Getting a chance to meet folks from tech and Dev community (in person) is absolute fun. I was specially looking forward to this meetup to engage, learn and make new connections. I attended Laravel Live Bangalore Meetup on 24th September. The meetup had an early start, right on time, 10:30am on a bright sunny morning. All the attendees were greeted and encouraged to interact & have conversations before tuning right into the talks. Once all the attendees were seated, Tarun gave us a brief about Laravel, how the framework is thriving and has a lot to offer. He also shared about Laracon that's coming up in February 2023. Tarun has hosted over 20 meetups so far and plans to continue the streak by hosting monthly connects for Laravel and Developer/Tech communities which aren't just limited to Laravel but everything that benefits the community to learn, share and bond.

The first topic was "Open Source is Magic". Absolutely connected to the topic and the speaker Tapas Adhikary on the title slide itself. The power of Open Source is such. Thanks to Tapas, we got to know more on the insights, mechanics, and the approaches taken while looking to contribute to Open Source. Tapas shared about having a curious mind as the first step while looking for projects to contribute. Another important attribute to possess is patience. As much as one is excited to contribute, the important thing to understand is the maintainer of the project is also human and would take time to review your pull request. There might be several reasons your PR might get rejected but the spirit to contribute should live on - you'll always find many interesting projects to contribute to.

Don't miss to checkout his detailed blog on "What is Open Source and How to get Started?" with resources and links.

The second talk was about "It's never too late" by Kritika. It was great to hear from her about her thought process, the choices she made, the preparation that went in, to bag internships and then full time offers.

She also shared few tips on how to make your resume look better and what should take priority while you build on your resume and key aspects that should be highlighted.

Next up was the Quiz. It was hosted on Evaluate built by Rehan who hosts Laravel meetups in Chennai and had made it to this meetup all the way from Chennai. He showed the true spirit of supporting the community no matter where they might be. The questions were absolute fun, it ranged from basic, to slightly intermediate that tested our awareness on frontend development about various html tags, styling etc.

After the quiz, we had a nice short coffee/tea break. We got a good opportunity to connect with each other, ask questions, interact, learn about the domains that each one of us came from.

We were all refreshed after some coffee/tea and connecting. It was time for the next talk - "Get better at frontend design". Shruti Balasa wonderfully covered the key aspects to consider while developing your frontend app and what not to do. With each slide, she had few tips to share on how to do and what to do, with colors, fonts, and typography. She had slide, "God is in the details" that I could most relate with. She explained how every minute detail matters. Why it was important to stick to the dimensions, positioning, size as the designer built the wireframes - as so much thought has been already put into it and although it might be just 0.5px difference, it might not be evident but sure plays an important role in keeping the dimensions as accurately for all components. Creativity is sure something developers can put to best use but if the theme of the app demands a consistent structure throughout, it is recommended to not complicate by trying to make everything look fancy and colorful. She made us understand as to how it is still possible to build something amazing even with constraints.

The next talk "Growth Charter" by Sandhya was insightful. She conveyed the importance of having the mindset that lets you grow, adapt & refresh. She insists on finding a hobby for oneself that helps you rejuvenate. Finding yourself an ally, a mentor, who challenges you to do better in turn helping you evolve.

After all the talks, we played a super fun Pictionary in groups. Kirti had planned the keywords to be themed around tech.

Shruti Balasa was both - a wonderful speaker and an awesome host. She gifted the speakers - bottles with their names printed on it. The winner of the quiz, Kaveri, won Shruti's ebook on CSS Flex and Grid. Shruti also gifted really cute notepads to a few folks who showed up first to the meetup, asked most number of questions, and the runner up from the quiz.

I am glad I could attend this event and get to know her and other techies out there! I will surely look forward to more such meetups from them and those happening around me.