The first COMPUTE Regional Event (CRE) of 2026 was held at Ashoka University, Sonepat, on March 21, 2026 (the website).

It was a foggy morning in the area. We kicked off the morning session around 10 am in a pretty cool conference room with directional microphones spread across the room to make conversations really fantastic!

After a quick introduction from Aalok and Prajish, we got into the first session of the day: Discussion Forum to discuss a few CS Ed themes and ideas in small group formats.

Participants mostly worked in the lounge area in groups of three to create a write-up on their ideas using the prompts that were shared. After the group work, we moved back to the conference room for the groups to present their ideas. This ended up being an engaging 1-hour session (though it was planned to be 10 minutes!). The first session stretched till lunch.

Lunch was awesome!

Post lunch, we had two workshops.

Prajish introduced the participants to the experience report, the distinction between experience report and research paper and what goes into an experience report. Hands-on activities around describing the problem and its context, and a description of the idea, were the highlights and were well-received. This was about 90 minutes.

This was followed by Shitanshu talking about research papers – what makes it a research paper, the structure of a research paper, etc. Hands-on activities included identifying a research idea, framing a research question, etc.

We wrapped up the day with nice snacks and excited discussions around how to take these ideas forward!