Welcome to Postgres Women India monthly newsletter, August 2026.
We are excited to highlight several key initiatives and events aimed at empowering women in #Data, #AI, and #Postgres ecosystem.

Postgres Women India (PWI) was proud to be part of Hyderabad PGDays 2026 for the third consecutive year as a Partner Sponsor.
The 3rd edition of Hyderabad PGDays 2026, held on August 20–21, 2026, at JNTUH, Hyderabad, brought together 350+ PostgreSQL enthusiasts, professionals, speakers, and community members for two days of technical learning, networking, and community engagement.
For PWI, Hyderabad PGDays was more than a conference. It was an opportunity to connect with women from the PostgreSQL, data, and AI communities, introduce them to PWI, and create meaningful connections within the community.
A big thank you to organizers Hari Kiran, Ameen Abbas, and Rajesh Madiwale for including PWI in the event and supporting our initiatives.
PWI had a strong presence at Hyderabad PGDays 2026 with activities focused on community, connection, and collaboration.

PWI Booth, managed by Lavanya and Vaishnavi, provided a space for attendees to learn more about Postgres Women India, connect with the community, and engage with fellow PostgreSQL enthusiasts.

Aarti delivered a lightning talk titled “A Look Back: Jan–Jul 2026 & Beyond,” highlighting PWI’s journey, key initiatives, and what lies ahead.
The conference also brought women together through #PWIKitty,

