Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2023 — Sunnyvale, California
It’s been a great pleasure to take part in Google Summer of Code(GSoC) mentor summit 2023 which was held in Google Moffet Park Complex, Sunnyvale, California. It was held from 13th — 15th October. I got this opportunity to represent Oppia Foundation. It was way back in July 2023 I was informed that I got this opportunity. As soon as I was informed, I started the visa process and applied for B1 visa. Fortunately, I got the interview for the visa on the 2nd of October. It was a Monday morning and I was successfully able to convince the consular officer and passed the interview and they approve visa for me.
Right after I finished the visa interview, I let the org admins know that I passed it. They asked me to send my travel details to book flights for me. I chose Qatar airways and my departure from Colombo, Sri Lanka was on the 10th October. I stayed in Sunnyvale for 2 weeks, from 10th October — 22nd October.
This was my first ever flight and I was so excited about it. My journey was from Colombo to Doha to San Fransisco. I had like 2hr transit time at Hammad International Airport, Doha. It took around 5 hrs to arrive Doha. Qatar airways provided breakfast and unlimited drinks. I really liked their mango juice. It took almost 15hrs from Doha to San Fransisco. Our route was through the norther pole. Qatar airways provided 2 complimentary meals(lunch and dinner), snacks and unlimited drinks.
It was around 2PM when we arrived in SFO. On the arrival at SFO, there were some security checks and I was able to pass them without a hastle. But it took me a while to find out my luggage though 😛 After the arrival, I bought a sim card which costed 99$ but I think I got trapped there. I somehow had to buy a new one few days after since I didn’t get enough signals for that sim card. Then I bought a coffee from Starbucks to change 100$ noted that I had with me so that I could buy a clipper card for all my public transportation while I stayed at California. From SFO, I took a bart to Milbrae and from Milbrae, I got into Caltrain to arrive in Sunnyvale. It was like 30–40 mins tour but I stayed at SFO few hours so that it was arround 5.30PM when I left SFO. It was around 6.30PM when I arrived in Sunnyvale.
Google provided us accommodation for the dates that the event was scheduled. For the rest of the days, our family friend Thusitha Jayawardena uncle already reserved and payed for an AirBnb for me to stay. I am so much grateful for him. Since it was already late in the evening, it was getting darker and darker when I arrived at the Sunnyvale. I had to find my Airbnb walk with my luggages in the dark. I was a bit scared cuz I didn’t know about the area before and it was my first experience outside of my country. Halloween decorations at local homes didn’t help me either 😐 Somehow I found out the place and it was around 8PM when I arrived at my room. For the next 2 days, I explored Sunnyvale. I visited places like Google Mountain View, Google Visitor Experience, Microsoft, Computer History Museum and Apple Infinite Loop Cupertino.
Day 1
Then it came the 1st day of the event 13th of October. I checked out from Airbnb and arrived at the hotel around 2PM. Google provided AC Hotel by Marriott, Sunnyvale. It was a fantastic hotel which was located in the heart of Silicon Valley. At 3PM, they had organized a gathering that was helpful to meet and say hello to each other. It was full of snacks and drinks. Then we visited the Google office(Google MP3) where the event happened. It was like a 5minute walk from the hotel. We arrived there arround 6PM to have our dinner. I met few more people while we had the dinner. After having the dinner, there was an introductory session, where they explained what would be happening in the coming two days. Then we returned back to the hotel around 10PM.
Day 2
It was 14th of October and I woke up around 7AM. Our breakfast was available from 7.30AM to 9AM. I reached Google MP3 around 8.30AM and had the breakfast. There was a solar eclipse and I was able to witness it after the breakfast. Then the lightning talks started at 9AM. There were like 15 presentations from different orgs. The summit was organized in un-conference manner. Folks could got any session they preferred after the lightning talks. Here is the full list of sessions. We took the group photo after having the lunch. In the evening, there were few sessions and after the dinner there were more lightning talks. At the end of the day, everyone gathered and talked while having drink. I talked with a bioinformatician, where I listened how wonderful and amazing things can be done through bionformatics. Then around 10PM I returned to the hotel with him and few other colleagues. By the way, I collected a lot of swags on this day.
Day 3
It was the final day of the summit the 15th of October. We had our breakfast around 8.30AM and then went for some lightning talks. Then there were more sessions that followed. After the lunch, we had the final session to say “Good Bye” to everyone. It was truly a wonderful experience. I left Google MP3 around 4PM and returned back to the Airbnb where I initially stayed.
I stayed one more week in Sunnyvale. I went back to the Google Cloud office park to meet another interesting folk who was introduced by Thusitha uncle. He is the Head of Product for Telco Automation and Analytics at Google Cloud, Mr. Gnanavelkandan Kathivel. It was nice chat and we met for the lunch and we talked about my opensource contributions and how I got to there and also he introduced me to a new community called Nephio.
Before returning back to LKA, I toured San Fransisco with my collegue, Jayasanka. We visited the Golden Gate Bridge, China town, Cable Car tour and Palace which was nearby the bridge(can’t remember the name :p). I also visited Walmart, Mountain View to bring some gifts for my family and friends in LKA.
Finally it came the day I departed San Fransisco the 22nd of October. I had already packed my bags and my flight was on 4.30PM. I thought everything was fine and got ready and finally tried to book a Lyft to the SFO. Then the app said I can no more make payments from my debit card 😱 I was so scared that I would miss my flight and then Iqbal Serang the guy who stayed in the next room came for the rescue. I voluntarily dropped me to the SFO. On my way to the airport, I took me to Palo Alto and Stanford where I missed to go. I took me to the Steve Job’s house and also took me to the Stanford University. I am forever grateful for his help. He dropped me by the SFO around 1PM and finally I left San Fransisco 4.30PM. It was again a 15hr long journey from SFO to Qatar. I had a tight transit at Qatar and the cabin crew of Qatar airways helped for a smooth transit. When I reached Qatar, they had already arranged me the next flight to LKA which was scheduled in like 1 and half hour. I could breath easily and then got into the flight to come back to LKA. Finally I reached Sri Lanka around 3AM on the 24th.
It’s been a fantastic journey for me. A lot of folks helped me for this journey. First of all I should than Oppia Foundation, Sean Lip and GSoC org admins of Oppia for giving me this opportunity. Then I should thank Thusitha Jayawadena uncle for helping me out when I was in USA. Iqbal Serang for helping me out when I was helpless. My fellow Sri Lanka colleague Jayasanka Weerasinghe for helping me to giving details about the visa process and how things worked in USA.
