Buka Bersama: Iftar at Lyra

Lyra's First Iftar

For EngFest 3/12, Lyra did something different. During Ramadan, we opened up the office and hosted Buka Bersama, breaking fast together with our engineers and Indonesian students from across Sydney. We partnered with 6 Indonesian student societies and honestly the turnout blew us away. 85 people packed into the office and the energy from the moment people started arriving was something else. This wasn't your typical tech networking event. There were no lanyards, no awkward icebreakers, no one standing in a corner refreshing Slack. Just a room full of people waiting to break fast together, and when the time came, every single person respected the tradition. No one touched food until the people who were fasting broke theirs first. That moment of stillness before everyone started eating was genuinely one of the most powerful things we've experienced at Lyra.

6 Societies, 1 Night

Getting 6 separate student societies to co sign a single event was its own project. Weeks of back and forth across group chats, coordinating catering that worked for every dietary requirement, sorting prayer space, and making sure every single society felt like this was their night too and not just an invite to ours. Each society brought their own community with them and that's what made the room feel the way it did. By the time doors opened it already felt like their space as much as ours. When you've got committee presidents from 6 different unis all pushing the same event across their own channels, you know you've built something worth showing up to. A huge shoutout to everyone who helped coordinate behind the scenes because pulling off an event like this without a single hiccup doesn't just happen.

When the Fast Broke

The second Maghrib (sunset) hit, the entire room shifted. Food came out, conversations in every corner, engineers & students swapping stories about what they were building, what they were studying, where they wanted to end up. Connections were being made everywhere you looked. People who came in not knowing anyone were deep in conversation 20 minutes later. The food was incredible, the energy was better, and by the end of the night people were genuinely asking when we were doing it again. It wasn't the usual tech event vibe. It was slower, warmer, louder in the right ways and honestly one of the best nights we've had at the office.

Just the Beginning

This was one of those events where you step back and realise Lyra is becoming something bigger than just a software company. We're becoming a community hub, a place where students, engineers and partners from completely different worlds actually want to spend their evening. 85 people in one room, most of them meeting for the first time, and it felt like everyone had been coming here for years. EngFest 2/12 is done and it set a bar we didn't even know existed. We can't wait for what's next.

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