Umbraco India Festival 2026

The Story of India's First-Ever Umbraco Festival

There is a particular kind of magic that happens when a global open-source community lands, for the very first time, on Indian soil and lets that soil shape it. This is the story of the first-ever India Festival, held on August 28 & 29 in Kochi told the way we lived it, as a team, as sponsors, and as a part of something much bigger than any one of us.

"Some conferences inspire you. This one transforms you."

The Journey Begins

We are 3 people Nikhil Prajapati, Milan Dudhatra and Kalpesh Rajani from GIRIRAJ DIGITALflew out of Ahmedabad not entirely sure what to expect. Umbraco festivals exist across Europe and USA. Codegarden has its own mythology but India had never had a festival to call its own. And we have decided to make it like same synergy as the global festival.

[Flying to Kochi from Ahmedabad around 4 AM Morning]

Day 1: A Hackathon, a Water Metro, and Old Friends in a New City

We landed in Kochi to that particular warmth Kerala is known for, not just the weather, but the welcome. The air smelled faintly of the sea and of filter coffee brewing somewhere close by. Coconut palms lined the roads out of the airport, backwaters glinting in the distance, and there was a slower, gentler rhythm to the city that felt like an invitation to breathe before the festival's whirlwind began.

Kerala Water Metro Ride

Within hours of arriving, we were pulled straight into the energy of a pre-festival hackathon, developers hunched over laptops, ideas flying faster than anyone could type them. It's always fun discussing people turn into teammates in a few hours with sharing ideas, laughing over bugs, and building something new together.

In between sessions, we did what any traveller in Kochi must do: we rode the water metro, watching the city slide by on water the way it has for centuries. It felt fitting a festival about modern digital experiences, taking a moment to move at the pace of tradition.

The evening brought reunions. Friends from Phases and Techxot, familiar faces from past conferences, past collaborations, past late-night conversations about Umbraco and everything adjacent to it. We swapped notes, shared knowledge, and did what our community does best: talked shop over good food, this time over a thoroughly appreciated pizza party.

Welcoming Umbraco HQ Team: "अतिथि देवो भव"

Later, we sat down to dinner with the Umbraco HQ team and along with the sponsors, and this is where something small but telling happened. We had carried with us a set of traditional Gujarati gifts, a quiet way of saying "Thank you for choosing India, thank you for trusting us with this first chapter". It is a very Indian instinct: you do not arrive as a guest without also arriving as a host. Hospitality flows both ways, always.

By the time we got back that night, Day One was already a story worth telling. Little did we know Day Two would outdo it entirely.

Day 2: The Festival Begins: With Kerala's Own Grammar

Umbraco Run

The morning started the way good festival mornings should a run with friends, clearing the head before what would become one of the most memorable days in Umbraco's Indian story.

Glimpse of Venue with #H5YR

Walking into the venue, the first thing that greeted us was unmistakably, wonderfully us the community's own #H5YR (Hi-Five You Rock) tradition, waiting right at the entrance, a reminder that no matter how big Umbraco gets, it never forgets to say hello with a raised hand and a grin.

Registration Time

At the registration desk, Anjumol and Summya welcomed every arriving delegate with badges and warmth, and our host Jeena set the tone for the day, the kind of welcoming energy that makes a room of strangers feel, within minutes, like they belong.

Thirty Seconds, One Community

And then, before a single slide was shared, before a single line of code was discussed, the room fell silent. Thirty seconds of silence, in tribute to Nepal, a pause the entire community observed together, a reminder that this was never only a technology gathering. It was people, first.

Traditional Inauguration Ceremony

What followed was an inauguration unlike anything Umbraco had done before: A welcome ceremony rooted in Indian cultural tradition, and a Kathakali performance Kerala's centuries-old storytelling dance form, with its elaborate costumes, painted expressions, and rhythms that predate every framework we would go on to discuss that day, setting the tempo for the world's first Umbraco India Festival.

When the Umbraco World Came Together

Then came the moment that made it official: a video message from Mats, The CEO of Umbraco and Emma, VP of Developer Relations, joining virtually to open the very first Umbraco India Festival with genuine warmth, marking, in real time, a new chapter for the community in India.

A Day Full of Ideas, Stories, and Sessions

What followed was a packed, joyful, occasionally chaotic (in the best way) day of talks, energy, and community.

#1. Stephen Simon I Was Building AI Agents the Wrong Way. Here's What MCP Changed.

Simon's session on AI kicked things into gear, the room clearly hungry for where AI and Umbraco intersect, A conversation that ran so rich, time itself seemed to lose the plot of the schedule.

#2. Antony Meyn (Tony) Built to Scale: The Evolution of Load Balancing in Umbraco

Tony took the stage on Umbraco Cloud load balancing, giving the room a genuine, in-depth look at the architecture behind the platform many of us build on every day.

