Skip to main content

Making travel more fun

Hello,

Introduction and Background

My name is Shantanu, I am currently working at Institute for Media Innovations, NTU, Singapore as a programmer. I have been here from past six months and many people have recommended me to use this opportunity to explore South-East Asia. I am a fan of travelling, I fully agree with Mark Twain, but still I am not as adventurous as one of my friend.

In the past, I have travelled to many places in India with friends, and most of the time, they were wrapped around workshops. I find this a really great way of travelling and enjoyed doing this when I was working for FOSSEE project and Sarai. We get to meet new people, explore the place, soak in more culture, and learn some more things while trying to help. I find this a better way of travelling than doing regular tourist package available on groupon deals.

What can I offer

From past some months I have worked on things based on thrift, nltk, OpenCV. I can help conduct basic introductory workshops based on these tools. Previously I have also worked on programming GPU using OpenCL and an Qt based GUI application for it. While at FOSSEE project we used to cover Python for Science and Engineering students at various engineering colleges, which also included LaTeX and git/hg. I use Ubuntu as my primary OS so I can even conduct a basic introductory workshop around it too.

With all this said, I am ready to travel in these regions, at my own travel expenses(I won't mind any recommendation for cheap travel alternatives too) but with little assistance from some local people who are willing to 'host' me, and who think, I can help them in their learning process.

What am I expecting

Here are things which I expect:

  • A enthusiastic crowd – can't be bargained :)
  • Workshop should be free and open for all.
  • It would be hands-on workshop, so everyone would be expected to work and learn, first hand.
  • If possible accommodation with local organisers and travel arrangements inside the country.
  • I am thinking of conducting these workshops/sprints/hackathons over weekends, so availability of resources(machines for hands-on, wifi network) during that time.
  • A couple of days, along with it, free, when I can roam around.

Some pointers/links

  • My github account - https://github.com/baali
  • My email-id - baali[at]muse-amuse[dot]in or choudhary[dot]shantanu[at]gmail[dot]com

Do get back to me, and if you think we can do something together. Email me so that we can fix dates and other details and I can arrange for my tickets at the earliest. And if we need more helping hands with workshops I am sure I can rope in my friends too.

Thank you.

Shantanu