Orientation program on “Open Source Community” and "Mozilla-Nepal Intro"

January 2nd,2014

Program:Orientation program on “Open Source Community”

Guests:

1. Dilli Prasad Sharma(BSc.CSIT Coordinator)
2. Niyam Shrestha(BIM Coordinator)

Speakers:

1. Prakash Neupane(Open Knowledge Foundation Nepal)
2. Avash Mulmi(Mozilla-Nepal/Mozilla Reps)
3. Surit Aryal(Mozilla-Nepal/Mozilla Reps)
4. Bansaj Pradhan(Mozilla-Nepal)
5. Nikesh Balami(Mozilla-Nepal/FSA)
6. Ganesh Poudel(Wikimedia Nepal)

Organizers/Volunteers:

1. Ashutosh Dhoj Joshi(Prime IT Club/FSA)
2. Robert Shrestha(Prime IT Club/FSA)
3. Arun Munikar(Prime IT Club)
4. Anup Shrestha(Prime IT Club)
5. Rumi Shakya(Volunteer)

Report:

It was a good day, all the preparation were made, all the students arrived at hall 30 minutes prior than the program's starting time, showing their curiosity to learn about the open source. By then all the arrangements were done. Also Avash Mulmi arrived at college entrance 40 minutes prior to the program, following him all the speakers showed up in time as well. Greeting between the speakers and volunteers/organizers were exchanged.

Rumi Shakya, as MC started the program with warm welcome to the audience sharply at 11:00 am, the coordinator from Bsc,CSIT, Dilli Prasad Sharma and the coordinator from BIM,Niyam Shrestha had taken their seats along with the speakers. Dilli Prasad Sharma, started the program with speech followed by Niyam Shrestha, making freshers aware about rising competition in the IT market. Looking at the audience they were carefully listening to the speech.

Rumi, invited Prakash Neupane to talk about “Open Knowledge Foundation” and “FOSS Nepal”. It was very delightful the way he presented his presentation and was fun to watch as he interacted with the audience. He also told audience about the scope of the technology, in what level modern students know about modern technology trends and how should they keep themselves updated about it. 

Open means freedom to us in many ways, should a software limit our openness up until our college level would not be that satisfactory as we think and want to do. Some question were raised to random audience,

“What do you expect from choosing IT-field of study?” ,

“Did you choose this bachelor level by your own will or somebody force you to join?”,

“How much salary do you expect as soon as you finish your bachelor and join the job you want?”.

These were some questions that were asked to audience and some responded while some were made to think hard. Later on, introduction about open data and open knowledge were passed on to audience, making them aware that open information can be used in various ways. He also gave an example again by asking some questions to audience, “Do you know how much budget your VDC receives for development? , Aren't these kind of information should be presented to the public?” , “What should a local citizen do to get those information?”, “Doesn't general citizens have right to get access to these kind of information?”. “Open Data”, not only makes information about available to public but it can also be used to present that kind of information in way a person want to make it available. It may have its pros and cons in own way. “Open Knowledge”, giving access to archive of huge data not only to students, professor but also to general people as well , will make them educate themselves. Its more like a huge chunk of information, some people may want to research, some may want to gain access to news, some may want to read the experiences shared by others via blogs and many more. With rapid increase in technology, people are seen to get hold of mobile devices like smart-phones, tablets, laptops and many more. With web, “Open Knowledge”, is possible as well as “Open Data”, and what could be achieved from this is unimaginable. By implementing “Open Standards”, information which are important and precious to us can be protected.file

“Community”, a group of people where people from many ethic groups are one, sharing their ideas, solving problem together, doing work through collaboration, etc. Some people engaged deeply into it contributing to the society making a world better place, some may not, how does it works is based on how they act accordingly. These were shared with audience by Prakash Neupane. Further, by answering queries and saying thank you he returned to his seat.

Moving on forward, Mozilla-Nepal speakers where Avash Mulmi, Surit Aryal and Bansaj Pradhan collaborated giving each others turns to give away information about “What is Mozilla?”. Surit Aryal, pointed to the slide where an image of a man wore a fox costume and image was captioned “What does the fox say?”. He shared that he got that picture from other source and focused on the caption earlier and he then replied to the question in the caption making a sound like fox. Everybody in the audience was amazed for a while which produced commotion between them. Later on , he told that “Mozilla”, a non-profit organization where it puts people first rather than profit, consists of many people who share the same mission of Mozilla, “help to make a web a better”; we call the mozillians, he said. Products are not just where a business organization creates, sales them and earns money from it. Products should be those which affects people's life, helping them to understand technology. Though products may be also described as hardware devices or software program, putting people forward, analyzing their needs and delivering the product accordingly is what Mozilla have been doing since its beginning, helping users. A list of some Mozilla products were shown:

• Firefox
• Bugzilla
• Firefox OS
• Seamonkey
• Webmaker
• Thimble.

After having explained about the products of Mozilla listed by Surit Aryal, he also gave an introduction about Mozilla-Nepal, as it is branch and part of FOSS Nepal. It has been 1 year and 9 months since Mozilla-Nepal started with a few people but now many students from different college are involved in the community carrying out Mozilla's mission. A turn was passed to Avash Mulmi, ensuring that he would cover how students could involve themselves in Mozilla-Nepal community. By making contributions, students not only will be able to grow themselves but also their contribution will be marked and noticed by Mozilla, the further students contribute, the further he/she will be awarded with “Open Badge” making them recognized. Earning an open badge requires the contribution, the further you progress more badges are added showing level of skills. Mozilla-Nepal is a community where students from not only technical but also from non-technical could join the community. The benefits they acquire by indulging deeper into community has its own recognition and value. Leadership, collaboration, public speaking are some skills that a student can develop for personality development. In many ways students can contribute, if you are an artist and good at it you can make contribution, if you have a managerial skills and can make things work out you can make contribution, likewise if you love to code and you are a programmer you can contribute by developing web apps for Firefox OS. Later on, Bansaj Pradhan talked about the new arrival of Firefox OS. Avash Mulmi, Bansaj Pradhan and Surit Aryal jointly presented contribution areas that students can contribute. More details on www.mozilla-nepal.com.

Nikesh Balami, FSA from ACME College was called upon to tell about the benefits by becoming FSA(Firefox Student Ambassador). Following him, Ganesh Poudel from Wikimedia Nepal spiced up the program by entertaining the audience which changed the mood and raised energy around. He, as admin of Wikimedia Nepal, a media person, explained that wikipedia is a online encyclopedia which replaced traditional encyclopedia like Britanica, containing notable information of almost every things. Who can contribute to wikipedia?, a person who loves to share the fact information, a teacher, a mother, a professor, a student, basically anyone who loves to share.

Thus the program ended after Q&A session, slightly making delayed to the planned time period. Then after, speakers were taken to canteen for lunch by organizers/volunteers making the program fruitful to the freshers. I personally felt very glad to see the active participation from freshers. Following the next day, Mozilla-Nepal stickers were distributed to the freshers.

Prime College FirefoxClub's Facebook Group link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PrimeFSA/