I think socializing and local awareness are two very important skills for a programmer today. How do you keep up with what’s happening in your city or country? How do you interact with communities outside your immediate interest? What channels do you follow? If you’re an organiser of some kind, how do you market your events?

In my case, I am an Erlang/Elixir contributor based out of Bangalore, India. Since the Elixir community is very small, I follow (and have spoken at) various global Elixir/BEAM conferences like CodeBEAM America and Elixirconf EU. However, I am completely out of touch with what’s happening in India or even Bangalore. I would like to do more to promote Elixir in India and learn about what are the interesting developments happening around me. To me, this means attending meetups and conferences, and joining or forming local user groups and forums. However, I’m not sure what are the first steps to go in this direction. How do I find relevant events and organizations at a local level? Is this even the right approach in 2026 (or is it a little 2000s)?

Leaving my situation aside, I still think it is a useful exercise to compare how different communities socialise and weigh the pros and cons of each approach. How does this process vary from country to country or even technology community to community? Maybe this thread will inspire someone to discover new communities in a different country or conversely discover a new group in their own city.