Ahmedabad Diaries: First Umbraco Developer Conference in India
Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Ahmedabad along with my good friend and colleague, Debasish from ClerksWell.
It's December! It's the holiday season! Why are you traveling to Ahmedabad from Goa? Goa, the tourist destination of India, you would say?!
Well, it's because we are attending the first in-person Umbraco Developer Conference in India, organized by the nice folks from Giriraj Digital.
The Journey
We flew to Ahmedabad, arriving around 7:00 pm. We checked in at the Fortune Park hotel, took an auto (tuk-tuk) and went to the Nexus One Mall for some shopping.
The Event
The next morning, there was a breakfast buffet at the hotel, where we tried some local Ahmedabad food such as Dhoklas, Khandvi and Patra.
Seeing that we had some time to burn, we visited the Atal Bridge and Sabarmati Riverfront area. The bridge is quite impressive, offering great views of the river alongside it. I must say, even though it was sunny, the climate was pleasant, unlike the heat in Goa.
We then took another tuk-tuk to the event, being held at AMA, Ahmedabad.
Warm Welcome and High Fives
As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by our good friend Abhimanyu Mehta at the registration desk. Soon after, we were joined by Rushita, our colleague from ClerksWell who lives in Ahmedabad, and her husband, Vishal, who is also a dotnet developer.
As is tradition at every Umbraco event, we started off with an icebreaker of high-fiving our neighbours. #H5YR
There was a nice mix of developers and non-developers at the event, including many dotnet devs and business analysts curious to know all about Umbraco.
Let the Sessions Begin
The keynote session set the tone, showcasing how Umbraco is a friendly CMS that has evolved to become one of the top CMSs out there.
Nikhil Prajapati and Asha Chaudhary presented some of their case studies. I was particularly impressed by their integration of AI in the Umbraco back office.
For example, they demonstrated how giving the AI a social media link can generate content for a Document Type. One of their clients had no content on their website but a ton of videos on YouTube. By providing the AI with the YouTube channel link, it generated blog posts for the website.
Workshop Time
Later, Milan Dudhatra, Asha, and Nikhil led a workshop showing what can be done with Umbraco, including a tour of the back office, Umbraco Heartcore, Examine, and Algolia Search. They covered many features I hadn't used before, such as Relation Types, Webhooks, and Workflows. It was refreshing to learn when to use these features and their pros and cons.
Closing Remarks
There was a Q&A at the end of each session. A personal highlight for me was asking questions during the sessions, rather than one-on-one. The presenters handled many tricky questions from attendees (including myself, haha) very well.
Don't Forget the Swag and Photos
As the event ended, we stayed around to network and take pictures. We met an Umbraco Developer who has worked on Umbraco since version 3, which was impressive. There was also a lot of cool swag sent over by Umbraco HQ and we were happy to take some back for our colleagues in Goa.
A big thank you to our friends at Giriraj Digital for making us feel so welcome.
In Search of Local Gujarati Flavors
I'm really thankful to Rushita and Vishal, who acted as our tour guides. We bought a lot of Mohanthal sweets to take home (trust me, you have to try it).
Next, we visited Manek Chowk to taste pav bhaji, which was out of this world, Gotala Dosa (a mix of paneer, butter and cheese) and an Ice Cream Pineapple sandwich. We also tried a refreshing Jamun juice drink.
Time for Goodbyes
The next day was Sunday, so we attended Holy Mass at St. Xavier's Parish Church, which shares its patron saint with my local church in Goa, St. Francis Xavier Church, Chicalim.
After the Holy Mass, we checked out of our hotel and headed back to the airport to catch our flight to amchem Goem!