#IRL — In conversation with Saurabh Hirani, Rootconf review team member
On the value of pre-event rehearsals for conference speakers and participants
Every proposal submitted to a HasGeek conference goes through a peer review process of evaluation and feedback. HasGeek conferences inspire participants to speak at future editions. Our review process enables past speakers (and engaged members of the community) to become reviewers, thereby guaranteeing that every proposal has more eyes from the community, thereby ensuring a higher quality conference.
Saurabh Hirani has been one of the most active reviewers for Rootconf. Saurabh went through the pipeline we described above — from being an audience member to becoming a speaker and now, an integral part of the Rootconf review team. We chatted with Saurabh to understand this journey. We also spoke to the two speakers he is mentoring this year — Ratnadeep Debnath and Denis D’souza — on their mentorship experience. Read on to hear about Saurabh’s experiences.
I started my professional journey in 2005, working for a medium-sized company called Merce. Merce specialized in providing custom solutions built around Linux security, mailing, web proxy and other infrastructure services.
Working in a small company was a blessing. I was able to dabble in various areas like programming, customer support, pre-sales and vendor management. After four years of this experience, I moved to Bangalore where I got my first exposure to technical communities and meetups. I was always interested in writing fiction and used to think that explaining a technical topic is more about sharpening your communication skills than focusing on the technical aspects. As a speaker, you are here to tell a story. Therefore, the focus should be on creating a narrative that engages your audience.
“Explaining a technical topic is more about sharpening your communication skills than focusing on the technical aspects.”
With this mindset, I gave my first talk at a Python meetup in 2010. While going through the recording of my talk, I realized that I had used the phrase “the idea is” more than 30 times in a gap of 20 minutes. Meetups are the open mics of tech talks. I wanted to become better at speaking. Hence, I started participating more actively to practise how to present technical content.
Cut to this day: I am part of Rootconf’s review panel (since 2017) where I engage with potential speakers, every year, to help them get better at their talks.
Why do you participate in communities?
Anyone whose work is centred around Linux and the open source community has achieved success because strangers across the world decided to put in multiple weekends to build tools, write blogs and give talks to share their hard-earned knowledge. They didn’t do this for monetary benefit. They did what they did because they felt that it was worth their time to help someone by building something or solving a hard problem. That, I think, continues to be a very powerful motivator for me. I want to be one of these people. We are fortunate to be in a field with such fluid means of communication. The least we can do is to give back to the community by sharing our learnings through open source contributions, blogs and technical talks.
Why participate in developer events?
I used to think of conferences as a school day: go to school, attend classes (i.e., the talks), make notes, and like a good student, apply what you learned. That was useful in improving my technical abilities. To this day, I recommend this approach to developers who are starting out with their careers.
However, the more events I attend, the more I realize that the hallway conversations, in between talks contribute to developing professional relations which make you a better communicator and a known face. This could involve simple gestures such as walking up to someone during lunch and striking a conversation or volunteering to help organize the conference. It is important to strike a balance between hallway conversations, networking and sitting in for the conference talks.
What motivates you to speak at technology events? How does speaking contribute to career development and personal growth?
When I was working as a DevOps engineer at BlueJeans Network, I participated in a hackathon and built a tool which we open sourced later. Rootconf 2015 was accepting proposals at that time. I thought of giving it a shot by proposing a talk about this tool. I was expecting a “you are selected/rejected” type of an answer. But I was in for a surprise.
I was told to submit a preview video and a draft version of my slides. I was also assigned to the amazing Amit Kapoor as a mentor. I didn’t expect the process to be so engaging. I was given an opportunity to participate in rehearsals which are the safest places to make mistakes and convey your intent.
“Rehearsals are one of the safest places to make mistakes, and convey your intent.”
A Rootconf rehearsal convinces the speaker more than the reviewers about the validity of their talk is and the value it has for participants. Interestingly, when I told some of my colleagues that I was neither selected nor rejected and that I have to go through the rehearsals, they found the process to be an unnecessary overhead. After going through the immersive Rootconf rehearsal process, I realized that the disinclination to engage and hone your talk is high among those who have never spoken at a conference and want to do a half baked talk just to add one more bullet point to their resume. I actually felt part of a community while preparing for the talk and realized that the entire Rootconf review team and organizers wanted my talk to be successful.
My experience at Rootconf 2015 made me return back the following year with another talk. Since then, I have been part of Rootconf — filtering proposals and helping speakers get better at delivering solid talks. This also helps the audience go back from the conference with the feeling that their time was well spent.
Why is it important for practitioners to participate in conferences and share their experiences?
I think there are a lot of great talks, hidden and stowed away in our day-to-day work, which are itching to be put on paper. But because the entry barrier is so high, or worse, so vague, in terms of getting feedback, many people feel that their idea won’t hold water. Hence, they don’t even work on these ideas.
“You never know who you are going to inspire. The effort is always worth it.”
Events like Rootconf are changing this by challenging the traditional way of engaging with speakers. A motivated person needs only one or two things — a safe place to make mistakes and an environment to excel — be it at work or speaking at a conference. One of the speakers I worked with was Pooja Shah, who was so exceedingly creative and confident in her presentation that she has gone on to speak at various international events and is an inspiration to many women in technology. This ripple effect impacts and inspires people to come up and share their ideas. But it is not a one-time investment. Sustaining an inclusive and nurturing space is hard work. It requires deep awareness and collaboration. I believe that you never know who you will inspire when you share your ideas on stage. As long as you work with a higher goal such as this, the effort is always worth it.
Rootconf 2019 will be held on 21 and 22 June, at the NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore. For information about the conference, schedule and tickets, visit https://hasgeek.com/rootconf/2019/.
To speak at future editions of Rootconf in 2019 (in Pune, Hyderabad and Delhi), submit a proposal here: https://hasgeek.com/rootconf/rootconf-round-the-year-proposals-2019/