One of the highlights of Hyderabad PGDays 2026 was the PWI Kitty, a dedicated space for women in the PostgreSQL community to come together, connect, and enjoy an evening beyond technology.
There were no presentations or technical discussions. Just conversations, laughter, fun activities, shared experiences, and an opportunity to get to know the person behind the professional profile.
The evening became even more special with a pizza dinner sponsored by OpenSource DB.
A heartfelt thank you to Hari Kiran and the OpenSource DB team for supporting the PWI Kitty and helping us create this space for women to connect.
And thank you to every woman who joined us and made the evening special.
More conversations. More connections. More friendships. A stronger community.
PWI is proud to collaborate with the Open Alliance for PostgreSQL Education (OAPE) to support global PostgreSQL education through open, vendor-neutral learning and certification pathways.
This initiative helps community members build their PostgreSQL skills, validate their expertise, and discover new opportunities across the ecosystem.
Our appreciation to Jan Karremans, Cornelia Biacsics, Hari Kiran, and the entire OAPE team for building this valuable PostgreSQL certification mechanism and including PWI in this initiative.
From the conference floor and Community Hub to the PWI Kitty, Hyderabad PGDays gave us many opportunities to meet women, hear their stories, and build new connections.
For PWI, community is about more than technology. It is about creating a space where women can connect, share, learn, support one another, and feel that they belong.
We are always thankful to OpenSource DB for being a strong and constant partner in supporting the Postgres Women India community.
Your continued support helps PWI create more opportunities for women to connect with the PostgreSQL ecosystem and participate in community initiatives.
A heartfelt thank you to the entire PWI team for your teamwork, dedication, and support in making Hyderabad PGDays 2026 memorable.
Aarti NR · Kalyani M · Keerthi Seetha · Kranthi Lavanya · Praveena Sivasankar
OSDB Team: Chandini Kurada – Deevena Ande – Lahari Giddi – Swarna Teja – Vaishnavi Vadapalli
Every contribution helped make the PWI experience special.
Conference Ebooklet
Explore the complete two-day conference experience.
Event Photos
Revisit the moments from Hyderabad PGDays 2026.
Watch Hyderabad PGDays 2026
Catch the sessions and highlights from the event.
Watch the PWI Kitty Video
A glimpse of the conversations, laughter, and connections from the evening.
Hyderabad PGDays 2026 reminded us that a strong community is built not only through technology, but also through people, conversations, relationships, and opportunities to connect.
From the PWI Kitty to our conference interactions and collaboration with OAPE, every moment added another chapter to the growing PWI community.
Thank you to all the Organizers, Speakers, Trainers, Volunteers, Attendees, Partners, OAPE, OpenSource DB, and the PWI community for making Hyderabad PGDays 2026 special.
Here’s to more women, more connections, more conversations, and a stronger PostgreSQL community.
See you at the next PGDays!
Kalyani M attended the DFW PostgreSQL Meetup, featuring Daniel M. Farrell’s session on “Scaling pgvector AI Workloads with YugabyteDB.” The session explored challenges that emerge as vector workloads scale and how distributed, PostgreSQL-compatible architectures can address them without changes to SQL or application code.
The DFW Postgres community hosts monthly meetups for PostgreSQL enthusiasts to learn, share, and connect.
We’re delighted to feature Shruti Rawal, Software Engineer at #Google, as our Postgres Women India – Rookie of the Month for August 2026! 🐘
Shruti Rawal’s journey is a great example of how curiosity and a willingness to explore beyond the surface can open new doors. From starting as a Product Intern and growing through full-stack development to working with database systems, her journey reflects continuous learning and evolution.
Her interest in PostgreSQL came from a simple but powerful curiosity — to unpack the “black box” and understand how systems deliver reliability and performance at scale.
💡 Her message to fellow learners:
“Don’t be afraid of the database ‘black box’—open it up! Play around with it as much as you can.”
Shruti Rawal’s journey from application development to database systems is truly inspiring, showcasing the power of curiosity, continuous learning, and exploring new possibilities with PostgreSQL.
Congratulations, Shruti Rawal! 🎉 Keep exploring, keep learning, and keep inspiring the PostgreSQL community!
Check out this link to know more about her: https://lnkd.in/gcGspFbx
Postgres Women India is delighted to spotlight Divya Bhargov as our Woman of the Month for August 2026!
Divya is a Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft, leading the PostgreSQL engine team for Azure Flexible Server for PostgreSQL. Her journey reflects a transition from application development to database engineering, with a strong commitment to PostgreSQL. She has contributed to the community through talks at PGConf India, POSETTE: An Event for Postgres, and #PGSummitNYC, while also supporting community events through talk selection and hosting. Through her journey, she encourages learning, curiosity, and meaningful contributions to the PostgreSQL ecosystem.
Divya‘s message to the PostgreSQL community:
“There is room for you in the Postgres community. You do not need to know everything before joining the conversation or making your first contribution.”
Thank you Divya for inspiring others and contributing to the growth of the PostgreSQL community!
Read her full journey here: https://lnkd.in/dD9Wn9cE
Meet Cornelia Biacsics – Principal Program Manager for PostgreSQL at hashtag#Microsoft, an active member of the hashtag#PostgreSQLAdvocacyCommittee and a passionate community builder.
From starting as a mother of two working as a Head of Marketing to becoming a prominent leader at hashtag#Microsoft, Cornelia Biacsics’s journey is a powerful testament to the value of community and showing up. Over her years of involvement, she has driven growth through public speaking, organizing events and building vital connections, hitting one major PostgreSQL milestone at a time. She is also the proud founder of the hashtag#ViennaPostgreSQLMeetup, an initiative she built from scratch to show everyday users the vibrant ecosystem waiting beyond just downloading the database.
Her inspirational quote:
“Change and growth often happen at the edge of your comfort zone.”
She strongly believes that open source grows through starting, not waiting. Through stepping past her own initial doubts about belonging, she has found her true place creating spaces that the whole global community can collectively own.
EnableHER for Cornelia Biacsics is – Focuses on helping more women discover that they belong in the PostgreSQL community. When we share our stories, attend conferences, and build supportive environments, we show others that there isn’t just one single path to contribute.
Read about her inspiring journey and experiences:
https://lnkd.in/dPr34E4G
Aarti Nadekar – Sharing insightful articles about PostgreSQL community
Praveena Sivasankar – Sharing insightful articles about AI which are essential for any company.
September 4, 2026 — 101 of DBA Career Graph: From Aspiring to Exceptional DBA | Hosted by Postgres Women India
Time: 5:00–7:00 PM | Luma Registration: https://luma.com/mi3c1psn
September 10, 2026: Hari Kiran attending this event — BRICS – Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, New Delhi
September 26–27, 2026 — Hari Kiran speaking at FOSS, Bangalore
How India’s Largest G2C Platform Migrated to FOSS and Broke Free from Oracle
September 30–October 2, 2026 — Postgres Summit US 2026
Conference that brings together Postgres contributors, finance and technology industry leaders, engineers building high-scale systems, and newcomers eager to run their first query.
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.