[FSFTN] Two-day workshop at KGISL

[anu nivas]

A two-day workshop aimed at covering a portion of Open Source Tools and
Components was conducted at KGISL.  Open Source Tools and Components is a
subject for the final year students.  FSFTN volunteers handled the session
and Dr.Debesh Das, professor at Jadavpur University and ex-IT Minister,
West Bengal was the chief guest.  Mr.Sundaram KR, Professor at KGISL took
care of providing the required facilities. Final year students participated.

The interaction with Dr. Debesh Das was motivational.  He stressed that it
was extremely important for Indians to be self-reliant as the lesser we
depend on other countries, the more we develop.  He made us understand how
Free Software has the potential to achieve this in the IT industry by
explaining that when code is not locked by a few companies but kept open
for everybody to see and work on, the number of innovators and developers
would naturally increase.  This would foster a creative environment in
India and enable Indians to make their own products.  His dedication to
propagate Free Software in West Bengal was inspiring.  He was with us
throughout Day 1 and encouraged our efforts

The workshop started off with an introduction to the philosophy behind the
Free Software Movement.  Alagunambi Welkin, FSFTN Executive Committee
Member gave an account of the origin of the Movement and explained critical
concepts clearly.  He told us the difference between Free and Proprietary
software and highlighted the disadvantage of students using the latter.
With the source code closed, kernel and other important utilities would
just be read about and never understood.  He emphasized the fact that just
like any other branch of engineering where learning happens by examining
the components concerned, software too needs to be open to be studied and
understood in order to work with successfully

Mr. Vysakh Sreenivasan, 3rd year student, Guindy College of Engineering,
explained the installation process, package management and discussed
various Free Alternatives to Proprietary softwares used.  The students were
very happy to attend his session and said that it was a different and nice
experience to be taught by someone younger than them.  He introduced us to
different technical concepts and told us how we could explore and learn
more about them.  He shared his own experiences to illustrate this.  It was
a lively session and we enjoyed learning

I discussed Why Linux is More Secure and the Booting Process in the last
half hour.  We left that night

On the second day, Mr.Srujan Kumar and Mr.Satheesh Kumar introduced Linux
commands, Creating commands, Networking and Information Security.  The
students present gave positive feedback, saying that they found the session
useful and informative.  The feedback for the first day sessions was that
the students wanted a more in-depth explanation of the topics covered

Installing Fedora OS consumed a lot of time.  It would have been better if
this had been done prior to the commencement of the workshop.  The students
who attended the event were enthusiastic and expressed a willingness to
learn more.  It was a good experience, one  we can learn from.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://fsftn.org/pipermail/mailinglist_fsftn.org/attachments/20120404/cfc048d9/attachment.html>