[Fsf-friends] National Workshop on FOSS in Science

[V. Sasi Kumar]

A National Workshop on FOSS in Science (http://www.space-kerala.org/fsc)
was held at the Union Christian (UC) College during January 4-6, 2007.
There were about one hundred participants including students from the
College. There were several presentations on various topics including
scientific data visualisation using Python and MayaVi, free applications
for mathematicians, LaTeX, and FOSS GIS. Prof. Nagarjuna spoke about
gnowledge and symantic web; Prabhu Ramachandran (who developed MayaVi)
presented a talk on the use of Python programming and MayaVi for
scientific data visualisation; Ajith Kumar of Inter University
Accelerator Centre demonstrated Phoenix (an acronym for Physics through
Home Made Equipment and Innovative Experiments) which is a small piece
of equipment that can be interfaced with a computer and an experimental
set up (and both the hardware and software are Free); Ravi Kumar from
GSI presented a talk on FOSS GIS; Dr. Manjusha Joshi from Bhaskaracharya
Pratishtan presented a talk on FOSS applications for mathematicians;
Vijayakumar discussed the use of CVS; Deepak presented a talk on FOSS
tools for sharing ideas; Prof. Krishnan from Anna University presented a
talk on the efforts taken by NRC FOSS. Dr. E. Krishnan was to have given
an introduction to LaTeX, but he could not make it and I had to
substitute for him (and I am sure the participants certainly lost out as
a consequence). I hope I have not missed listing any lecture. The
arrangements were excellent and most of the participants and resource
persons (all of whom were present throughout the Workshop) really
enjoyed their stay there. The college has a long tradition of standing
for freedom -- Mahatma Gandhi was there in 1925 and planted a tree that
is still there and Rabindranath Tagore was a member of their faculty in
1921-23. Many of the political and cultural leaders in Kerala were
students of this college. And their logo says "The truth shall make you
free". On the whole, the location and the proceedings were very
interesting -- including a cultural programme presented by the students
of the college in which some of the participants contributed impromptu.
In the concluding session, some of the participants specifically stated
that they are just waiting for the next Workshop here :-) There is a
FOSS Cell in the college and they plan to conduct Workshops focussed on
some of the topics that were presented there, such as Data
Visualisation, LaTeX, etc.

The Workshop was organised jointly by the FOSS Cell of UC College and
SPACE, and was supported by Kerala State IT Mission and NRCFOSS/CDAC.

An interesting experience was that we came to know that there was
pressure from some sources on the media to not cover the programme. This
means that someone is getting panicky about the spread of Free Software
and we saw that as a very positive sign.

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <sasi.fsf at gmail.com>
Free Software Foundation of India