A Free and Open Source Software workshop was organised last saturday i.e. 24th October 2009 in our College this Post is a detailed report on how everything started and finally how things were executed.
Background: Actually it all started when I went to OSSCamp Sept. 09 held at NSIT where I met Mr. Narendra Sisodiya who asked me to call them for a workshop at my college on FOSS to spread awareness among the students about it which was a welcome call it was like he asked me for something i really wanted to do in my college. They conduct such workshops in various Engineering Colleges in Delhi/NCR.
In the Process: Then I decided that I will try for this and in the mean time I was thinking whom to talk in my college to get permission for such kind of an event but finally may be my god's grace I got a chance to talk to Director Sir and then I asked him for this kind event fortunately his reply was positive !! It was really good I was happy but since he asked me for some solid details I asked Narendra ji for one of his presentation and he immediately sent a mail with a link to his presentation well after about a week or two I again went to Sir for a follow up and then I told him more about it and he agreed wOW !! So it was a time to contact Narendra ji again which I did so now I asked him for the details what all will be needed from our side and the reply was simple PC (with linux), Projector and a room and around 10+ students. Now the workshop was almost fixed but the dates were to be fixed, this was a tricky one being working the Speakers for the workshop can't come on Working days but on Weekends most of the Students were reluctant to come. But I had no choices it had to be a Sat. or Sun. idea of Sunday was also dropped coz no1 in college would come on a sunday so the Sat. was finalized now which Sat. i first thought of Oct 10 but on 10th Freshers + CSE - A's project Presentation was there still i thought of it because I wanted to do it as soon as psbl but when I asked Narendra ji for it he said he had to go to FOSSCOMM's Meeting in mumbai so 10th was cancelled. But on 10th when I went to college I asked Director sir for 24th Oct. (17th was Diwali na) he said there was National Conference on Library Management on that day so I said it will be fine coz these are two diff. things Mgmt and Tech. so Sir agreed to it. Narendra ji was also f9 with it so 24th was finalized. Now in a day or 2 Narendra ji made a Workshop thread on IITDLUG http://groups.google.com/group/iitdlug asking members for Ideas and call for Speakers and then he also made a wiki page for the workshop http://bit.ly/KIIT24 to which all the necessary details were added with time. Soon a lot replies came which helped us improve things. But till now all Virtual things were taking place as I was not able to go to college for around a week and this was the first time i dint like holidays but finally when I went to college on 19th I tried to do things quickly as not much time was left so I went to Director Sir with the Poster that was prepared for the workshop then sir gave an idea of CSI sponsorship and then he talked to College's CSI student coordinator ( Ms. Preeti Aggarwal ) but in the end we dint get it.... as there were very less students in our college who have subscribed for CSI. Well asked me for making a student team so I asked Sameer, Rohit and Anirudh for it and all three of them agreed later on Harpreet too joined us. We all worked together and started doing things like Making Banners, the Mike arrangements the best part was Banner http://www.flickr.com/photos/77871613@N00/4036717205/ which was made primarily by Harpreet, Rohit and Sameer .On 20th the Workshop Notice were there on the College's Notice Boards so now it was proper official now students were aware of it. In the mean time I had talked to Nupur Ma'm for being the workshop Faculty incharge to which she agreed immediately as Preeti Mam was not coming on Saturday though she helped us in the process with her valuable suggestion and our HOD ( Parineeta Mam ) too helped us. Now the arrangements in the Audi needed to be done so i got a PC with Fedora from 3rd Floor lab, thanks to Ved sir for that now i a Power Cord and a DB-9 cord for connecting PC to Projector was needed which I got from Arvind Sir ( Server Room). Some Students came with a pblm of Conveyance so the College Bus was arranged for all for 24th Thanks to Director sir and Bhatia Sir for that..... A Final meeting with Director Sir and all the Faculties involved was held on 23rd to discuss the remaining issues where everthing left was sought out........
