Backstory

DevOps Kathmandu began in 2018. It serves as a platform for discussing DevOps topics. The goal is to boost collaboration and communication among like-minded people in Kathmandu. The DevOps Kathmandu community holds seasonal meetups for professionals. I’ve always wished for a larger event, something beyond our regular gatherings. But hoping alone wasn’t enough; at some point, we had to move from hope to action.

PS: You can skip this section.

One day, while scrolling through Twitter, I saw that Bart had arrived in Kathmandu. I happened to be in the city at the same time; it felt like the perfect opportunity to finally meet him. I knew Bart from the Kubernetes Data community and, of course, his iconic tech rap songs.

I sent him a cold message, hoping to meet and chat. He likely didn’t know me, but I decided to take a chance. To my surprise, he replied! Not only that, he even knew Abhishek, someone he had worked with before. I knew Abhishek, too. Back in the post-COVID days, we connected online and even recorded a podcast together. And sadly abhishek we missed you again this time in the event.

Things started getting even more interesting. Bart traveled to Nepal with his fiancée. They aimed to support orphaned students in Bungamati through education initiatives. Before we met, he proposed that we talk and record a video about CNCF Nepal’s status. He even said I could bring along someone else from the community.

At that time, CNCF Kathmandu had become inactive. I reached out to Raju, but due to some circumstances, he couldn’t make it. So, the next day, I went alone to meet Bart over a cup of lemon tea.

The restaurant staff acted a bit differently that day. I think it was because I was with a foreigner! 😄

We had a deep chat about many topics. We discussed building communities, the future of AI, career moves, visa issues, and more. Bart said he might return in mid-April. He also mentioned that he could help us plan a big event on Kubernetes, DevOps, and SRE in Nepal.

That sparked something big. I followed up with Raju about this initiative. It seemed like a great chance to make the dream of a famous global event real. DevOps Kathmandu liked the idea. We started regular meetings to keep things moving. We kicked off with our usual Sunday 8 PM calls. Progress was slow at first. I was also part of aws voice training program and some meetings used to overlap. Sometimes I couldn’t make it, sometimes others couldn’t. But once the deadline came closer, everything changed. The last two months were like a college rush before deadlines. Suddenly, everything felt serious, urgent, and very real.

In mid-February, we reached out to local groups like GDG, AWS Community and potential volunteers. We onboarded a few of them internally from some community members. We sent a lot of messages on WhatsApp to see if we could reach out to people. We also missed some sync up who weren’t active on Discord, so we had to sync up with them on WhatsApp, for instance. We take ownership from our end side, some of them were in session, and some were in others.

Every core team member reaches out to potential speakers via the company and speakers end to end as well. Our event focused on the professional track. From the LinkedIn post, it was reaching out to students and via personal dm to actual audience.

So with Bart, we reach out to him for his topics, sponsorship. During this time, we made tons of whatsapp group for separate reach out and discussion. From the discussion on the venue of having the options of st Xavier, and DAV to finalizing Islington. We extended our cfp. Milan thapa was taking ownership of the website, feels like there’s so much to do, so I collab. But the fact is the website is like around 2017-18 vibes. It’s an old theme and it supports sectionalized integration. Since we have limited time, the only things matter was to get the things work done. We just finished the event. If you want to contribute or update the design, feel free to talk with us. You can reach out to me or join our discord community. Raju dawadi gave us direction for making this event planning.

For the venue finalizing, it got postponed as well due to some protests which was ramping up here and there. Honestly, the event was kind of PoC for us, we have no idea how to deal with many things. I took ownership for the slido one and helped on website. We also start the scholarship. It helps people who love DevOps but struggle with money. It’s open to students.

Pre event

It was around 3 pm to 5 p.m. Bart hosted his session. He shared how to create impactful content in tech. He also discussed growing and engaging with developer communities. Building your personal brand through storytelling was another key point. Lastly, he talked about contributing to the CNCF and open source.

A Fun fact about me here was I was going to the hall, and one of the volunteers pulled me up and asked what ur name? Well, my name as an attendee wasn’t as I was part of the team. so I had to write it down, later on, they knew I was the part of them.

Event

Came up early in the morning around 7 am, and met Upendra right there it’s raining as well. Volunteers and core team members were approaching at a gradual pace. We had a quick breakfast. Time was running out. Whole team squad was managing the swags, snacks for audience. It was heavy manual work to do. Team members fixed the slide resolution and the speaker’s slide. I was there at the front of the theatre, and Bishworaj was preparing for the host script.

Since I was taking the ownership of Slido. I asked Devi, “How will we represent this Slido Q&A session? Who will present with the speakers?”. She said, its gonna be you who else. Shish I never did that before, and I have to. I had no script or preparation. It was just me connecting with people. Soon, I would be on stage. I considered how to address audience questions and doubts during the session. I thought slido qa will be managed by someone and i was moderating the questions sitting in the room. Now, I have a session separately I have to talk with speakers and discuss.

Meanwhile, we rushed around to manage and coordinate with volunteers. Bishworaj, from Pokhara, hosted the event. Devi gave the welcome speech at the opening ceremony. Bishworaj welcomed Bart and bart shared about the trends coming up in the k8 system. He was the momo ambassador. I wasn’t focused on the session. Instead, I thought about how to improve the event and fix issues. We had lots of issue during pre event and nikhil was managing on the side hoping we dont get such. I managed the Q&A live session and addressed any questions.

