FOSS COMMUNITY KAVRE INITIATION DURING SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY 2017 CELEBRATION

This SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY, Free and Open Source Volunteers from Kavre initiated FOSS COMMUNITY KAVRE during the SFD2017 Celebration event organized by Kathmandu University Open Source Community. FOSS KAVRE was initiated to decentralize the FOSS related activities from Valley to remote areas of Kavre. Free and Open Source Software Community Kavre is one out of thousands Open Source Community which works on sharing Open Source Philosophy. It's a group of Open Source Enthusiast from Kavre who want to spread Open Knowledge to the Community.

Following are the objectives behind initiating Open Source Community here at Kavre:

• Provide Training, Workshops and Tutorials.
• Interact with new People, Participate in Events organized by other Communities, help solve problems, Bring Openness among Volunteers.
• Organize MeetUp, Open Source Conference, Linux Talks.
• Make Massive Use of Open Source Technologies in every possible areas of Kavre (Health, Education, Business, Governmental Organizations)
• Publish Magazine, Blogs Articles about Open Source Technologies to make the citizens aware about FOSS and its impact in community.
• Explore resources to make the Community Sustain economically in a long run.

Logo Designed: Ishan Dongol

Ongoing Projects

1. ReWrite: A running web application for Conducting Conferences built using Angular Framework( A JavaScript Framework . This can be helpful while exploring your semester projects ideas and tools.
2. Medical Data Insight: Back then a Semester Project "Nepal Medical Data Visualization" of one of the volunteer Sanjog Sigdel supervised by Dr. Rabindra Bista is now known as "Medical Data Visualization". It is an ongoing project which aims to develop a Full Framework/Platform for Adding Medical records and also built insight from the data.

Training

1. How to build static GitHub Pages?
   This training was provided on a workshop during the very day of initiation at Kathmandu University.
2. Software Development and Project Development with GitHub
   This was also planned to be conducted on Software Freedom Day. But considering the knowledge base of participants on basic git functionalities being very low this workshop is postponed for some other time. We are planning to conduct some git Workshop and make them familiar with the Git Operations. Then we will conduct further training.

FOSS KAVRE and other FOSS Communities

As both communities belong from same place, FOSS KAVRE and KUOSC will support eachother in conducting events. FOSS KAVRE will seek technical expertise from KUOSC for workshops. KUOSC will seek new areas to spread open source activities in the local community with the help of FOSS KAVRE. We are Open Source Communities so we will not only be sharing and seeking expertise as well as resource from KUOSC. But we will seek help and also help others from all around the globe.

What's Next?

More Training and workshop to fulfill the Objectives as well as make an impact in the community at the same time. Fill more boxes below with events that we will conduct soon.

SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY 2017 CELEBRATION IN NEPAL BY KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY

Kathmandu University Open Source Community an autonomous wing of Kathmandu University Computer Club (KUCC), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kathmandu University(KU) celebrated Software Freedom Day (SFD) at Kathmandu University. The celebration of SFD eve was also held in Kathmandu University, on 15th September, 2017.

This Software Freedom Day is important to the Volunteers of KUOSC and also to University too because it is first ever SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY organized here at KU. On top of that Chief Guest Mr. Rob Savoye a self-employed consultant & contractor with massive experience in designing, programming from Colorado U.S.A added charm to the event. Rob develops and manages engineering projects, especially GNU/Linux projects, embedded systems and every imaginable Open Source Software. Rob talked about his massive contribution in open source. It was an honor to have such a legend of Open Source Movement, who carry a long history way back to the foundation of open source society. He has been contributing to the society for more than 40 years.

Whole event was hosted by Master of Ceremony Ms. Rajshree Rai, Vice President, Kathmandu University Computer Club(2017-18) Program began with talk program  on FOSS MOVEMENT in NEPAL by Sanjog Sigdel. He highlighted current activities of Open Source Projects and open communities existing in Nepal. Mr. Sigdel an Open Source Activist from Kavre did the Initiation of FOSS COMMUNITY KAVRE. 

Free and Open Source Software Community Kavre is one out of thousands Open Source Community which works on sharing Open Source Philosophy. We are a group of Open Source Enthusiast from Kavre who want to spread Open Knowledge to the Community.You can find more about FOSS KAVRE here.

Mr. Sushil Shrestha, Assistant Professor, working on Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) and Digital Research Lab of Kathmandu University talked about the importance and the success story of MOOC. Mr. Manoj Shakya, Assistant Professor of Kathmandu University honored Rob representing Kathmandu University and KUOSC. Continued with the appreciation to the distinguished guest Mr. Shakya shared his experience on Open Source Software and highlighted importance of Open Data.

Nikesh Balami, Open Source Activist from Open Knowledge Nepal shared his words and experience in open knowledge and open data. Moreover, he expressed the present scenario of open data in Nepal, projects that Open Knowledge Nepal has been doing to improve the status of Open Data in Nepal. He also presented Open Data handbook localized in Nepali Version to the audience.

Program continued  further with Wikipedia Editathon where volunteers and participants edited/created Nepali Articles in Wikipedia dashboard. Mr. Saroj Dhakal from Wikipedia Nepal shared his words about editathon and Wikipedia. Sajog Sigdel conducted a workshop on Creating Static Github Pages and Basics Git functionalities.

Similarly, Shubham Josh, Coordinator of Kathmandu University Open Source Community talked about open source and FOSS Nepal. Pratit Raj Giri conducted a workshop on Open Street Mapping. He highlighted the importance and advantages of Open Data Mapping with Open Street Mapping. Different open source related stickers were distributed and the environment there was OPEN. 

Program had a total participants of 45 individuals. Participants included students, teachers, Open Source Practitioners, Software Engineers, Network Security Enthusiasts. Program included other interactive activities like Porter Presentation, Survey and Questionnaires, Photo Sessions. Volunteers were excited to have successfully organized SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEPAL. And are more dedicated/excited to conduct same event next year with many exciting speakers and workshops.