On the Day: Well finally the day came for which I was waiting !! It was a nice morning a nervous one too coz I wanted everything to be smooth and nice, when i went to college almost everything was set the banner was at the Main Gate of College by Harpreet and Rohit. It was around 8:50 I immediately went to Audi the Banner was properly fixed on the wall for projection. Now it was time for receiving the IITDLUG's speakers First came Narendra ji around 9:15 in his awsm Tux T and then around 9:40 Satyakaam ji too were there so after discussing a bit about how to start the workshop was finally began with a basic Presentation on FOSS by Narendra ji in which he told about FOSS from scratch what it is how it all started why FOSS !! It was real nice to see his Enthusiasm he spoke for 2.5 hours Non-stop with just a glass of water !! In his Marathon Presentation he also gave a Demo of Ubuntu Live CD, Compiz 3D seeing which the audience was like woW! Yes that's the power of Linux it has got everything !! He also told us about Many FOSS alternatives like OpenOffice.Org for MS Office, GIMP for Photoshop and C++ Programming Demo in Eclipse IDE to the old Turbo C++ and much more. After this a short break was given to the audience, speakers were still busy......... Narendra ji was answering questions of some students and Satyakaam ji asked me get the settings for the Internet which i got from Arvind Sir, by going around 3-4 times to him we finally had a working internet connection which was a real bonus for all of us, as it helped us in showing things more properly. After this Satyakaam ji gave a presentation on Career Opportunities with FOSS in which he told us about various domains in which people can work with FOSS it was like nothing left of an IT field that couldn't be done with FOSS. After this he gave showed us the OLPC Laptop http://www.flickr.com/photos/23608834@N03/4039758573/in/set-72157622528864505/ which became the Center of Attraction everyone wanted to have it !! Then he told us about OLPC and how we can be a part of this great project !! He even told how to make Custom Live CDs using Reconstructor tool in Ubuntu.......... In the all this time I was busy with the Digi Cam of Prashant Rana and Satyakaam ji taking photos and recording videos and then Prashant transferring them to Ruchi's Laptop. After this it was the time for my Presentation so giving Camera to Anirudh and others I quickly went for my presentation on "Bridging the Digital Divide with FOSS" in this I told what it is Digital Divide its types and then about how FOSS can help in bridging it and about http://launchpad.net where anyone can help by doing translation for diff. FOSS and then about http://onewebday.org, with this Satyakaam ji also asked me to show OLPC Hindi Translation work status and how can we contribute. In the mean time another speaker Mr. Tirveni Yadav joined us..... After this there was a Call for Lunch so I escorted all the speakers to Conference Hall where we had lunch with the College Management and then the Speakers and the Management were introduced to each other and during the Lunch too speakers told Management about FOSS implementations......... and after lunch we asked Satyakaam ji to show the OLPC laptop to Director Sir, Nilima Ma'm and Harshavardhan Sir, they were too happy to see it asked more about it from him......... After having a nice lunch we went back to Audi for the final Presentation on "Security Tools" by Tirveni ji in which he told us about netstat, tcpdump and other tools in detail.........After this some students and Lecturers asked for Ubuntu CDs which they were given with a message to copy them and give it to other too !! Now the time had come to end the Workshop with a message of Freedom and Sharing !! Ater that I returned things that I got from various people and places. Now was the time to go to Director Sir's Room for a short meeting to discuss FOSS implementation in our college and here the conclusion was that he asked us (all speakers) to make a plan on how along with the Syllabus we can merge FOSS and more...... So we all are working on it, hope we get results soon !!
Thats all from my side !! Thanks Sangwan sir for the Table, other arrangements, everyone who was a part of this workshop or who is a part of FOSS community, IITDLUG members, Director Sir who supported me right from the start and above all the Super Power GOD by whose grace all this took place !!
Around 40 Students attended this workshop............... Just 40 ?? Well it is just the starting + it was a saturday !!
Important Links:
Workshop Report: http://bit.ly/repkiit24
Workshop Photos: http://bit.ly/pickiit24
