FOSS Camp @ SJCE,Mysore

I was glad to visit Mysore after more than 7-8 years. The city is simply beautiful,something which Bengaluru used to be!

I visited SJCE for their FOSS Camp on behalf of FSMK.The enthusiasts of SJCE had efficiently organised and were executing a 3 day FOSS Camp from 30th Oct - 1st Nov. The activities they had planned were very attractive and appealing.Free Software tools introduction,Coding competition, Online Treasure Hunt, Talks from Google experts on their Open Source APIs,Debugging competition,and Online Gaming(Open Arena),and their online event-Kryptos.The star has been Kryptos,with very good reception from even outsiders.

My talk representing Free Sofwtare Movement-Karnataka,was today, on the final day,at 11 am. This was one of the rare talks of mine,when a small sense of apprehension had occupied my mind. It was because,I was told late that the audience would comprise entirely of CSE and ISE,with very few ECE students. And my preparation for the session had been entirely about Free Software and ECE.

I eventually did improvise more generic ideas into the talk,by emphasizing on the Social and Economic ramifications of the Movement,by discussing Threats of Software patents. And,today being Kannada Rajyotsava,I appealed to the audience to take up Kannada Localisation further,and also for an increase in the number of Kannada Bloggers. Then came the overview of diverse Free Software tools encompassing various fields,and also in relation to a Project I'm a part of. And the highlight of my session was the post questionnaire encore appearance of Truth Happens!They,like everyone fell in love with it.

Then,the offline discussions with various queries and doubts.It was fascinating for me to see the enthusiasm these students were displaying-It should be an inspiration for our upcoming GLUGs.

Overall,A good interaction as I see it,and, hopefully their time was utilised in a quality manner.

PS: Link to this event,register and try out kryptos http://fosscamp.lccsjce.org/events.html