Welcome to Postgres Women India monthly newsletter, July 2026.
We are excited to highlight several key initiatives and events aimed at empowering women in #Data, #AI, and #Postgres ecosystem.
The countdown has begun for Hyderabad PGDays 2026, one of India’s premier PostgreSQL community conferences!
Postgres Women India is delighted to be part of this exciting event through the Community Hub, while OpenSource DB proudly joins as a Partner Sponsor. Together, we’re committed to strengthening the PostgreSQL ecosystem by fostering learning, collaboration, diversity, and community engagement.
Whether you’re a seasoned PostgreSQL professional or just starting your open-source journey, Hyderabad PGDays 2026 promises an enriching experience with:
Inspiring keynote sessions
Technical talks by PostgreSQL experts
Networking with the PostgreSQL community
Sponsor booths and community interactions
Opportunities to learn, collaborate, and grow
📅 Date: 20–21 August 2026
📍 Venue: JNTUH, Hyderabad
We look forward to meeting the PostgreSQL community, connecting with professionals, and welcoming everyone to the Postgres Women India Community Hub. Stop by to network, learn more about our initiatives, and become part of our growing community.
See you at Hyderabad PGDays 2026!
This July, the PostgreSQL community celebrated 30 years of innovation, reliability, and open-source excellence. At OpenSource DB, PostgreSQL is at the heart of everything we build, support, and advocate. We thank the incredible global community of contributors, developers, DBAs, and enthusiasts who have made this remarkable journey possible. Here’s to many more years of growing together!
On 11 July 2026, PgVizag Meetup #6 was successfully held in collaboration with Postgres Women India, bringing together PostgreSQL professionals, learners, and open-source enthusiasts for an engaging virtual community event.
The meetup featured insightful technical sessions by expert speakers, interactive discussions, and enthusiastic participation from over 40 attendees, creating an excellent platform for learning, knowledge sharing, and community networking.
A heartfelt thank you to our speakers, attendees, and the PgVizag organizing team for making the event a success. At Postgres Women India, we are proud to collaborate with regional PostgreSQL communities and support initiatives that encourage learning, diversity, collaboration, and the growth of the PostgreSQL ecosystem.
Missed the meetup or want to revisit the sessions?
Explore the presentations, session recordings, event photographs, and other event resources from PgVizag Meetup #6.
🔗 PgVizag Meetup #6 Resources
Thank you for being part of our growing community. We look forward to connecting with you at many more PostgreSQL community events!
Hari recently served as a jury member for Hack-The-Matrix, the flagship 24-hour AI & Data Science hackathon at TECHNIDHI’26, organized by the AI Club at Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology.
Reflecting on the experience, Hari praised the event’s exceptional organization, the enthusiasm and curiosity of the participating students, and the high quality of technical discussions throughout the judging process.
A key takeaway from his interactions with the teams was the importance of investing time in understanding the problem before jumping into development. While AI-powered tools can significantly accelerate coding, Hari emphasized that meaningful innovation begins with a clear understanding of the problem statement. Teams that focused first on defining user needs and refining their ideas ultimately delivered the strongest solutions.
Hari also expressed his appreciation to the organizing team, fellow jury members, and all participating students for making the event an inspiring experience and reaffirming his optimism about the next generation of engineers.
Hari P Kiran, Akhil, Chandini, and Swarna Teja represented OpenSource DB at the Fusion AI Summit 2025, joining industry leaders to explore the latest advancements in AI. The summit featured sessions on Agentic AI, Generative AI, LLMs, AI innovation, and real-world enterprise applications, providing valuable insights into the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
We’re delighted to feature Swarna Teja as our #RookieOfTheMonth for July2026.
Swarna‘s journey into technology is an inspiring example of determination and continuous learning. With an M.Sc. in Microbiology, she began her career in the education sector, working as a Coordinator at Keshava Reddy School and later as the Principal at Vikas School, where she built a strong foundation in leadership and people management.
Passionate about technology, Swarna transitioned from a non-IT background into the world of databases. Through consistent learning and hands-on practice, she gained expertise in PostgreSQL, Linux, backup and recovery, replication, high availability, and database monitoring. Today, she works as a DatabaseEngineer at OpenSource DB, focusing on PostgreSQL administration and monitoring.
Curious about how applications and databases work together, Swarna continues to grow in the PostgreSQL ecosystem. Her journey is a great reminder that with curiosity, dedication, and the willingness to learn, it’s never too late to build a successful career in technology.
Check out this link to know more about her: https://lnkd.in/dHduyTG8
PostgreSQL journey begins with a learning opportunity. This month, Postgres Women India is proud to feature Shalaka Dengale as our Postgres Woman of the Month – July 2026!
