Like my review of 2019, this is my review of 2020. In a gist,

  • I started contributing a bit more to open source software
  • The food recipes book isn’t anywhere close to completion
  • I didn’t create as much as I wanted to but have worked on a few interesting ideas (see Conferences section)

Reading

I aimed to read less this year and read 12 books instead of 25 in 2019. Munnu by Malik Sajad, about the world of Kashmir through a growing up boy was a heartbreaking and eye-opening read. It’s my introductory book to Kashmir life and I hope to read more. I re-read The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli which is critical look at human biases. Factfulness by Hans Rosling is a delightful read on how statistics is used in public communication, arguably the standout book for me.

Here is a remarkable graphic novel set in a house across centuries and families. OPUS is a one of a kind manga in which the creator ends up in the world he creates.

Professionally, I read Inspired, The Manager’s Path and The Unicorn Project which are useful reads on product development, people communication and project management respectively.

I started these but haven’t managed to complete yet: Chronicles of Narnia (ongoing), Motorcycle Diaries (paused), The Personal MBA (left), The Ethical Doctor (paused).

Break

I took a three month break in early 2020 to write a book. I enjoyed taking it and would love to take it again whenever I can.

Conferences

Despite vowing not to participate much in conferences I ended up giving a lightning talks at PyCon India on building a code search engine, PyConf Hyderabad on using QGIS to create several shapefiles using Python. I gave a general talk at Pyjamas on building a code search engine.

I also had fun volunteering for PyConf Hyderabad including reviewing proposals, chatting with the speakers, introducing them, etc. It had lots of moving parts, organizers and volunteers ensured it was smooth.

On 30th/31st Jan 2021, Jaidev and I will be recording a talk for Belpy (Belagavi Python) on Design2Code. I wrote about the approach in an earlier blog post.

Personal

  1. Like many, I spent the entire year working from home, a first for me to work this long. With the right team, I could do it forever.

  2. Our house got flooded, a first. Two months later, we haven’t completely recovered from it. Since then I got curious how the elevation varies from one place to the other and that resulted in my interest in neighborhood mapping.

  3. Along with a cousin, I baked a lot more (ex: pizza, bread, cake). I hope to get these recipes in the book too.

  4. A parent’s extended stays at and visits to the hospital kept us busy towards the end of the year. This made me take my diet more seriously and decided to cut down on the food quantity I eat significantly.

  5. Terrace garden finally took a shape. I wrote about it in two posts. We took help of the experts in designing it and in (re-)soiling, planting.

  6. Despite all the evidence to the contrary during the pandemic, close ones still opted to attend weddings, visit events with large gatherings. Beats me. Luckily, no one got infected.

  7. I helped in cleaning and sharing two public datasets, PMGSY and NFHS-5 and interacted with a few from the Indian mapping and open data community. In an effort to improve neighborhood mapping I started contributing to OSM regularly.

  8. Like many, I was moved by the plight of the migrants and looked at the non-virus deaths (write-up).

2021

In 2021, I look forward to

  • becoming fitter.
  • improving focus.
  • working on bridging digital divide.