Thank you for writing this post and voicing your concern for the attendees. Iām the CEA Coordinator in charge of the event, and was one of the core decision-makers for having this event in New Delhi in December this year.
Before choosing this city and date, we consulted with many local senior EAs and tried our best to weigh the trade-offs. Some of the considerations included:
Attendee data from both EAGxIndia 2023 (Jaipur) and 2024 (Bangalore) showed that a large majority of attendees are from the Delhi and New Delhi area.
The team had many other projects this year, and it turned out that with our constraints, the next nearest date would be March 2026, which would mean no event in 2025.
And as you discussed, the poorer air quality during the winter months. We recognised this would have some negative effects on attendees (especially if the weather conditions are particularly unfavourable during that weekend), and would mean that some potential attendees would choose not to come.
Based on feedback from local community members, there was a significantly stronger preference for an India event in Delhi this year rather than waiting until March.
We are implementing several mitigation measures:
The venue spaces will be fully air-conditioned and indoors.
Sourcing for additional air purifiers (supplementing what the venue already provides)
Free N95 masks for attendees
Clear pre-event communication about air quality risks so attendees can make informed decisions about whether to attend
We acknowledge that these measures reduce but donāt eliminate health risks, and some peopleāparticularly those with respiratory conditionsāmay need to opt out of this event.
We recognize that we could have also highlighted the air quality risks on the EAGxIndia website and when reaching out to speakers.
We hope that overall our decision turned out to be okay overall and feedback from the community will help us assess that. For future events, we are already planning to move the 2026 events to earlier months with hopefully better air quality, and exploring options to expand to multiple cities in India.
As somebody with reasonable familiarity with EA India community, and somebody who still spends significant time as a Delhi resident every year, I have a few things to add.
While I cannot divine which reference class is being denoted by āmany local senior EAsā (or for that matter, what constitutes āseniorityā in a largely diffused community), nor do I have access the teleological specifics at play (what are the specific motivations to even hold an EAGx in this instance), I do feel compelled to point out that I personally know several active community members have held strong concerns for a Delhi Winter conference for air quality reasons for a long time.
Of course such a view is not consensus, but Iād be really surprised if the local feedback was received as āstrong preference for Delhi (over other venues)ā.
Certainly different cities provide different profile densitiesāI can imagine that policy-inclined people might prefer New Delhi, tech-inclined people might prefer Bangalore, and tourist-y destinations like Jaipur or even Goa might make it more appealing to those who have to take long flights across world to attend. And there is some merit to rotate potential venues across the cities. But it is less clear to me that more people being from Delhi NCR should beāor even can beāa stronger consideration than those factors.
Furthermore, Delhi NCR is a large, populous (comparable to entire countries) and a very busy city (esp traffic-wise). Note that the conference venue is in Lutyenāsāan area where paying for hotel accommodation out of your own pocket can be significantly more expensive in my experience. I personally, would have preferred to take a domestic flight once to another city and then live closer to the conference than commute for three days from the part of Delhi I live in to the venue for three consecutive days (and I donāt even live that far compared to overall diameter of NCR). Especially when daily local commute will have to be in hours of day when air quality is worst. So I would certainly caution against drawing interpretations from āI live in Xā to āIād prefer the event to be in Xā.
Iām sure there are significant good reasons to hold a conference in Delhi (especially in this season) that dominate the countervailing reasons, and would hope that the organizing team finds validating feedback on those reasons, but for āoverall our decision turned out to be okay overallāāIād say too soon to tell, lest one may not notice the feedback at all.
It kind of seems that the current coordinating team has already decided (on behalf of the attendees) that their āoverall decision turned out to be okayā instead of actually putting up some facts and figures as to who/āhow many people were reached out to and what were their feedback.
Hi Dion! Just read this and since youāre exploring other cities, Iām willing to coordinate future events in Kolkata, India. As per our group mentorās (CEA fall OSPā²25) suggestion weāre also looking forward to filing to host an EA Summit in Kolkata next year. Iām unable to attend this year.