As a Data Analytics Consultant at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Shalaka has spent over 9 years helping organizations modernize their data platforms. Her PostgreSQL journey grew through leading migrations to Aurora PostgreSQL and RDS PostgreSQL, and today she actively shares her real-world experiences at community events like PgConf India and Postgres Bangalore.
Her story reminds us that PostgreSQL is more than a database—it’s a community that inspires learning, collaboration, and growth.
Read Shalaka’s inspiring journey here: https://lnkd.in/djDn36zp
Aarti Nadekar – Sharing insightful articles about PostgreSQL community
Praveena Sivasankar – Sharing insightful articles about AI which are essential for any company.
📌 August 20 – 21 2026 – Hyderabad PGDays 2026 Tickets page live, Grab your spot now!
📌 Sep 4, 2026 – 01 of DBA Career Graph – From Aspiring to Exceptional DBA
Join Postgres Women India for an engaging online session:
Time: 5 to 7 PM Luma Registration: https://luma.com/mi3c1psn
Talk Title: PostgresML: Revolutionizing Machine Learning with SQL
In today’s data-driven world, organizations often struggle with complex machine learning infrastructures and data movement challenges. This talk introduces PostgresML, a game-changing PostgreSQL extension that brings machine learning capabilities directly into your database. We’ll explore how PostgresML enables developers and data teams to perform sophisticated ML operations using familiar SQL commands, eliminating the need for separate ML systems. Through live demonstrations, we’ll showcase practical implementations of model training, real-time predictions, and GPU acceleration features. Whether you’re a database engineer, ML practitioner, or technical lead, you’ll learn how to leverage PostgresML to simplify your ML pipeline, enhance security, and accelerate deployment. Join us to discover how this innovative tool is bridging the gap between traditional database operations and modern machine learning workflows.
Talk Title: Developers are decision-makers now. DevRel gets you there faster
DevRel as a role has existed since the 1990s, yet it remains one of the least understood roles in tech. Whether due to changing definitions, role titles, or evolving industries, DevRel has transformed significantly over the past few years—yet it continues to shape the devtool landscape. Since 2023, we’ve seen explosive AI growth alongside a surge in tech companies and technical talent. But who reaches these developers? Developers distrust traditional marketing. Who builds the samples, docs, tutorials, and SDKs they rely on? DevRel has become more critical than ever, especially as developers increasingly become decision-makers. In this talk, we’ll explore what DevRel is, how it drives impact, and how you can build an effective DevRel program.
Talk Title: DPDPA(Digital Personal Data Protection Act) Unleashed – Why It Matters for Women in Data
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) is reshaping how organisations collect, store and use personal data, with a phased, 18‑month rollout. This presentation explores what’s in policy and law, then dives into what it unlocks for careers in data, security and consulting—especially for women. As data architect ,designing database architectures, will try connect legal constructs (Data Principals, Fiduciaries, Consent Managers, the Board) to real-world data and database practices, and show how DPDPA can be a powerful career accelerator, not just a compliance requirement.
Talk Title: Where Technology Meets Customer Needs: Lessons from a Newbie Solutions Engineer
When I stepped into the world of open-source databases as a Solutions Engineer, I expected to feel overwhelmed, but I found a role that made surprising sense. In this talk, I’ll share my journey navigating PostgreSQL with the help of modern cloud platforms like Aiven and DigitalOcean, tuning tools like DBtune, and migration partners like Hexacluster. This isn’t a deep-dive into internals, it’s a practical, beginner-friendly session to reducing the friction of managing PostgreSQL in real-world environments. Along the way, I’ll highlight the often-overlooked role of a Solutions Engineer: the human bridge between customer needs and engineering solutions. If you’re a student, a DBA, a DevOps engineer or just Postgres-curious, you’ll walk away with not only tools to explore, but also a career path to consider.

Talk Title: Architecting Ethical and Responsible AI with PostgreSQL 18
Have you ever developed an Agentic AI application using an agentic framework such as langGraph and pgai extension and noticed you don’t get good results during testing or the results are biased towards a demographic. You don’t know what to do. Organizations developing Agentic AI applications using an agentic framework such as LangGraph and pgai extension often encounter issues during implementation and testing, including suboptimal performance or bias in results such as demographic bias. Identifying the root causes of these issues can be difficult without proper tools and methodologies. This session addresses these challenges by introducing Responsible AI interpretability and explainability techniques. Participants will learn how to understand and trace the model’s decision-making process, enabling them to identify why specific results are generated. These capabilities are essential for meeting compliance requirements in regulated sectors, including banking and insurance. Attendees will gain practical knowledge on building Agentic AI applications that incorporate Responsible AI principles, ensuring transparent, accountable, and fair outcomes.
Rumi ![]()
Talk Title: New features of PostgreSQL 18
PostgreSQL 18 continues the PostgreSQL project’s long-standing focus on performance, scalability, reliability, and developer productivity, building incrementally on the improvements delivered in PostgreSQL 15–17.
