. Developers meeting each other. Students asking questions. People talking about what they were building. Someone sharing an opportunity. Someone else helping with a technical problem.

There was a feeling that everyone was there because they genuinely wanted to learn and connect.

I didn't know it at the time, but that event stayed with me.

Two years later, I joined GDG Cloud Nagpur

Almost two years later, I got an opportunity to join GDG Cloud Nagpur as a volunteer.

This time, I wasn't sitting in the audience. I was helping make the event happen.

I started contributing wherever I could — event planning, communication, outreach, coordination and all the small things that happen behind the scenes. That's when I realized how different organizing an event is from attending one.

As an attendee, you see the final few hours.
As an organizer, you see everything before that.
Speakers need to be coordinated.
Venues need to be managed.
Registrations need to be handled.
Volunteers need to be coordinated.
Attendees need updates.
Partners need communication.
And then something unexpected happens.

You figure it out. That's community work. And honestly, I started enjoying it.

From volunteering to organizing events

The more I contributed, the more responsibility I started taking.

Eventually, I started helping organize and host developer events in Nagpur.

That was a strange feeling.

A couple of years earlier, I was attending a GDG Cloud Nagpur event.

Now I was helping create those experiences for other people. It also changed how I think about events. I remember attending my first community events. I remember not knowing many people. I remember wondering who I should talk to. And I know how much a simple conversation can matter. Maybe someone finds a project. Maybe someone discovers open source. Maybe someone meets a future collaborator. Maybe someone simply gets the confidence to start building.

That's why I think community events are important.

The event itself might only last a few hours.

But something that happens during those few hours can stay with someone for much longer.

Watching Nagpur's developer community grow

Over the last few years, I've also had the chance to see the developer ecosystem in Nagpur grow.

More students are participating. More developers are sharing their knowledge. More communities are collaborating. More people are exploring technologies like AI, Cloud, DevOps, Kubernetes and Open Source.

And GDG Cloud Nagpur has been a big part of my own journey through that ecosystem.

I've met people through the community who I probably would never have met otherwise.

I've worked with volunteers who give their time simply because they want to contribute.

I've seen students attend their first event and later become contributors themselves.

That's the part of community building that I enjoy the most.

You never really know what one event can lead to.

And now: DevFest Nagpur 2026

This year feels different.

DevFest Nagpur 2026 is coming this November.

For me, this feels like a full-circle moment.

In 2023, I attended Cloud Community Day Nagpur.

Almost two years later, I joined GDG Cloud Nagpur as a volunteer.

I kept contributing.

I took on more responsibility.

I started helping organize and host events.

And now I'm working with the community toward bringing DevFest Nagpur 2026 to the city.

I never planned this when I attended that first event.

I just showed up.

That's probably one of the biggest things I've learned from community work.

You don't always need to know where you're going.

Sometimes you just need to start.

What I hope DevFest Nagpur becomes

For me, DevFest isn't just about a big stage or a list of speakers.

I want it to feel like a real developer community gathering.

I want a student attending their first developer event to feel comfortable.

I want developers to find people they can build with.

I want people to discover AI, Cloud, Open Source, DevOps and technologies they haven't explored yet.

I want experienced developers to share the things they have learned from actually building and working with technology.

And I want people to leave thinking:

"I'm glad I came."

Because that's what I felt when I attended Cloud Community Day Nagpur.

And now I want to help create that feeling for someone else.

Community is built together

There is still a lot to do before DevFest Nagpur 2026.

Speakers.
Volunteers.
Partners.
Sessions.
Registrations.
Logistics.

And plenty of things that attendees will probably never see.

But that's okay.

A community event isn't built by one person.

It's built by everyone who contributes something.

The speaker.
The volunteer.
The organizer.
The community partner.
The attendee who asks a question.
The person who helps someone else.
Everyone becomes part of it.

And that's what I hope DevFest Nagpur will be — something built with the community.

My journey started by simply showing up

When I look back at 2023, I didn't have a big plan.

I attended an event.

I experienced the community.

I liked it.

Two years later, I decided to contribute.

And slowly, that contribution became a much bigger part of my journey.

If there's one thing I'd tell someone who is thinking about joining a developer community, it's simple:

Just show up.

Attend the meetup.

Talk to someone.

Volunteer.

Ask questions.

Share something you've built.

Help someone.

You don't have to be an expert.

You don't need to have everything figured out.

Just start.

Because you never know where that first event might take you.