Dear all,
I mark this mail as [OT], as I do not wish to see another long thread on
this
topic.
Continue reading....
I personally felt that, most of the list members were not able to understand
about these FOSS FDP / Workshops conducted by us in colleges. This mail
would shed some lights to them what actually these programs are and why
they are conducted for.
Anna University introduced 'Open Source Lab' in the regular curriculum in
the
2008 regulation and nearly 250+ engineering colleges started adapting them
since 2011 (these colleges were affiliated with Anna University of
Technology,
Chennai / Thirunelveli by that time). Next academic year all 550+
engineering
colleges affiliated to Anna University will be handling this subject.
In 2011, few colleges approached us for conducting Workshops / FDP for this
subject, so that they could handle the subject easily.
Usually FDPs are conducted by colleges by getting any sponsor/grant from
University or from any Technical Societies like CSI/IEEE/IET/ISTE etc and
conduct the program in their banner.
As the colleges could not get any sponsor/grant from University (the reason
given by a college Principal is, the sponsor/grant is applicable for any
subject, if and only, there is both Theory/Lab component for the subject is
available). So colleges could not get any sponsor for conducting FDP for
'open source lab'.
Hence I decided to do FDP for these colleges FREE of COST under certain T&C.
The college who is willing to host the FDP should be calling all the nearby
colleges, so that many colleges could benefit from the FDP. If the hosting
college wishes, they can charge a minimum expenses from the participants,
but
that should not include the training cost (if the amount charged is high,
then
we could not get enough participants). Colleges agreed for this T&C and we
took
all responsibilities of contacting colleges and getting more participants
for
the FDP. Our initiative started reaching other institutions and some of the
reputed institutions came forward for hosting the FDP under the T&C set by
us.
How do LinuXpert Systems benefit from these FREE FDP programs ?
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As our FDP programs are usually focused on training only the Faculty
members, few colleges show interest in doing these similar programs to
their students. The workshop conducted for students are usually paid by the
college management. The more the FDP we do FREE of COST, more the
workshops we get and we keep reaching out hundreds of colleges year by year.
Though the monetary benefits we get from these programs are very small, we
feel much satisfied with the service we offer to our college customers.
In my recent observation, I have noticed that most colleges (or departments)
have some sort of policy on implementing Linux/FOSS in their
colleges/departments.
I had to maintain a close relationship with the academic community to bring
a
change that I wish to see. That's why I spend much of my time with colleges
doing workshop / FDPs and also trying to build a strong vibrant community
that
we all wish to see.
Myself and the academic community are working together towards achieving a
common goal for bringing out a change in our education system,
** FREE Software is the way, the Education has to go **
S. Baskar
Twitter : http://twitter.com/linuxbaskar
LinkedIN : http://www.linkedin.com/pub/baskar-selvaraj/21/881/b29