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When was the last time you sat in a room with people and explored an idea without opening your laptop or reaching for your phone?
Think about it.
Not the last time your phone was on silent. Not the last time you attended a meeting where everyone technically listened. We mean genuinely being present looking at another person, throwing an idea into the room, disagreeing, laughing, thinking, scribbling something down and allowing a conversation to take its own course.
In Hyderabad, a new meetup is asking people to do exactly that.
RESET, organised by Hyderabad-based Community Architect and Strategy Consultant Shahista Fatima, wants you to do something that sounds almost radical in 2026, leave your phone in a bucket and use your brain instead. Yes, literally.
For three hours, there will be no endless scrolling, notifications or half-hearted conversations. Instead, there will be paper, pens, people, activities, ideas and problems to solve.
And perhaps, a little discomfort.
Because RESET isn’t another networking event where you exchange Instagram handles, collect LinkedIn connections and leave after making the same small talk with familiar faces. It is a three-hour digital detox built around thinking, conversation and genuine human connection.
Shahista comes from the events and startup ecosystem and has spent more than a decade watching meetups evolve. What she remembers from earlier days is simple, people actually talking.
“10 years ago, people used to network, talk to each other, throw problem statements at each other and find solutions,” she tells Siasat.com.
Over time, she feels technology changed that culture. “I miss having my people around. I miss having my friends in physical presence to talk to, to ask them questions. And nobody’s taking time out for each other,” she says.
The frustration became personal when AI and the internet began taking over tasks people once figured out themselves. Friends used to often approach her because of her ability with words, whether it is naming a company, creating a tagline or finding the right copy. But with the rise of ChatGPT and the constant availability of the internet, she found herself asking whether she was exercising that ability as much as she once did.
“I have been very proud of that for a very long time. And then when ChatGPT and internet came in with a heavy flow, I realised… I miss having my people around.”
That feeling eventually became RESET.
Walk into RESET and the first thing that happens is not an introduction round. It is surrendering your phone. Participants will place their phones in a bucket when they arrive. After about an hour, there will be a short break to check them if needed before returning to the offline experience.
The meetup will include an icebreaker, individual activities to test thinking capacity and group activities designed to push participants outside their comfort zones. There will also be food, beverages and stationery kits with a diary, pen and notepad.
Shahista Fatima wants the atmosphere to feel slower. “The chaos and the things around you, they feel like they have gone down two points or three points,” she says.
Not silence. Not isolation. Presence.
After attending close to a thousand events over the past decade, Shahista says she noticed how networking had become repetitive. “You come, you meet, you see the same 10 faces. You don’t talk anything important. You just talk ‘How is your life? How is this doing?’”
RESET wants to replace that small talk with conversations that actually make people think.
Shahista Fatima isn’t against technology. She works in a digital-first ecosystem herself. Her concern is what happens when technology starts replacing our own thinking.
“Everyone is so consumed by their personal lives and everyone’s so consumed by the act of what the world is throwing at them,” she says.
She also believes constant digital comparison makes capable people doubt themselves. “Even though they are exceptional at something, there is someone or the other displaying on the internet saying that is 10 times better,” she says. “They need a reality check.”
For her, RESET is that reality check.
“AI is just human-trained intelligence,” she says. And so, switching off isn’t an anti-technology statement. It is an attempt to switch yourself back on.
Come with a problem. Leave with a different perspective.
Shahista Fatima hopes participants will discover that their brains can do more than they realise. “You suddenly realise, ‘Oh, my brain could do this. Oh, I could do that.’”
The activities are designed to help people notice the gaps and possibilities they often miss while making decisions, having conversations or solving problems.
And it won’t feel like a corporate workshop. There will be plenty of fun and laughter too. “We don’t have to particularly instil anything in them. They will themselves realise that there’s a change in their behaviour or their mood when they walk out of the meetup.”
The response has already been striking. What began with a cap of 15 participants moved to 20, then 25. There is now a waiting list of around 15 people, with those participants being accommodated in the next meetup.
The debut RESET is planned for Saturday, August 22, from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm in Hyderabad, with the venue listed as The Writer’s Room in Film Nagar.
Shahista Fatima plans to make RESET a monthly meetup, eventually creating editions for professionals, homemakers and children as well.
Maybe we have forgotten how to meet. There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about RESET. A group of people sitting around a table. A pen, a piece of paper, a problem, a conversation, no presentations, no pitches, no pressure to network. And definitely no phone.
Because perhaps what Hyderabad needs isn’t another event to attend. Maybe it needs a place where people can remember how to meet.
And if surrendering your phone for three hours makes you nervous, consider that your first reason to go. You might discover a new idea. Meet someone unexpected. Solve a problem you’ve been carrying for months. Or simply discover that your own brain is still much more interesting than your feed.
Maybe that is the ‘RESET’ we actually needed.
This post was last modified on August 18, 2026 11:11 am