Next session was Aditya Singh who will be organizing the Ubicon held in Nepal for the first time. Before his session, he hit a traffic jam at Putalisadak. As organizers, we had to make the decision. We considered postponing or moving to another speaker session. Thankfully he came into the right time at the right time. He talked about his journey. He started as a speaker at Ubicon Asia. Now, he leads the successful bid to bring Ubicon Asia 2025 to Nepal. I spoke later on and all he was able to do within a year. The same happens with Upendra while leading the AWS cloud club. He also had a session later on which was inspiring. I even collab with him to make a AWS based CTF in AWS Student Community Day. It was fun.

Similarly, we had a session with Sakar as well who is also the organizer of the event. He shared about building secure microservices with cilium service mesh. I don’t know how he was managing here and there but mad respect for his dedication. We had another session Ram. I met him at KubeCon Delhi. We talked a bit about security. He presented on “YakShaving: KTM Edition.” We heard a talk from Amit Joshi and Sparsha Dotel as well. They discussed how to build a strong DevOps team. They tell great stories and share useful tips including roadmaps. Felt like it was just a conversation with friends.

Now it was the time from my side. Anxious and shy with the crowds. When I introduced myself, I mixed up my words. I said “cohost” instead of “host,” and people laughed. I cheered up, moved on, and got back into the flow. This is the side of human being making mistakes and moving on. Glad it worked for me at that moment. We had a great discussion with the panel speakers during the session. The audience also got involved. During the session, the light goes out. I remembered Bart, our momo ambassador, speaking and wrapping things up as the light came in. Shishh we maintained the qa session ongoing and it was fun. After the session, I met some people I knew from 2017-18. We connected through old Facebook groups. They recognized me and a few folks. I met lots of folks whom I knew on Twitter and LinkedIn too. It was so fun to discuss and haven’t met yet so far while talking over the Internet. During the lunch break, met my former colleagues as well, now they are leading the team out there, so happy to see that.

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After QA and the venue sponsor, Tara Gurung shared his experience in tech communities. This inspired him to start a community in his hometown and co-found a company. It was truly motivating. In Nepal, most things are centralized. It’s rare to find chances outside the valley. Meanwhile, Tara was leading changes in Pokhara. Well, this inspired me in my hometown as well, the eastern part of Nepal. If u are from the eastern part, feel free to head up and have a discussion, maybe we can discuss on this.

We had a great session from Brijan Shrestha and Niran Maharjan, who spoke about seamless automation from code to Kubernetes. They teamed up to share valuable insights and gave a live demo on cluster provisioning. They discussed important conventions. These included release processes, git commits, and the DevOps workflow. It was exciting to see their demo, and we hope they will open-source the repository they shared soon.

Another session was led by Prason Pandey, whom I’ve known since the COVID era. He explained how their team manages code compilation and keeps resources separate in their IDE. He shared some interesting technical insights. We also had an insightful session from Bhaibhav, who discussed the “dark forest theory” of the internet and the rise of generative AI. The topic was philosophical and sometimes confusing. Still, it was engaging and thought-provoking.

We also featured talks from Prasuna and Yasmine. This shows our strong commitment to diversity and inclusion among our speakers.

My favorite session was from Krishna Chalise. He shared about the proven and unconventional cost-saving techniques. Personally, this was my favorite session ever in the event. Later, we’ll discuss the k8 upgrade, graviton instances, managing dependencies, and the Helm chart. We had the last session about devsecops as well. In middle, we got some lunch break. Again we had sessions and juju dhau and donut time. It was an amazing session. I couldn’t get insights from the audience at the event, but from the organization’s view, we met our goals. We made some mistakes on the way and realized what went wrong and what could be improved. At last, we had a community shoutout closing by Devi. It was wonderful.

Here are a few things to consider for improvement. In Slido, we got more feedback than just during the Q&A. So, we should focus on gathering more feedback. We must review CFP submissions more strictly. Our focus should be on high-quality content. We need more backup volunteers. Also, assign someone to connect with all speakers, including international ones. We forgot to gather food preferences from speakers. So, it’s important to communicate early and consistently before the event. This includes confirming key details. We should standardize the speaker slide format and size. Also, the same laptop should be used for both the pre-event and the main event. Lastly, we need a proper backstage area for speaker discussions. We must fix technical problems, such as the spotlight blinding speakers.

Shout out and conclusion

This event wasn’t made possible by just one person — it took long-term dedication and true teamwork. As a fully community-driven initiative, and with none of us working on it full-time, it feels even more special. I want to give a huge shout-out to every single member who helped make this event a grand success. Thanks to Raju Dawadi and Milan Thapa for their support from the US and Canada. Your hard work behind the scenes meant a lot to us. We truly missed having you here in person and have nothing but mad respect for you both! A big kudos to Devi as well for leading the team here on the ground — I’m grateful to be part of the DevOps Kathmandu core team.

I might not name everyone, but you know who you are. Each of you gave your best. Thank you and sorry if I missed anyone by name!

After the event, we had dinner with the whole organizing and volunteering team. It was a fun and memorable time. Thank you to everyone—participants, organizers, speakers, and sponsors—for making this event a success!