Social Impact Award: Thank You TM Square and SYNICT'26

Receiving the Social Impact Award from Neeraj Kumar Singh in SYNINCT'26

Recognizing the Recognition

I thank TM Square and SYNICT'26 team humbly with gratitude.  

TM Square and SYNINCT should be recognized first for breaking the biases and nominating me for this award.

The community and industry is biased.  I'm part of this.  When I say biased, it is biased with certain names for its visibility, crowd they pull in, for appearing in multiple events, and more.  Is this right or wrong?  Nothing is right or wrong here!  It works and benefits that way.  

SYNICT, you broke these biases and nominated me for the Social Impact Award.  Isn't that surprising!  Yes, it is.  At least to me. 

For the last 17 years, I am in consistent efforts to keep myself better, upskill, conscious, aware and informed to share with fellow test engineers and community.  This is the first recognition I have got in a conference from the community.

This recognition makes me much more responsible and accountable on how I should function with the community and what I should be doing for the community.  

Thank you team TM Square, SYNICT and the jury panel.

What Is Social Impact Award?

Here is what SYNICT says for Social Impact Award,

Celebrating someone who has made a strong impact through consistent content related to the QA industry on social media with maximum count.  Your posts continue to educate, engage, and connect the community.

Social Impact Award, SYNINCT'26

Social Impact Award Memento, SYNICT'26

My Experiences with SYNICT'26

 

This blog post shares my experience of the software testing conference SYNICT'26 held on 11th April 2026 in Bengaluru.

I got down at Silk Institute Metro Station and walked to the venue.  I reached the venue on time and met Neeraj Kumar Singh.  Later, I connected and spoke to other conference team members.  I met Soham and thanked him for creating me a window to attend this conference.

Entering the conference hall, I saw Santosh Tuppad.  We met in person after close to a decade.  I'm happy meeting him!  

I networked and introduced myself to others.  While I did this, my mentee Chidambara and his wife wa;led in to the conference hall -- both are SDETs.  To me, this is first -- seeing the husband and wife attending a software testing conference together.

I met Christy Henitha and a couple of people from RelQ attending this conference.  I'm glad to see people of RelQ -- the first software testing service company from India which is not operational today.

I took my seat and got ready to listen!

I see this conference is a well executed experiment from TM Square.  It happened in silence with no noise and buzz.  My experience is not all meetups and conferences can create the space as I saw here.  It is well hosted and concluded.  

Now, one of the next challenge to TM Square is -- How to have the same engagement between audience and speaker and the activities when more and more audience come in?

Read the below for details in brief.

SYNICT'26, Speakers and Audience

The conference organizer kept each talk interactive.  The audience could jump in and ask questions or share the insights.  The speaker added more details to it.  

The sessions remained interactive.  Such interactivity is not a common sight in the conferences, and the meetups as well.  To me this is the key highlight and experience of this conference.  I thank the conference organizers and speakers to keep it this way.

In the other way, the audience engaged speakers with their questions and by sharing the experiences.

You will not believe this right away.  But, let me tell.  The audience challenged the speakers in certain points.

Team SYNICT'26,

This format and space to have such healthy conversation between the audience and speakers is your success!  Not all meetups and conferences can do this.

SYNICT'26 Stage

Talks and My Take Back

The talk from Santosh Tuppad was highly interactive.  He presented, "The Human Firewall Security, AI & Our Shared Future".

• Santosh started his talk to be interactive.
• The audience jumped in by sharing their insights, experience and questions.
• The talk extended beyond its timeline, but the engagement from audience to the speaker continued.
• My understanding is, the talk aimed to say -- we human should be the first firewall to safeguard ourselves in the AI era and future.
• It made sense to me
• The awareness that we should be constructing consistently in this time and future with AI in place is critical
• In all I understand, he said, keep the humanity in center and then use the technologies.

The talk from Ajay Balamurugadas was well strategized as a hook to both time keeper and the audience.  He presented, "Building Quality Together - How AI Connects Craft, Context, and Collaboration".

• To get the better benefit from an AI Agent in place, it needs context.
• The importance of context was explained and he illustrated it through PostQode.
• Should I say this is a demo of PostQode?
• Not in whole
• But, he used PostQode to explain what can AI Agent can do as collaboration when connected to one's work with context.

To me the highlight of this talk is, the hook he created  -- to complete his talk in 19 minutes and use rest of his session time discuss.

You see the two above talks in two different styles yet remaining interactive.

The talk by Geosley had the examples of showing the ML algorithm to the solution implemented with Agentic AI for automation.  This helps one to map what is behind this automation using AI Agents.

The Fun and Activities

We audience were engaged with quiz after each session.  Arjun BM and Prathibha TN were running close to win it.  Arjun BM won it at the end.

There was a crossword and it was compelling to think.