Rather than introducing disruptive changes, PostgreSQL 18 is expected to emphasize refinement and maturity across core subsystems such as query execution, indexing, concurrency, replication, and observability, making PostgreSQL even more suitable for enterprise-scale and cloud-native workloads.
Talk Title: Platform Engineering Unpacked: Architecture, Evolution, and Hard-Won Lessons
The way engineering teams build and deliver software has changed dramatically. We’ve moved from manual server setups to automated pipelines, from ticket-based operations to self-service workflows, and from siloed teams to platform-driven organisations. This shift gave rise to Platform Engineering, a discipline focused on creating the internal systems, golden paths, and tooling that empower developers to move faster with less friction.
In this session, I’ll walk through the evolution that brought us here and why Platform Engineering has become a strategic priority across industries. I’ll share the architecture patterns that define successful platforms, how self-service emerges as a core capability, and the practical dos and don’ts learned from building real-world internal platforms.
Attendees will gain a clear understanding of:
Why DevOps wasn’t enough, and what Platform Engineering solves
The natural evolution from scripts → automation → abstractions → platforms
What makes a good platform (and what absolutely doesn’t)
How to design developer-centered systems and golden paths
My firsthand lessons from enabling engineering teams at scale
This talk gives a foundational, experience-driven view of what Platform Engineering really means today and how teams can start their journey the right way.
Our idea explores the implementation of AI-driven query optimization in PostgreSQL, addressing the limitations of traditional optimization methods in handling modern database complexities. We present an innovative approach using reinforcement learning for automated index selection and query plan optimization. Our system leverages PostgreSQL’s pg_stat_statements for collecting query metrics and employs HypoPG for index simulation, while a neural network model learns optimal indexing strategies from historical query patterns. Through comprehensive testing on various workload scenarios, we will validate the model’s ability to adapt to dynamic query patterns and complex analytical workloads. The research also examines the scalability challenges and practical considerations of implementing AI optimization in production environments.
Our findings establish a foundation for future developments in self-tuning databases while offering immediate practical benefits for PostgreSQL deployments. This work contributes to the broader evolution of database management systems, highlighting the potential of AI in creating more efficient and adaptive query optimization solutions.
This talk provides an introductory overview of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), exploring key concepts and their application in building intelligent systems. It will highlight the essential AI/ML techniques, such as supervised and unsupervised learning, and discuss practical use cases in modern industries. The session also focuses on how PostgreSQL, with its powerful extensions like PostgresML, TimescaleDB, and PostGIS, supports the development of AI-powered applications. By leveraging PostgreSQL’s ability to handle complex datasets and integrate machine learning models, participants will learn how to build scalable, intelligent solutions directly within the database environment.
Success is a multiplier of Action, External Factors and Destiny.
Out of these three, the only controllable aspect is our action. Again, action is the result of our EQ, IQ, SQ, and WQ (Willingness Quotient) together.
We all want to be successful and keep trying to motivate ourselves with external factors. We read inspirational books, listen to great personalities, and whenever possible upgrade ourselves with more knowledge and the list goes on.
Indeed these are excellent motivators, but in this process, we forget the most important source of energy, YOU!
We read other stories to feel inspired, thinking “I am not enough!”
But, the day we start accepting ourselves, introspect, understand, and align our life purpose with our routine, we find the internal POWER. This is a continuous source of motivation and energy which we need at down moments. When we feel, lonely, stuck and seek help, our inner voice is the greatest companion.
But, how many times do we consciously think about our “Subconscious”?
“Journey to Self” is our structured coaching program where we take back focus from the outside and delve deep inside to find our inner strength. Focusing on self-acceptance and personal growth
I believe everyone has POWER within them!
Let’s be the POWERHOUSE!
Human, AI, and Personalized User Experience for DB Observability: A Composable Approach
Database users across various technical levels are frequently frustrated by the time-consuming and inefficient process of identifying the root causes of issues. This process often involves navigating multiple systems or dashboards, leading to delays in finding solutions and potential downstream impacts on operations.
The challenge is compounded by the varying levels of expertise among users. It is essential to strike the right balance between specialized and generalized experiences. Oversimplification can result in the loss of critical information, while an overwhelming amount of data can alienate certain users.
Developers and designers are constantly navigating these trade-offs to deliver optimal user experiences. The integration of AI introduces an additional layer of complexity. While AI can provide personalized experiences within databases, it is crucial to maintain user trust and transparency in the process.
The concept of personalized composable observability offers a potential solution. By combining the strengths of human expertise, information balance, and AI-driven personalization, we can create intuitive and user-friendly experiences. This approach allows users to tailor their observability tools and workflows to their specific needs and preferences.