Hello Jayita, Apologies for the delayed response. We've discussed your participation and truly appreciate your interest in joining us. Unfortunately, due to the short notice, we haven't been able to finalize our budget allocation. We can cover hotel accommodations in Jinan and high-speed train travel from Beijing, but other expenses are beyond our current budget given the strong international speaker participation. I would recommend participating remotely this time, which will be much easier for us to schedule the talk sessions. I hope you have the remote participation guidelines, but here's a quick summary: Please record a high-definition video of your presentation and send it (google drive download link) to us in advance . We'll play your recorded presentation during your scheduled time slot at the conference. If you'd like, you can also join us remotely via Zoom or VooV at the end of your session for a live Q&A with attendees. I hope you understand, and we look forward to opportunities to collaborate in the future. Best regards, Grant On Tue, Jun 3, 2025 at 2:26 PM Jayita Bhattacharyya <manijb13@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Grant,

That's super amazing, glad to hear that. Thank you so much for your assistance here, and thanks for your utmost efforts, highly appreciated. If this venture works out, I will definitely be more than happy to meet and greet you in person.

Nonetheless, please don't put too much pressure on yourself, I can totally align with whatever the decision is, as I'm trying to be hopeful, but the practicality side of Visa Approval is something I'm still gonna be worried about its always 50-50 chances given the amount of traffic & minimal timeline. The rest is on God's wish!

On Wed, Jun 4, 2025 at 2:29 AM GRANT ZHOU <grantzhou@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Dear Jayita,

Thank you for this information. I see that the flight to Beijing would be significantly more affordable. It's also good to know that you are currently based in Bengaluru, India.

I appreciate your understanding and flexibility regarding the travel arrangements. I will be having a review meeting with our China team tonight to discuss the possibility of providing sponsorship, considering this more cost-effective travel option via Beijing and the subsequent high-speed train to Jinan.

I will get back to you as soon as possible after the meeting with an update on our decision.

Best regards, Grant

On Tue, Jun 3, 2025 at 1:52 PM Jayita Bhattacharyya <manijb13@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi Grant,

Alright, I surely see a big drop in prices for Beijing, it would be roughly around 6k Chinese Yuan. I'm currently based in Bengaluru, India.

Appreciate you taking the efforts & being flexible in communicating.

On Wed, Jun 4, 2025 at 2:11 AM GRANT ZHOU <grantzhou@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi Jayita,

To help manage travel expenses, I'd like to suggest a more cost-effective travel option: you could consider booking your flight to Beijing instead of directly to Jinan, and then take the high-speed train from Beijing to Jinan. This approach often results in significantly lower airfare costs, and the high-speed train journey is quite convenient (approximately 1.5-2 hours). Additionally, the train fare would be much more affordable.

Could you please check what the round-trip airfare would be to Beijing? This might give us more flexibility within our budget constraints.

We appreciate your understanding and flexibility as we work to make your participation possible.

ps, which city are you in?

Best Regards,

Grant

On Tue, Jun 3, 2025 at 1:31 PM Jayita Bhattacharyya <manijb13@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi GRANT,

Thank you for the response. I see that makes sense. I got it.

A round trip would cost around 17000 Chinese Yuan & along with that, I would also need accommodation. For a visa, I'll have to apply, it should be easier to get a travel VISA in less time if there are proper documents and request letters from the organising committee.

Anyhow, I completely understand the budget planning and given a shorter timeline, things might be difficult to arrange. Since I always prefer an in-person interaction, as it gives more better way to communicate and put forth my thoughts as well as take in feedback, hence just reached out to explore the option. Happy to present virtually as well. Thanks for inviting me. Looking forward to a great session.

On Wed, Jun 4, 2025 at 1:22 AM GRANT ZHOU <grantzhou@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Dear Jayita,

Thank you for your submission to HOW2025. We're delighted to welcome you to our conference in Jinan!

I wanted to clarify our travel sponsorship situation. When finalizing our speaker lineup, particularly for international speakers, we allocated our travel budget based on the initial submissions. Since your presentation was marked as "Remote Talk" when submitted, it wasn't included in our sponsored travel calculations.

However, we would still love to have you join us in person if possible. To evaluate whether we can provide travel sponsorship at this stage, could you please share the estimated cost of round-trip airfare to Jinan? This will help us assess our remaining budget and explore potential sponsorship options.

Additionally, could you please let us know your current China visa status?

We truly appreciate your interest in participating in person and look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards, Grant

On Sun, Jun 1, 2025 at 3:24 AM Jayita Bhattacharyya < sessionize@events.sessionize.com> wrote:

> Hi team, > > Thank you for shortlisting my talk, I would love to come in person > to the event if there's provision for travel sponsorship. > > Looking forward to collaborate. > > Regards, > Jayita Bhattacharyya > Data Scientist | Tech Speaker > LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayita-bhattacharyya > GitHub - https://github.com/jayita13 > Medium - https://itsjb13.medium.com/ > X (Twitter) - https://x.com/jayitabhattac11 > Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayita__b > > --- > Sent via Sessionize Support form by Jayita Bhattacharyya. Reply to > answer. > Page Title: Monitoring PgVector RAG Agents Applications - HOW2025 - > My Events - Speaker profile > Sender IP: 49.37.50.44 >

-- Thanks & Regards, Jayita Bhattacharyya, Data Scientist | Tech Speaker LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayita-bhattacharyya GitHub - https://github.com/jayita13 Medium - https://itsjb13.medium.com/ X (Twitter) - https://x.com/jayitabhattac11 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayita__b

-- Thanks & Regards, Jayita Bhattacharyya, Data Scientist | Tech Speaker LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayita-bhattacharyya GitHub - https://github.com/jayita13 Medium - https://itsjb13.medium.com/ X (Twitter) - https://x.com/jayitabhattac11 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayita__b

-- Thanks & Regards, Jayita Bhattacharyya, Data Scientist | Tech Speaker LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayita-bhattacharyya GitHub - https://github.com/jayita13 Medium - https://itsjb13.medium.com/ X (Twitter) - https://x.com/jayitabhattac11 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayita__b