Bring the web closer to the people—one middleware at a time

As India’s digital population grows and the demand for faster, more secure, and inclusive web experiences increases, a critical shift is underway from centralised monoliths to decentralised edge-powered apps. This talk investigates how we are serving and building web applications using the community-powered and open-sourced Next. JS framework along with Edge Middleware.

Let's talk about the privacy-centric logic aspects of routing, geo-localization, A/B testing, dynamic redirects, authentication, or anything similar which can now be done at the edge using Next.js Middleware, integrating silos without deploying backend-heavy infrastructure.

In terms of free and open-source software, this talk will clarify the logic of decentralization in relation to geo-diversity bandwidth, regional language requirements, increasing utilization of serverless architecture and JAMStack in India.

Examples where middleware is actively employed will be explored, such as:

• Serving regionally, device-customised content

• Secure cookie/header injection at the edge

• Non-round-trip transcoding to region-specific languages

• Understand what Edge Middleware in Next.js is and how it works

• Learn how to shift from centralized backend logic to decentralized, edge-distributed user experiences

• Discover how this model promotes open, privacy-first, and performant web applications—crucial for India’s digital scale

• See real FOSS use cases where edge logic improves localization, compliance, and developer agility

• Get inspired to contribute to the Next.js ecosystem and build OSS tools for middleware, i18n, caching, civic tech, and more

• Understand deployment patterns across Vercel, Netlify, and open platforms like Deno Deploy or Cloudflare Workers