FUDCon:Bid for Pune 2015

Event Details

Time & Place

Time: 26 - 28 June 2015

Venue: Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), Pune, India

About Pune

Pune is a vibrant cultural city in the state of Maharashtra, India. It is located about 150 km east-south of Mumbai, the financial capital of India. Pune has a great distinction of being at the forefront in preserving and giving due prominance to the indigenious Maharashtrian culture, Theatre, Music, Education and arts. Pune is known as Oxford of the east for its rich educational heritage and variety of educational opportunities offered today.

FUDCon Pune

• India has one of the largest contributor and user bases for Fedora and Open Source in Asia. Both these factors make hosting a FUDCon in India highly compelling and advantageous from a fruitful community interaction as well as budget perspective.

• FUDCon Pune 2011 had over a 1000 attendees over three days. It was conducted with great precision and had 6 parallel tracks with technical talks and workshops.

• A FUDCon in Pune 2015 will be organized by more or less the same team that was active in 2011, so we have great experience backing us. The team consists of long-standing Fedora community members that have participated in and organized various FOSS events over the years.

• India is one of Red Hat's largest engineering centers in the world. A lot of the engineers play a very active role in the Fedora and upstream communities.

Our Team

• Amit Shah
• Huzaifa Sidhpurwala
• Kushal Das
• M. R. Niranjan
• Prasad Pandit
• Praveen Kumar
• Pravin Satpute
• Rupali Talwatkar
• Siddhesh

Getting into Pune

Pune has limited international connectivity, so the nearest international airport for most travellers would be Mumbai, which is about 150 km away. Connectivity between Mumbai and Pune is very good with cab and bus services at regular intervals round the clock. Direct flights to and from Pune are operated by various airlines to the following destinations:

• Frankfurt
• Dubai
• Abu Dhabi
• Sharjah

From anywhere else in India

Travelling from elsewhere in India to Pune would cost up to $100 by air, train or road

From outside India

Indian Visa application

You can get a Tourist, Business or Conference Visa to attend the FUDCon. An Indian visa is valid from the day it is issued, not from the day you arrive in the country.

The Electronic Travel Authorisation(ETA) facility became operational recently for citizens of over 43 eligible countries, including those who are eligible for visa on arrival.

Visa fee depends on the country of origin and nationality of the person applying for the visa. It ranges between 20 - 100 USD.

For further information on this, please check with local embassy office or Indian Visa Application center office or websites for information on applicable fee and payment methods.

• https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/visa/
• http://mea.gov.in/indian-missions-abroad.htm
• https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/visa/tvoa.html
• https://india.visahq.com/?_escaped_fragment_=india-Tourist-visa
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_India

Estimated flight costs

Estimated round-trip costs from various locations to Mumbai. Organizers will arrange for trasportation between Mumbai airport and Pune:

Asia

From	Cost	Airline
Beijing	$500	Malaysian Airlines
Brisbane	$1100	Cathay Pacific
Hanoi	$400	Jet Airlines
Hong Kong	$600	Jet Airway
Jakarta	$450	Malindo Air
Kuala Lumpur	$380	Malindo Air
Manila	$680	Jet + philipine Airway
Phom Penh	$750	Malaysian Airlines
Singapore	$400	Malindo Air
Sydney	$1100	Cathay Pacific
Tokyo	$580	Air China

Europe

From	Cost	Airline
Amsterdam	$500	Turkish Airlines
Frankurt	$600	Turkish Airway
London	$610	Qatar Airways
Paris	$700	Swiss IntlAir
Prague	$650	British Airways
Vienna	$550	Turkish Airway

NA

From	Cost	Airline
Boston	$1500	Air Canada
New York	$1500	Air Canada
San Francisco	$1500	Air Canada
Toronto	$1000	Delta

Getting around

Auto-rickshaws and call-taxi services are abundant and available. The public bus service is not very good, but we will arrange for transportation for conference speakers and organizers.

Taxi services in Pune:

• Ola Cabs: +91 20 3355 3355
• Easy Ride Cabs: +91 20 27 400 800
• Go Speed Cabs: +91 20 6400 6444
• Traveltime: +91 20 66 000 000
• Wings Radio cabs: +91 20 40100100

Auto-Rickshaws:

autowale.in: 020-66111111

Stay

Hotel	Location	Approx. Distance from venue	Approx. Price
Magnus Service Apartments	Kharadi	15km	$30
Hotel Lotus	Koregaon Park	10km	$36
Cocoon Hotel	Magarpatta City	15km	$61

Eat

Pune boasts of a wide range of cuisines ranging from international food (like italian, chinese, south-east asian) to various local dishes. Don't miss the famous misal-pav, puranpoli and a variety of other dishes while you are here! Pune caters to food suitable for all palettes.

There are various restaurants and eateries near the conference venue as well as accomodation, which are hygenic, tasty and economical.

About MIT

Maharashtra Institute of Technology is among the top engineering colleges in India. The news magazine 'Outlook' has ranked MIT Pune as 1st in Maharashtra & 11th in India amongst the finest Private Engineering Colleges.

MIT has a very active technology interest group called the [MIT Computer Users Group]. They hold regular meetings to share knowledge on various technologies including Open Source and Linux. They will be actively involved in FUDCon preparation and organization.

Schedule and Budget

Tentative Schedule:

• Day 0: Welcome dinner for speakers
• Day 1: Registration, Keynote, talks, Dinner for speakers
• Day 2: Keynote, talks, FUDPub
• Day 3: Workshops, Lightning Talks, Hackfest

Budget:

• Venue: $0 (sponsored by the college)
• Materials, Swag and Food during the conference: $4000
• FUDPub: $6000
• Accommodation: $6000 (4 days)
• Travel: $9000 (roundtrip)

We have sponsors for the extra budget requirement.