[Inpycon] On using QR codes for sponsor-participant contact exchange.

[Haris Ibrahim K. V.]

Oh, I was not aware you had already decided not to use any software
for contact exchange. I'm not sure why it came up during the
volunteers meetup in the first place then.

As per the discussion, the main problem last year was due to the
network. That is what we are trying to avoid with the QR code
approach.

I'm not sure how writing contact info at the sponsor stalls would look
from a sponsor's perspective, but if it is all good, then yes, we
should try and avoid technology.

On 19 July 2014 14:03, Bibhas Ch Debnath <me at bibhas.in> wrote:
> We had this suggestion and discussion the last time after the event. We
> decided to not use any software for contact exchange. The problems we faced
> last year in contact exchange was due to the technology involved. It's much
> much easier and smooth if the participants just go to the stall and write
> their contacts. The hardwares showed faults, network was faulty at some
> point, that made the volunteers run around and spend too much time debugging
> things. It sounds easy when you write like that, but during the event, the
> smallest glitch will require at least 3-4 volunteers run around all the
> sponsor tables to debug and fix it. My feelings from last year was that it's
> not worth it.
>
>
> ----
> Thanks,
> Bibhas Debnath
> http://bibhas.in
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 9:27 AM, vijay kumar <vnbang2003 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> it sound good to me.
>> We even need to check Tablet for rent . If anyone in mailing list have
>> contact where we can rent Tablet please let us know. If we get 10+ tablet
>> for rent then we can extend it to even silver sponsor's .
>>
>> With Thanks
>> Vijay
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 6:42 AM, Haris Ibrahim K. V. <blucalvin at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ladies and gentlemen,
>>>
>>> During the last offline volunteers meetup, we discussed about
>>> alternatives that we could use for contact exchange between the
>>> sponsors and participants.
>>>
>>> We had using Bar code readers in mind. Sayan and I took it up.
>>>
>>> In between research, Praseetha suggested using QR codes for this
>>> purpose. We investigated on that end and here are the observations.
>>>
>>> Create QR codes for each registered participant before hand using this
>>> API http://goqr.me/api/. Put them sorted alphabetically and hand it
>>> over to the participants during registration. Printing it during
>>> registration is a no-no. Tons of things that could go wrong.
>>>
>>> Have a tablet (labelled with sponsor name) at every sponsor stall with
>>> QR code app installed. The app is called QR Droid. It scans and stores
>>> the information within a database. The sponsor can see the history at
>>> any time they choose to. After the event, the app allows you to export
>>> the data as a CSV. We'll have to write a CSV parser to parse the data
>>> and send it to the respective sponsors.
>>>
>>> The API allows 10k requests per day. So we're good there. This
>>> approach will have the side effect of participants being able to
>>> exchange contact info. Guess that is good side effect to have.
>>>
>>> This approach requires neither a centralized server nor an Internet
>>> connection. The Internet is usually the main problem in these
>>> scenarios. Hence, we avoid that.
>>>
>>> Sayan tested the API and the app. It seems to be working as expected.
>>>
>>> We would like to hear your thoughts. With the exception of Murphy
>>> hanging around PyCon India as an uninvited guest, unless there is
>>> something that could obviously go wrong with this approach, it seems
>>> reasonable to implement.
>>>
>>> Oh, as for the Bar code reader, bar codes can only store numbers. Then
>>> we again hit the problem of having a centralized server where we can
>>> look up the details of the corresponding number.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> --
>>> Haris Ibrahim K. V.
>>> http://sosaysharis.wordpress.com
>>> @harisibrahimkv
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Inpycon mailing list
>>> Inpycon at python.org
>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Thanks,
>> Vijay kumar Bang
>>
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>
>
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-- 
Haris Ibrahim K. V.
http://sosaysharis.wordpress.com
@harisibrahimkv