Hey Nishit,
Thank you for writing this post and voicing your concern for the attendees. I’m 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 don’t eliminate health risks, and some people—particularly those with respiratory conditions—may 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.
Special shoutout to @OllieRodriguez who was Program Lead from 2021 to 2025 and built up a significant portion of the portfolio. I believe many of the events and organizers (myself included!) wouldn’t be where they are today if it weren’t for his contributions to the community events program. Thank you Ollie!