You Should Try Attending Conference Abroad Too!
Tags: pyconid2019, python, pythonid, surabayapy
Published: 2019-11-30 09:06:49

---
title: You Should Try Attending Conference Abroad Too!
published: true
description: 
tags: PyconID2019,Python,PythonID,Surabaya.py
---

It was really fun!


I just wanted to share with you my experience when I attended a conference abroad and how I decided to do it.

It has been three years since I started volunteering in organizing PyCon here in the Philippines. Every year we are meeting friends from outside countries so I thought why shouldn't I go to their conference too? Encourage by our local community and through our self-improvement program called **PythonPH Kaizend**, I decided to register to PyConID2019.

It was a YOLO move for me to do that actually because that would be my first time to ride on a plane, 14-hour flight with a layover excluding the delays, yes it would be my first time to go outside the Philippines too. It was so overwhelming so the first thing that I did was I went through the organizer lists and luckily I saw one familiar name, Doni, he was a speaker on our PyCon. I emailed him and he was very accommodating. That lessened my worry.


Fast-forward to pre-PyCon preparation (Nov. 22, 2019) I was invited by Doni to attend their committee meeting. I was hoping I could help but I didn't make it on time. The work was almost done, swag bags are already packed and they were already wrapping up. They were ready!

![PyConID2019 Swag Bags](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/qdx4znowom1jvcyk3g48.jpg)

After the preparation, we proceeded to the Team Dinner!

### Meet the PyConID2019 Team
![PyConID Team Dinner](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/js5ljl6w203eq7l60t2l.jpg)

Here I met also other people from other countries like Japan and Taiwan.


**Python Conference**
**Indonesia 2019**
*November 23, 2019 Surabaya, Indonesia*
![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/l7m1gcltzkualo14dlfr.png)

We met with Jake from PyCharm at the booth area before the conference registration table. He was on our PyCon too! It was so good to see familiar people and catch up with them. After that, we went straight to the auditorium to listen to the first Keynote Speaker,  Dr. Ir. Inggriani Liem, with her talk "A Journey to be a Good Software Engineer". I enjoyed her talk even though it is in Bahasa. Everyone was laughing and enjoying her talk too! 

![Keynote 1](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/967k1k49vxd1l0suy506.jpg)

Next Keynote was from Fauzan Erich Emmerling, Mobile Product Engineering Lead at Gojek, with his talk "How Python Changed My Life"

{% tweet 1198534082621104129 %}


This talk made me re-think how should I code, or how should I live? haha. He talked about simplicity, about the philosophy Python Programming is using, he talked about the Zen of Python.

### Post PyConID

![Organizers](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/7dkfhdjx08leux8gmkpb.jpg)

![PyCon Dinner](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/mi6jchcjwtul0ny0ptbj.jpg)

![Nintendo Switch Party](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/b1os5adu9edsdg7wrh6b.jpg)

There are lots of friends that I made at this conference. Hope I will see them again soon: *Abhishek, Tegar, Iskandar, Noah, Takanori, Doni, Josef, Farah, Jake, The Pro-Gamer, Ady, and many more*