Hey Nishit,
Thank you for writing this post and voicing your concern for the attendees. Iām the CEA Coordinator in charge of the event, and was one of the core decision-makers for having this event in New Delhi in December this year.
Before choosing this city and date, we consulted with many local senior EAs and tried our best to weigh the trade-offs. Some of the considerations included:
Attendee data from both EAGxIndia 2023 (Jaipur) and 2024 (Bangalore) showed that a large majority of attendees are from the Delhi and New Delhi area.
The team had many other projects this year, and it turned out that with our constraints, the next nearest date would be March 2026, which would mean no event in 2025.
And as you discussed, the poorer air quality during the winter months. We recognised this would have some negative effects on attendees (especially if the weather conditions are particularly unfavourable during that weekend), and would mean that some potential attendees would choose not to come.
Based on feedback from local community members, there was a significantly stronger preference for an India event in Delhi this year rather than waiting until March.
We are implementing several mitigation measures:
The venue spaces will be fully air-conditioned and indoors.
Sourcing for additional air purifiers (supplementing what the venue already provides)
Free N95 masks for attendees
Clear pre-event communication about air quality risks so attendees can make informed decisions about whether to attend
We acknowledge that these measures reduce but donāt eliminate health risks, and some peopleāparticularly those with respiratory conditionsāmay need to opt out of this event.
We recognize that we could have also highlighted the air quality risks on the EAGxIndia website and when reaching out to speakers.
We hope that overall our decision turned out to be okay overall and feedback from the community will help us assess that. For future events, we are already planning to move the 2026 events to earlier months with hopefully better air quality, and exploring options to expand to multiple cities in India.
Hello Dion,
As somebody with reasonable familiarity with EA India community, and somebody who still spends significant time as a Delhi resident every year, I have a few things to add.
While I cannot divine which reference class is being denoted by āmany local senior EAsā (or for that matter, what constitutes āseniorityā in a largely diffused community), nor do I have access the teleological specifics at play (what are the specific motivations to even hold an EAGx in this instance), I do feel compelled to point out that I personally know several active community members have held strong concerns for a Delhi Winter conference for air quality reasons for a long time.
Of course such a view is not consensus, but Iād be really surprised if the local feedback was received as āstrong preference for Delhi (over other venues)ā.
Certainly different cities provide different profile densitiesāI can imagine that policy-inclined people might prefer New Delhi, tech-inclined people might prefer Bangalore, and tourist-y destinations like Jaipur or even Goa might make it more appealing to those who have to take long flights across world to attend. And there is some merit to rotate potential venues across the cities. But it is less clear to me that more people being from Delhi NCR should beāor even can beāa stronger consideration than those factors.
Furthermore, Delhi NCR is a large, populous (comparable to entire countries) and a very busy city (esp traffic-wise). Note that the conference venue is in Lutyenāsāan area where paying for hotel accommodation out of your own pocket can be significantly more expensive in my experience. I personally, would have preferred to take a domestic flight once to another city and then live closer to the conference than commute for three days from the part of Delhi I live in to the venue for three consecutive days (and I donāt even live that far compared to overall diameter of NCR). Especially when daily local commute will have to be in hours of day when air quality is worst. So I would certainly caution against drawing interpretations from āI live in Xā to āIād prefer the event to be in Xā.
Iām sure there are significant good reasons to hold a conference in Delhi (especially in this season) that dominate the countervailing reasons, and would hope that the organizing team finds validating feedback on those reasons, but for āoverall our decision turned out to be okay overallāāIād say too soon to tell, lest one may not notice the feedback at all.
It kind of seems that the current coordinating team has already decided (on behalf of the attendees) that their āoverall decision turned out to be okayā instead of actually putting up some facts and figures as to who/āhow many people were reached out to and what were their feedback.
Hi Dion! Just read this and since youāre exploring other cities, Iām willing to coordinate future events in Kolkata, India. As per our group mentorās (CEA fall OSPā²25) suggestion weāre also looking forward to filing to host an EA Summit in Kolkata next year. Iām unable to attend this year.