SFD 2009 Procession Inauguration

ILUG Cochin conducted a peaceful procession on 26th September 2009 at Marine Drive, Ernakulam to Celebrate Software Freedom Day 2009. The procession was inaugurated by Manu Zacharia, Consultant to the Cyber Cell of Kochi City Police, at 4.45pm. There were 14 people in the procession. The procession started from Ernakulam Broadway and proceeded towards Ernakulam Boat Jetty. From there the procession moved on to Menaka. We put body posters.  The procession stood there for half an hour.Some people came to us and asked us what was happening. We gave them Free Software handouts and gave awareness about Free Software. Next we walked to the Marine Drive Walkway. There we met lot of people. We stood at “China Net” Bridge for some time. Lot of people came to us and talked to us. A few of us went to the Southern end of the walkway and after some time they came back. After that we moved to “Rainbow Bridge”. It was time to wind up. After taking a few more photos we wound up at 7pm.

We had a great interaction with the public. We can say that the procession was successful. We hope, next year the procession would be much bigger and better with lot of people.

Participants:

Harikrishnan
Manu
Sameer
Kevin
Venkat
Abhilash
Althaf
Azad
Sreekanth
Zaheer
Sanal Kumar
Antony
Sreenadh
Faizal

Photos:

The following events are planned

Free Software Awareness Campaign on the Street

Date       : 26/09/2009, Saturday
Time       : 4.30pm – 7.30pm.
Venue      : Marine Drive, Ernakulam
Activities : Assembling in Busy areas on Marine Drive and Menaka and Jetty.
with placards and Body posters.
- Distributing Pamphlets and Brochures about Free Software
and ILUG Cochin.

ILUG Cochin Regular Meeting, 13th year special.Date: 27/09/2009, Sunday
Time: 9.00am – 5.30pm.

Venue:
Jay’s Internet Club
IInd Floor, AMI Trust Bldg,
Broadway Enclave
Broadway,
Kochi-682031
i.e. Behind Allappat Super Shoppe,On top of SBT Treasury wing,

Schedule:

9.00   : Welcome
9.20   : Free Software and the Future
9.50   : ILUG Cochin and its activities
10.10  : Tea
10.20  : Technical presentations
11.45  : Troubleshooting Free Software Issues ( strategy and dealing with
common problems )
12.30  : Lunch
1.30   : Technical Presentations
2.30   : Charting ILUG Cochin 13th year activities and plans
3.30   : 13th year celebration – Cake cutting, group Photo, Tea
4.15   : Technical Presentations
5.15   : Conclusion

Technical Presentations:
- Introduction to the Command Line
- Python Programming Primer
- Free Software for Web Development
- Magic of Inkscape, a vector graphics based drawing tool
- Free Software Content Management Systems
- Malayalam Computing in GNU/Linux

Presentations will be scheduled as per time, availability, convenience of
speakers.

Following will be conducted throughout the day

9.00 – 17.00
Install Booth:
Bring your machines and install your Free Software Distribution
of Choice.

Free Software Clinic:
Bring your machines with configuration or hardware
compatibility issues, we can try to help.

Career@Free Software:
Counseling and tips for a bright career with Free Software.

Free Software Applications for All !!
- We can help you with the various Free Software applications available,
and also looking for the alternatives.

Contact:

Sreenadh    : 9747173432
Sameer      : 9995717112
Hari        : 9495927003
Manu        : 9447372554
Venkat      : 9895191363
Kevin       : 9474311544
Jay jacob   : 9447111771
Sanal Kumar : 9496449969

0484 2374862    ( Venue )
0484 4025077    ( Venue )

contact {at} ilug-cochin {dot} org

A Map showing the venue is available at :
http://www.ilug-cochin.org/content/view/31/

ILUG Cochin put a stall on 18th and 19th September 2009, at Qbit ’09, the technical fest conducted by the Department of Computer Science, MA College of Engineering, Kothamanagalam. The stall was very active with students. We got lot of visitors and we helped them to clear their queries regarding FOSS. We could also help them to solve some technical doubts.

