Swecha does it all in the big way.
The ongoing 15 days Free Software Summer Camp in Hyderabad is by itself the first of its kind in India. The workshop is targeting students pursuing technical education and to enable them with the gamut of Free Software technologies which are in use in Industry. Swecha team claims to have a modest number of about 600 students gathered for the 15 days Free Software Workshop happening in CBIT-MGIT, Hyderabad.
Swecha is the senior counterpart of the Free Software Movement - Karnataka (FSMK); both being part of the Free Software Movement India(FSMI), have everything but the regional geography in common.
Free Software in the air by alone was sufficient to draw someone like me into the ambiance of the workshop, but adding to it was Swecha as the host. I did pull one of our budding activists along this time, and I'm hoping he did get motivated further to carry on his work. The warm and amicable team with my fellow activists there is always an occasion not to be missed. And it proved right yet again. By the way, the experience of organizing an event of this scale is by itself a huge learning experience.
Comprehensive theory sessions to start the day, followed by marathon lab sessions in about 20 labs all running Debian has been the routine everyday. Although the network has been something less than an adequate one, machines have been arranged for evey participant to work on.
The fifteen days are divided into five three-day modules to enhance the focussed exposure students would be getting on the technologies.
On these lines, I handled a session on Distributed Social Networking, taking Diaspora as an example. The importance of Internet to become decentralised and for the users to have control over their data in the current context of Internet technologies were touched upon in my talk. The overall reception of the talk was good, and there was some good interaction about the same all through the day.
Apart from serious tech sessions, labs and talks, a bunch of team-events and culturals are also in the line up for the days to come. There have already been a couple of team events which got all the participants enthusiastically engaged.
My stay at the camp was for less than 48 hours, nonetheless was a very good experience. There are better and more exciting sessions,talks and interactions in the days to come. Speakers of the likes of Prabhir Purkayastha, P Sainath will be participating in the camp, and I so did not want to miss them.
Now that I'm back in Bangalore, FSMK is working on a scaled down version of a workshop of this kind. Will keep you all posted about the updates from FSMK.
Swecha is the senior counterpart of the Free Software Movement - Karnataka (FSMK); both being part of the Free Software Movement India(FSMI), have everything but the regional geography in common.
Free Software in the air by alone was sufficient to draw someone like me into the ambiance of the workshop, but adding to it was Swecha as the host. I did pull one of our budding activists along this time, and I'm hoping he did get motivated further to carry on his work. The warm and amicable team with my fellow activists there is always an occasion not to be missed. And it proved right yet again. By the way, the experience of organizing an event of this scale is by itself a huge learning experience.
Comprehensive theory sessions to start the day, followed by marathon lab sessions in about 20 labs all running Debian has been the routine everyday. Although the network has been something less than an adequate one, machines have been arranged for evey participant to work on.
The fifteen days are divided into five three-day modules to enhance the focussed exposure students would be getting on the technologies.
- Making of a Computer Suite
- Programming using Software Carpentry aspects
- Mobile Computing
- Multimedia
- Content Management Systems
On these lines, I handled a session on Distributed Social Networking, taking Diaspora as an example. The importance of Internet to become decentralised and for the users to have control over their data in the current context of Internet technologies were touched upon in my talk. The overall reception of the talk was good, and there was some good interaction about the same all through the day.
Apart from serious tech sessions, labs and talks, a bunch of team-events and culturals are also in the line up for the days to come. There have already been a couple of team events which got all the participants enthusiastically engaged.
My stay at the camp was for less than 48 hours, nonetheless was a very good experience. There are better and more exciting sessions,talks and interactions in the days to come. Speakers of the likes of Prabhir Purkayastha, P Sainath will be participating in the camp, and I so did not want to miss them.
Now that I'm back in Bangalore, FSMK is working on a scaled down version of a workshop of this kind. Will keep you all posted about the updates from FSMK.
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