Dear Friends,<br>
<br>
National Convention for Academics and Research (NCAR) 2010 will be
held from 16th to 18th December 2010 at Hyderabad. The event is
being organized by Free Software Movement of India and hosted by
Swecha. FSMI is organizing the first convention to spread awareness
of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS/FLOSS) and its usage in
Academia/Research communities. The theme for this convention will be
"<i>Computing Freedom in Education, Research and Technology</i>" The
convention provides a platform for sharing of experiences and views,
to foster a collaborative approach to education and for improving
educational aids including software tools. The convention will see
participation of researchers and academicians from colleges and
universities across the country including IITs, IISc, IIIT.<br>
<br>
The FOSS paradigm provides an opportunity to evolve a serious
research community with global cooperation. This would also enable
in bridging the gap between research-industry and societal demands.
An integration for research between academia and industry is not up
to the mark as it is in the case of developed nations. This
convention shall provide space for faculty and students of
Engineering Colleges to learn, interact, and network with their peer
groups, leading to a development of a FOSS ecosystem.<br>
<br>
The convention will focus on a wide range of topics through
dedicated track sessions on academic and research areas like
scientific computing and visualization, to Indian Language
technologies and application specific domains of Mobile, GIS and the
like. In addition, it will also host demonstrations, exhibitions,
and tutorial sessions for providing hands-on training on Free
Software tools in research and education.<br>
<br>
Swecha and other member organizations of FSMI will be organizing a
wide variety of run up events across India in promotion of Free
Software and NCAR 2010. There will be workshops, seminars,
'train-the-trainer' sessions. Apart from academicians and
researchers, some of these events will be extended to other sections
like students, Lab admins, developers, physically challenged users,
print and electronic media etc.<br>
<br>
Swecha has also planned to hold a one-day workshop for women
researchers and academicians on "Women in Research - The FOSS
paradigm" to bring together like-minded women researchers and
academicians to build an ecosystem where one can learn from each
others' experiences and works done.<br>
<br>
Visit <font color="#000099"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ncar2010.fsmi.in/">http://ncar2010.fsmi.in</a></font>
for Online registration and more details.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Sarath M S.<br>
<i><span class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.swecha.org/">www.swecha.org</a></span><br>
<a href="http://ncar2010.fsmi.in">ncar2010.fsmi.in</a></i>