On the second day, there was a session by Jay Jacob. The session titled “Introduction to Free Software” was a very good one. Most of the attendees were schools students from the nearby School.

There was also a preview of the Open Movie “Big Buck Bunny”. After the session the audience had an interaction with the speaker.

Team:

Harikrishnan
Manu ( Second Day )
Lenin ( First Day )
Sreenadh
Jay Jacob

ILUG Cochin has participated in the Software Freedom Day 2009 Celebrations held at Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kalamasserry, Ernakulam. We were also one of the organizers of the event. It was a one day program. We have also put a stall at the venue which helped students and other people to clear their doubts, both technical and non-technical, about Free Software. There were seminars, exhibitions, technical talks. The seminar, “Introduction to Free Software” by Sreenadh and “FOSS in Web development” by Binny were some of them.

The event inspired some of the students at Rajagiri to start a Free Software User Group. There were students from VHSS Irimpanam who have put a stall for “Malayalam Computing” and also exhibited different Computer Hardware. There were also some students from GTHSS and they exhibited “WordPress”, a Free Software application for blogging.

Team:

Venkat
Kevin
Manu
Sreenadh
Hari
Jay Jacob
Lenin

Photos:

Jay Jacob

ILUG Stall

Stall

Stall

introduction to free software - sreenadh

Free Software in web development - Binny

ILUG Cochin has been invited to put a stall in the Cyber Safe 2009, an annual event conducted by the Kochi City Police as part of the Information Security Day. Its a 3 day program starting from 6th August. The exhibition is on 8th Saturday, August 2009.

The theme of the stall will be “Security with Freedom”. There will be an install Fest and installation on demand.  There will be demonstration of Free Software desktop applications as well as demonstration of server implementations like content filtering. Above all an awareness about FOSS will be given to the visitors.

More details about the event are given in the following website.

http://www.informationsecurityday.com/cybersafe/index.html

Your can read a report on ILUG Cochin’s participation in the last year event.

http://www.ilug-cochin.org/activities/exhibition_on_information_security_2008_by_kochi_city_police_details

Organized by All India Radio
Programme : Surabhi,
Subject : Swathanthra Software: Digital logathe Jandhipathya Prakhyapanam
Date : 10/06/2009
Time : 3pm – 4pm.
Files: Low Quality Ogg Audio( 5.3 MB]

Pour in your comments on the programme.

Objectives of the Program

●   To teach the basics of Computing and Programming through Command Line
Interface and Python Programming.
●   To spread awareness on the importance of Free Software in Schools.
●   To create a free thinking group among the students, teachers and the community to
study, share and collaborate thereby developing skills for generating ideas and
technologies for the country.
●   To unravel the internals of computer hardware.
●   Engage them in fun filled activities for learning.

Date: 25 – 29th May 2009
Venue: Vocational Higher Secondary School,
Irimpanam,
Thripunithura
Kochi

Programme schedule:

May 25 -28:
Workshop on Programming using the Python Language

May 29:
Inauguration of Swathanthra Software Kuttayma, VHSS Irimpinam
Free Software Quiz Contest
Computer Hardware Internals Demonstration
Swathanthra Software Seminars
- Free Software, Free Society by Jay Jacob
- Future of Student Community through Swathanthra Software by Vimal Joseph

The complete details are given in the following files.

Programme Details (English)

Programme Details (Malayalam)

Date: 21st to 25th April

Number of students: 62

ILUG Cochin has successfully conducted a five day training program for the students of Thodupuzha Educational District. The training started on 21st. There were 65 students in total. They were from 8th and 9th class. The camp was organized by District Educational Office (DEO), Thodupuzha at Sacred Heart Girl’s High School, Muthalakkodam, Thodupuzha.

The aim of the training camp was to help students in creating and maintaining a website/blog using WordPress and how to use GIMP for editing pictures before uploading it to a website. WordPress, one of the most popular blogging software, help people to create blogs/website without having any knowledge in HTML or programming.

The students were not aware of sending and receving email. So we decided to help students in creating email accounts and taught them how to send and receive email. We have given appropriate informations on how to use emails securely. The need for signing out and keeping passwords hidden from others were also explained.

