Dev Retro 2022: My Journey as a Developer and a Hackathon Organizer in 2022.

So folks, my 2022 started on a good note with me winning 25 USDT as a part of a Web3 challenge and after that making my dream project: J.A.RV.I.S - a personal voice assistant. So in the Web3 challenge, I learned Solidity from scratch on Loom Network and documented my learning on GitHub as a part of the challenge. As for J.A.R.V.I.S. It took me some time to research about this and how I could add some of my functionalities in it. I mainly used Python and its various libraries like: pyttsx3, datetime, sppech_recognition, wikipedia, webbrowser, os and smtplib. The moment when I heard the assistant talking, that was a eureka😃 moment for me. Check it out below:

So after this, I started learning more stuff about Web3 but but......here was a surprise. My college reopened😓 and I had to pack my bags for Delhi. After this my whole month of February went into shifting and adjusting myself to the new routine. After this, I decided that I can integrate Spotify in J.A.R.V.I.S. using its API. Watched a lot of tutorials but unfortunately didn't work out. Anyways, moving forward....

After this, I worked on a project of Software Engineering as a part of my coursework. Here I got to know about the various processes and procedures that are involved while delivering software to a customer starting from basic ideation to production to deployment. At this point of time, I also started getting responsibilities of hackCBS as I and Rishabh Sharma were the leads this time.

So in one of our exams we had a long break and accidentally I came across the PyData meetup which was happening the next day in Connaught Place. So I and my friends Ayush and Rishabh decided to go there. This was our first meetup. We interacted with a lot of Software Engineers and Data Scientists present there, some were working while some were looking for a job or career switch. At last, we also got some free pizzas and free schwag. It was a great experience for me which paved the way for my future meetups. Here is a glimpse:

So now I started working on some ML projects like House price predictor and Handwritten digit recognizer. So here also I used Python and its other main libraries like pandas, NumPy, seaborn, SciKit learn, matplotlib and so on. Initially, understanding working with the data was quite cumbersome and tough but YouTube and Stackoverflow are your best friends when working on any project.

When I was done with this, Web3 FOMO hit me and now I was like let's build something in Web3. So took help from YouTube and built Decentragram - A decentralized version of Instagram. Wrote smart contract and JS tests for this. Used truffle to run the tests and debug the code. Finally deployed the dapp on Ganache which is a local blockchain to deploy and test dApps. The dapp accesses the photos uploaded on IPFS and then displays them on the screen allowing the users to look at the pictures and tip them at their will. Check it out here:

After this also built a blockchain game using the same tech stack and deployed it on Ganache. At this point of time, I was also involved in tapping sponsors for hackCBS which is the most crucial part of any event.

I also started an internship hunt on LinkedIn as well as other platforms. Successfully grabbed two: Research and Development Intern at BharatVerse and Data Analyst at GlobalShala. So at this point of time, I was building projects, doing internships and working on sponsorships. I enjoyed doing all this so I didn't feel hectic at all and of course, Music was always at the rescue.

So all this was during my summer vacations and in July my college started again. Most of my time now went into coordinating the event stuff because conducting a hackathon having such a large impact is not as easy as pie of course. Also in August, I got accepted into an open-source program called Social Summer of Code and contributed to a Solidity project named Solidity-Pathshala.

Also, read the Ethereum White paper during this time.

And then.....in September I got a chance to attend my first ever big conference MLH HackCon's first Indian Edition. There I met up with people whom I admired a lot and it was just like a dream come true. I met Mike Swift, Nick Quinlan, Mary Siebert, Aditya Oberai, Arkodyuti Saha, Ashwin Kumar Uppala, Shubham Upadhyay, Sajal Bansal and many other community folks. And this conference had an amazing venue: The Umrao and of course awesome food and schwag. Here is a glimpse:

At last, after a lot of effort and hard work, Team Kronos conducted hackCBS - India's Largest Student Run Hackathon and thus justified our name once again. This event gave me a chance to grow my connections and expand my network. I also improved my communication skills a lot while taking meetings with the sponsors and pitching them the idea. Here is a glimpse:

After this, I didn't stop here and started with more meetups. So after about one week of the event, I went to Web3 Wednesdays meetup. I met Aditya Joshi there and learned how he made his paintings with different tools and what happens when we scan them with the Artivive application.

So following this I went to Hack The League Delhi meetup in Noida where I met this amazing guy Jatin Pandya and other folks from different organizations also whom I had met during hackCBS. It was great to hear appreciation for the phenomenal success of hackCBS. Again the meetup had free burgers and free schwag. Here is a glimpse:

Now was the time for the ultimate event and ultimate collaboration. I came to know about Polygon Guild Delhi Roadshow and approached Pawan Kumar, DevRel at Polygon for the community partnership of hackCBS. He agreed and also took me in his organizing team. The event, the venue and everything was really a once-in-a-lifetime moment for me. Grasped a lot of knowledge related to Web3 from the workshops and networked with a lot of new people. Yes yes again the free food was more than awesome and schwag from the event are the best till now. Here is a glimpse:

Then I gave my exams. After the exams I decided to start with a developer blog and wrote my first blog on Hackathons: By an Organizer's eye. This is my second blog as a part of Dev Retro Challenge 2022. Will keep sharing my work and knowledge in public so stay tuned.

Thank You!