#454 Funding request for Aditya Patawari (adimania)
Closed: Fixed None Opened 10 years ago by adimania.

  • What do you need covered? (Please estimate the costs in USD: hotel $X, travel $Y)
    Hotel = As provided by FUDCon Beijing organizers, willing to share a room.

Travel = less than $700 (approximate value since the prices are fluctuating)

Visa Charges = about $70

Total = $770

  • If we cannot provide a full subsidy, will a partial subsidy be helpful? (Yes/No??)
    I am afraid, not. However I am willing to pay for an extra day of stay (26 May).

  • If Yes, specify the minimum amount you need covered to facilitate your attendance.
    N/A

  • What will you accomplish by being at FUDCon? (Please be as specific as possible, since this is the most important factor in granting requests.)
    I am planning to give a talk about Ansible and its usage in Fedora Infra, hoping to recruit more contributor for the same. From the irc logs, it seems that this is approved.

I also want to meet the people behind Fedora and community once again. It would be nice to talk to people in person. I have also proposed a Docker workshop where I want to give an introduction to Docker and tell users about how to run it on Fedora. This hasn't been approved yet but this can be conducted on short notice if there is enough time and interest among attendees.

Other than this I hope to attend some really great talks and hackfests.
I am a Fedora contributor and Ambassador and I have been a speaker at FUDCon, Pune and Kuala Lumpur, FOSS.in and GNUnify.

  • If you are requesting airfare, include complete flight information such as flight numbers, desired departure and arrival airports, and times.
    Also let us know if you have specific time restrictions.
    This is tentative. I will try to book the most economical and suitable flight. Following is cheapest according to Kayak at the moment.

Arrival:

Cathay Pacific Mumbai to Beijing, Wednesday 22 May: Flight 684 + Flight 6102

Departure:

Cathay Pacific Beijing to Mumbai, Monday 27 May: Flight 6109 + Flight 699

I tried Air China as well but it has layovers of more than 20 hours which is certainly not a good situation.

  • Do you need a visa or other official processing before you can attend FUDCon? If so, approximately how long does that processing take?
    Yes, I'll need visa and a supporting letter. The average time for processing is two weeks but applying at least a month before is recommended.

The Visa invitation letter must have all the details as mentioned on [http://in.china-embassy.org/eng/lsfw/qz/t917022.htm this page].

Assuming that required Visa type would be F, the requirements for the letter would be the following:
Information on the applicant (full name, gender, date of birth, etc.)
Information on the planned visit (purpose of visit, arrival and departure dates, place(s) to be visited, relations between the applicant and the inviting entity or individual, financial source for expenditures)
* Information on the inviting entity or individual (name, contact telephone number, address, official stamp, signature of the legal representative or the inviting individual)

Hi adimania,

We'd like speakers to apply Visa type L (travel visa), since its application is normally easier, and the requirements are easier too.
For Visa type L, you need flight ticket and hotel reversation OR an invitation letter.

As for the invitation letter, we are considering sending out a fillable form to each speaker, and you can fill it and then print it out. This way you should not need to provide all personal information in public. The invitation letter is from an individual (FUDCon orgainzer), since invitation letter from Red Hat is not possible as we know.

What do you think of the suggestion?

Hi alick,

This sounds good but usually the invitation letter for Visa applications is signed by the inviting person or the organization. Would you be able to incorporate that in the form?

Signature is a requirement for European and US Visa at least. If this is not required for Chinese Visa then form should do just fine. I think some one who has applied and got the Chinese Visa would know better. Maybe you can check with Gerard Braad or GNOME organizers?

Hi adimania,

I think we can add the signature into the form/document. I saw this kind of electronic signature on invitation letter from some academic conference. I'll certainly check with the other organizers.

Replying to [comment:5 alick]:

Hi adimania,

I think we can add the signature into the form/document. I saw this kind of electronic signature on invitation letter from some academic conference.
+1

This would be good.

Any updates on the budget?

Airfare is increasing and delay is only going to make it worse. Not to mention the limited time for visa processing. From what I understand, I cannot apply for the visa till I have details like address of stay and similar things.

Few points I have got from talking to a couple of travel agents in India:
the invitation letters need to be stamped
for a tourist visa, invitation letter issued by a conference is problematic since conferences traditionally relate to business.
* For tourist or for business visa, the letter has to have a mention of the accommodation or I have to show a valid booking of a hotel.

Would it be possible to update the invitation letter with concern 1 and 3 urgently?

We will sponsor '''USD $600 ''' for your travel, and we will also sponsor you for '''three day's lodging''' in our chosen hotel during FUDCon.

However, since we have limited budget, we can not offer you full subsidy.

Since we do not have Red Hat employee in the organizing team, we can not buy your tickets, you should buy flight tickets by yourself and get it reimbursed after FUDCon.

For visa, we recommend you to apply for Visa L(travel visa) since it is easier and only need to provide flight ticket and hotel booking receipt.

As for the hotel booking receipt, since the hotel is located in the university campus, it will be pretty late when we get the booking receipt. So you might try book one on your own, since to our knowledge it does not have to be the same one as final lodging hotel.

Please fill in the form[1] '''before''' 2:00 April 28th UTC so that we can book the hotel in time for you.

[1] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11w1Ny0yjOSlM6HNpyGDzNxJdOU06ITNbQlrYE3PALco/viewform

The event report is up at [http://devel.adityapatawari.com/2014/05/fudcon-beijing-day-2/ FUDCon Beijing: Day 1] and [http://devel.adityapatawari.com/2014/05/fudcon-beijing-day-2/ FUDCon Beijing: Day 2]

I am attaching the boarding passes. The paypal address is aditya AT adityapatawari DOT com. Please let me know if there is anything else required for the reimbursement.

According to the latest mail by alick, the reimbursement is on hold.

Total cost of the air ticket = 820 USD

Since we have some local sponsors sponsored FUDCon in the last minute, and some sponsored attendees did not come, we have some budget left after the conference. So we adjusted your sponsored amount.

We will sponsor '''USD $817''' for your travel and '''three day's lodging''' in our chosen hotel during FUDCon.

The event report is up at [http://devel.adityapatawari.com/2014/05/fudcon-beijing-day-2/ FUDCon Beijing: Day 1] and [http://devel.adityapatawari.com/2014/05/fudcon-beijing-day-2/ FUDCon Beijing: Day 2]

The boarding passes are attached. The paypal address is aditya AT adityapatawari DOT com. Please let me know if there is anything else required for the reimbursement.

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