First Conference Experience

I attended the Indian Control Conference from 17th to 20th December 2025 at IISc, Bangalore. This was my first conference ever — and also my first time in Bangalore. I was there to present a paper I worked on during my summer internship at IIT Bombay (long story, will tell some other time).

Arrival & Accommodation

The first thing I did after reaching campus was sort out my accommodation. I had applied for financial aid and luckily got a guest house room on campus at a subsidized rate — which honestly felt like a small victory in itself.

Since the conference was starting the next day, I had some time to just walk around and explore the campus. IISc is ridiculously pretty. I also somehow managed to eat at one of the hostel canteens, thanks to two very kind students who got me in using the guest policy. Peak survival skills unlocked on day one.

IISc Campus Details
IISc Main Building

Workshops & Presentations

The reporting time was at 8:30 am the next day. I registered, got my goodie bag, and started the day with a round of workshop presentations. Honestly, not having been exposed to robotics and AI research outside had me greatly underestimating the kind of work I would see. That assumption did not last very long:

• A lot of the talks were genuinely impressive.
• I found myself eagerly taking notes to look things up later.

Lunch followed — and it was excellent. The food and snacks were way beyond what I expected. Whoever planned the catering clearly cared. Post-lunch, I met my co-author Krutarth (PhD, IITB), and then headed back for the second half, which was again packed with workshops.

Day 2 began with a plenary session on Information Markets and Decision Systems by Dr. Muther Dahleh. It was a solid start to the day. After that, the regular conference presentations began. I mostly attended sessions on:

1. Reinforcement Learning
2. Multi-Agent Systems

The foyer of the IDR building had stalls from robotic equipment distributors. There was a live demo of the Unitree dog, which was honestly very cool to watch. I also visited the EduTech stall and was surprised by the range of robots they had. They even had a small bot similar to the F1tenth MuSHR we use in our research group at IITKGP — except the price tag felt personally offensive.

Evening & Gala Dinner

That evening, there was a prize distribution ceremony followed by a cultural session by Indian flautist Pravin Godkhindi. It was superb. After an entire day of technical talks, sitting there listening to live classical flute music felt unexpectedly calming. A really nice way to close the academic intensity of the day.

Then came the Gala Dinner. I almost couldn’t find the venue because it was on the other side of the road — you had to use an underground connector from campus to cross over. Very cool infrastructure. Slightly confusing directions. And yes, the food was again ridiculously good. They had everything — veg, non-veg, full spread. Sadly, my hands (and mouth) were too busy to take any pictures.

Prize Distribution	Cultural Event	Flute Performance
Event Continuation

Final Thoughts

The last day followed a similar pattern — plenary talks and paper presentations. Our slot was the second to last. It went well overall. The audience was a little thin (end-of-conference effect), but no major disasters, so I’m counting that as a win!

All in all, it was a great first conference experience.

I met a lot of people working in the field, saw some genuinely solid research, and came back with fresh motivation to keep pushing toward a career in research. I also travelled alone to a new city for the first time - small but meaningful milestone. My return flight was early the next morning. I left Bangalore tired, slightly overwhelmed, but very happy.

Hopefully I’ll be back someday; maybe with more work, more confidence, and a slightly bigger audience.

That’s it for this one. See you all again soon!

Group Photo	My Presentation