We had got sketch pens, pencil and eraser.  But, why sketch pens and eraser?  Finally, we were asked to draw -- how do I want to see myself with testing.  Christy Henitha's sketch got the reward.

Here is what I drew and I gave it first.  I want to keep simple and be simple.  I want to see and work as in White Box notion wherever possible. So that the debugging is easy to make a fix on knowing the problem.

My Sketch at SYNICT'26 -- White Box and Me

Recognition and Awards

TM Square recognized the people from community.  This is needed for the community.  I thank wholeheartedly to TM Square and its people for doing this.

• Community Champion Award -- Mukesh Otwani
• Digital Humor Award -- Nishant Gohel
• Social Impact Award -- Ravisuriya Eswara

Meeting and Catching Up

After a decade, we all three met and sat for a few minutes talking, ranting, laughing and smiling.  I enjoyed this moment filled with happiness, silence and peace.

From Left to Right -- Ajay, Ravi, and Santosh.  Photo Credit: Santosh

Soham, Neeraj, and Gandhali

My experience with Soham Majumder will go for a long time and I will cherish it.  He helped me to attend this conference.  Thank you, Soham.

My experience with Neeraj Kumar Singh is -- He is behind it!  I see, he stood and assisted his team wherever he had to.  I could see it as I entered the venue.  The first thing that sensed to me is -- he is approachable and trying to be aware of what's happening.

My experience as an audience with Gandhali Karmarkar is unique.  As a anchor she has got something magical in her voice.  She engaged the audience!

For SYNICT'27

I request one track of tech talks in Software Testing.  While the other track(s) can run in parallel on the other dimensions of the craft and practice.

Why I expect it from TM Square?  A conference run by community can do it.

What is TM Square?

Neeraj Kumar Singh and I discussed in the lunch break.

I was curious to know what is the meaning or abbreviation of TM Square.

He said, it is "The Metrics That Matter".

I'm looking forward to SYNICT'27.

The Grammar of Injection Attacks

 

I'm presenting a talk in Null OWASP Bengaluru Meetup on 25th April 2026.  It is a talk that focuses on foundation of injections in web applications.  I wish, I had a senior or mentor who would have walked through me this in the early days of my career.  However, Rahul Verma's workshop on web security helped me to build the perspectives -- I take this opportunity to thank and express my gratitude for him.

It's Just Data..., Until It Isn't: The Grammar of Injection Attacks

In modern web applications, user input is everywhere -- search boxes, login forms, URLs, and APIs.  Most of the time, it is treated as harmless data.  But what happens when the data is interpreted as code?

This talk introduces a fundamental yet often overlooked concept behind vulnerabilities like HTML injection, SQL injection and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): grammar and context.

Instead of focusing on memorizing payloads, we will explore how browsers, databases, and interpreters parse input.  Later, we will learn how the attackers exploit these rules to break out of intended contexts.  Through simple, real-world examples, we will walk step-by-step through how an attacker reads the structure of a target, identifies injection points, and crafts payloads that turn data into execution.

By the end of this session, you will have a strong mental model to:

• Understand where and why injection vulnerabilities occur
• Analyze how input is interpreted across HTML, JavaScript, and SQL contexts
• Think like an attacker and defend like an engineer.

This talk is designed for beginners in security, testing or development who want to build a solid foundation in web vulnerabilities without getting lost in complexity.

Prerequisite:  An open mind and do not keep the questions unasked and undiscussed.

null and OWASP Bengaluru Meetup - 25th April 2026

UPDATED on 26 April 2026

Photo Click Credit: Pawan Karthik, null Bengaluru

SYNICT'26: Software Testing Conference Happening With No Noise and Buzz

 

Tomorrow [11th Apr 2026], I'm attending a Software Testing conference in Bengaluru -- SYNICT'26.  

What compelled me to write this blog about this conference is, no buzz.  Yes, I do not see any buzz on social media or in the community from anyone about this conference.

I see the buzz and noise for the meetups that happen.  Yet, this conference is happening in silent.

The theme of the conference is, QA In the Era of AI.

When AI has buzz all around why the organizers of this conference chose to execute and deliver it in silence?  I'm yet to know this!

I see the committed practitioners in the speaker list.

All said, you and I know, a conference cannot happen if the organizing team is silence.  I see the team of 10 members who are behind this.  Among them, I interacted with Soham Majumder.  He seemed to be approachable, listening, and coordinated very well.  This has given me a good impression about his other team members as well.

Well, I will not be silent in the conference.  I will be exploring, unlearning, learning, catching-up, networking and assist engineers where all I can.

I'm exited to experience my first conference for the year 2026. 

How this conference is being executed has made me curious about it!

Between, I asked Soham what do "SYNICT" mean.  He said, it is -- synergy and connect.

Note this please -- I'm not paid to write.  I will not do it as well.  Such happening should be documented so that the future will know about it to say a testing conference happened with no noise and buzz.  I'm glad, I documented it.

SYNICT'26 Web Page