We could also help teachers in using WordPress and GIMP. At the end of the camp some of the students and teachers were able to create there own blogs. The camp ended on 25th.

Team members:
Binny
Venkat
Harikrishnan
Manu
Sreenadh

Some outputs from the camp
http://tribalpoomala.wordpress.com/
http://vishakhnarayanan.wordpress.com/

The above blogs are not complete. Since majority of the students have no pc at home they won’t be able to post immediately.
Let us hope they will add more contents after the school reopening.

Report in The Hindu

Press Club, Ernakulam had organized a workshop on Free Software for the people working in Newspapers and other Media ILUG Cochin was invited to handle the workshop by the Press Club, Ernakulam. This in fact was due to the good relationship maintained by the group with the people in the Media.

Free Software Movement by Jay Jacob

The session started by talking about the Freedoms that form the foundation for principles of Free Software. The speaker explained with examples the concept of Free Software and how the community worked together to create technology for the benefit of mankind.

The talk turned towards the history of the Free Software movement and about Richard Mathew Stallman, the founder of the GNU Movement. The speaker then explained the series of events that lead to the birth of GNU/Linux.

The importance of Freedom was explained by comparing the situation to “India’s Struggle for Freedom. The audience were subscribing well to the important aspect of the speech.

The talk then explained the basic copyright concept and how the copyleft concept created by the Free Software movement helped protect the Freedom of users.

As the talk was winding up, lot of questions we raised, especially on Licenses, copyright, sharing and distributing free software for money. The ambiguity in the term Free as in Freedom was also clarified.

Demonstration of a Free Software Operating System : Debian GNU/Linux by Sreenadh

The demonstration started with the basic login screen of the OS. The speaker touched upon the basic aspects of a Free Software Desktop Environment . He explained the fundamental concepts behind a Desktop Environment He then proceeded to explain a few basic applications for daily use belonging to the following categories:

Internet

Iceweasal, Pidgin,Empathy

Multimedia

VLC, Totem, Kino

Office/ Productivity

Openoffice, Abiword

Desktop Publishing

Scribus

Graphics

Inkscape, GIMP

There were lot of questions on using Malayalam with OpenOffice. The speaker explained the answers in a very efficient manner, thereby satisfying the audience queries.

Free Software in Schools and Malayalam Computing by Sanal Kumar Sir

Sanal Kumar sir touched upon the importance and relevance of teaching Free Software in Schools. He talked extensively about the present level of implementation and the problems faced. He delved deep into how the community can find solutions for the issues faced and how they can effectively work with the teachers to improve the present curriculum so that it can bring out the true power of Free Software.

The speaker next explained the importance of the Malayalam language and how free software and projects like “Swathanthra malayalam computing” have enabled the language to reach leaps and bounds. The talk also touched upon the possibilities of Malayalam blogging and how the Internet was a new arena that was allowing the language to expand its horizon.

Concluding Session

The concluding session saw Sameer finally explaining the name change of the group and the vision and future of the group. The press club secretary thanked the ILUG Cochin Members for their cooperation with the Media and concluded the session.

ILUG Cochin thanks Anand Haridas of “The Hindu” for having taken the initiative to bring the Free Software Community closer to the Media by conducting this event, and hope that more events of this nature happen in the future.

Participated ILUG Cochin Members

• Sreenadh
• Binny V A
• Jay Jacob
• Sanal Kumar
• Kevin Sha
• Sameer Mohamed Thahir
• Hari
• Bilal
• Prinson

As a part of the campaign, ILUG Cochin had organized an event in assosciation with the Vocational Higher Secondary School Irimpanam (http://vhssirimpanam.org/) on 10/02/2009

“Swathanthra Software Sangamam”

- One Day Programme for students and teachers
- Session on ” The significance of the Free Software Movement ” by Jay Jacob.
- Blender Workshop by Zadeek
- Inkscape Workshop by Sreenadh
- Interaction between Teachers and ILUG Cochin Community.

Event Report

Report in “The Hindu”

Report on ILUG Cochin Mailing List