My Notes from Akademy 2026

Writing this blog today feels a bit unreal. Six months ago, if you had told me I'd be attending Akademy in-person, 3000 miles from home - I probably wouldn't have believed you. And yet, here we are.

So I attended Akademy 2026, in Graz - and my experience was truly remarkable. I learnt a lot about the KDE Community, met some amazing people and returned with a fresh boost of motivation to keep contributing to the KDE Community! It also happened to be my first trip to Europe, and it really lived up to the expectations!

The Conference

The talks were fun & informative and gave us a chance to catch up with everything going on in the community, which happens to be quite vast. Some talks went deep into technical aspects, some gave us rapid fire project updates, some discussed future plans and goals, whereas some were about the community and its values. The new KDE goals were also revealed, which was cool to witness live!

Out of all, some talks really stood out to me, including the one on desktop UX by Scott Jenson, KaDAI by Eva Brucherseifer & Jan Mühlig, and the history of KDE code by Cornelius Schumacher.

But what was more interesting were the many conversations, short and long, that happened with various people. It was also a pleasure to finally meet my SoK mentor, Carl Schwan in person! It was fun meeting some experienced people from the community, including Lydia, Bhushan, Aniqa, Richard Gustavsen from Qt, Áron and many more!

Everything Else

With how beautiful Austria is, whatever time we had to explore felt too little. Still, we managed to see around Graz, Vienna, Hallstatt and Riegersburg. Cycling around Graz was really fun, especially in the mountainous outskirts. Vienna and its buildings were as grand as one would imagine. The Graz old town was also quite happening and picturesque. Hallstatt (albeit really cold) was absolutely beautiful and pristine. Riegersburg offered a glimpse into rural Austria and the Zotter chocolate factory.

Apart from the conference there were some other fun events also part of Akademy, including the welcome event, KDE's 30th birthday party and a day trip.

Here are some of my best clicks from the trip :)

I am really grateful to the KDE e.V. for sponsoring my trip, without which it wouldn't have been possible! Also, huge shoutout to my companions and new found friends - Srisharan V. S., Tushar Gupta, Ansh Singhal and Ojas Maheshwari :)

Looking forward to working with the community and making this my first Akademy of many more to come!