#4. Ansar and Farsuddin Enterprise Replatforming: Consolidating Three CMSs into a Unified Umbraco Cloud Platform

Ansar and Farsuddin delivered a session that felt less like a tech talk and more like a story walking through how they migrated three separate CMS platforms into one, told with the pacing of a narrative rather than a checklist.

Because Festivals Are for Dancing

Somewhere in between, there was a joyful, spontaneous dance from Jerine and Jone, because a festival is still a festival, and celebration belongs on the agenda too.

It's Lunch Time

And then a lunch. A very Indian kind of lunch: both vegetarian and non-vegetarian spreads, with paneer butter masala and traditional sweets like halwa making sure nobody left hungry, in body or in spirit.

#5. It's Me - Nikhil Prajapati now, Agentic Umbraco: When Automate Meets MCP

After lunch, It's My Turn. I took the stage to speak on Umbraco Automation with MCP and AI Agents arguably the toughest slot of the day, right after a heavy meal, when every speaker's real challenge is keeping eyelids from drooping. But the topic did the work for me: automation, MCP, and AI agents working together so that content, workflows and entire pipelines can quietly assemble themselves, meaning that by the time you're back from your tea break, the work is already done. It is, in many ways, the same story Giriraj Digital has been telling all year: that Umbraco's future is not just a content management system, it is an AI-enabled platform for how enterprises will build and operate tomorrow.

#6. Seema Sunil, Mindfulness: The Present is Perfect

The afternoon kept its rhythm. Seema's session on mindfulness turned into something closer to real-time therapy for a room full of developers, a gentle, necessary reminder that this industry needs stillness as much as it needs sprints.

Ahmedabad Brings the Energy

Maulik, representing Ahmedabad on the dance floor as much as in the sessions, brought the room back to life with another burst of energy.

#7. Matin Shaikh, The Future of Search: SEO, AEO & GEO in Umbraco

Matin walked through the AI Inspector package & The Future of Search: SEO, AEO & GEO in Umbraco, giving everyone a hands-on glimpse of where Umbraco's tooling is headed.

#8. Emmanuel Tissera (Emm), I, AI, and Umbraco: A Developer Perspective

Emmanuel showcased I, AI and Umbraco, laying out an agentic skills roadmap that had the room leaning forward, a preview of what AI-native Umbraco could genuinely look like.

#9. Bishal Tim, From the Mountains to the MVP

And then, a story that needed no slides at all: the youngest-ever Umbraco MVP, Bishal Tim from Nepal, shared his journey a story of the mountains behind him and the challenges he'd climbed to get here, the kind of talk that reminds an entire room why community, not just code, is what makes Umbraco what it is.

#10. Umbraco HQ, A Community Conversation

The day closed with an open Q&A with the Umbraco HQ team, where sharp, thoughtful questions came in from students and professionals alike on the cloud, on pricing, and on the community's hope for a data centre presence in India. It was a fitting close: not just India learning from Umbraco, but Umbraco listening to India.

Recognition, Gratitude, and a Goodbye That Wasn't Really Goodbye

As the sessions wound down, the festival paused to say thank you, to the Indian Umbraco MVPs recognised on stage, and with a small, heartfelt gift from the Umbraco India Festival team to the visiting Umbraco HQ delegation.

Then came appreciation for the people and organizations who made the day possible:

• Giriraj Digital, Platinum Sponsor

• Phases, Platinum Sponsor

• Techxot, Platinum Partner

• WeSure, Gold Sponsor

And a warm round of thanks for the speakers who shaped the day: Simon, Tony, Farshad, Ansar, Nikhil, Matin, and Emmanuel along with a full tribute to the organizing committee, the quiet architects behind a two-day festival that ran, against all odds and a very packed schedule, like clockwork.

Being named Platinum Sponsor of India's first-ever Umbraco Festival meant something to us beyond the logo on a banner. It was Giriraj Digital saying, in front of the community we've grown up in: we believe in what happens next for Umbraco in India, and we intend to keep building it.

The Festival Ends on the Dance Floor

The night ended the only way a festival like this could with music, a DJ, and a dance floor full of developers who, twelve hours earlier, had been deep in technical sessions about load balancing and AI agents. It is one of the quiet joys of this community: how easily it moves between deep technical rigour and pure, unguarded celebration.

As the lights came down, the sentiment in the room was simple and already looking forward: "See you next year in Goa." And, as always, #H5YR.

Why This Story Matters to Giriraj Digital

We didn't just attend the first Umbraco India Festival. We helped build the room it happened in, as a Platinum Sponsor, as speakers, and as three colleagues who flew out from Ahmedabad carrying gifts, and flew home carrying something harder to name: a stronger belief that India's Umbraco community is no longer emerging. It has arrived.

If this is what the first Umbraco India Festival looked like, we cannot wait to see what Goa has in store.