The contribution of Free Software Community India in Science Day at GMRT
Science Day at GMRT ?
Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope is the world`s largest Radio telescope in its kind. The telescope was set up by National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune under Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.
Like every year this year also GMRT is celebrating "National Science Day" on Thursday, 28th February and Friday, 1st March 2019. GMRT has been organizing this event since the last 16-17 years and it has recognized as one of the biggest science fairs in the country. Every year GMRT organizes science exhibition on the occasion of National Science Day (28th February) which is organized for two days. The first day i.e 28th Feb. is the inauguration day and the following day is closure and prize distribution ceremony.
GMRT don't charge any fees for participation and visit/entry. Around 20000-25000 visitors visit this Science Exhibition every year. The participants are the students from various schools (5th to 10th), colleges (science i.e BSc, MSc, Engineering) throughout the state/country. Every year the total project count touches around 150-200 Nos (shortlisted). GMRT's own senior engineers evaluate the projects and select best three projects among presented in the exhibition (from each category, 5th to 7th, 8th to 10th, 11th, 12th, Undergraduate, BE-ME-Post graduate respectively) for a prize (trophy) and a certificate. All other remaining participants also get a certificate of participation/appreciation.
Every year the government organizations like National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), National Institute of Virology (NIV), National Centre for Cell Sciences (NCCS), National Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Pune, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO, SAC), Ahmedabad, Institute of Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, TIFR Balloon Facility Hyderabad + 20 other organizations like Free Software Community of India participate in the GMRT Science Exhibition.
About Free Software Community India:
Free Software Community India [FSCI] coordinates the free software (also open source) related activities in India, Every year we take part in GMRT Science day which is on 28th and 01st March for the Promotion of Free and Open Source Softwares on National Science Day at GMRT (Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune). For the event we are promoting various FOSS products such as Debian, Hamara, Raspbian on Raspberry Pi and various projects that could be done using the Pi/Arduino/BeagleBone, Diaspora (an alternative to social media platform based on FOSS principles), Debian Packaging, Hadoop, Git and Trac for version control and project tracking etc.
Wiki: https://www.fosscommunity.in/index.php/Main_Page
The event at GMRT Science day had footfalls of around 20,000 - 25,000 people last year consisting of school children, college-goers and public at large. This was and is a great opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life and share with them some of the things we work on. Since last 6 years we are promoting the importance of FOSS to the students and how can they use open source in their day to day life, similar to that this year also we would like to have a stall at GMRT on Science day. Also from the last few years, we also have the opportunity of Mozilla India Community also sharing the stall with us.
[Science Day - 2013]
http://www.fosscommunity.in/index.php?title=Science_Day_2013_at_GMRT
[Science Day - 2014]
http://www.fosscommunity.in/index.php?title=Science_Day_2014_at_GMRT
https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/gnunify-science-day/#more-2513
[Science Day - 2016]
http://fosscommunity.in/index.php?title=Science_Day_2016_at_GMRT
https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/science-day-2016-at-gmrt-khodad-and-learning/#more-2956
[Science Day - 2017]
https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/science-day-at-gmrt-khodad-2017/
https://ronitjadhav.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/mozilla-india-foss-community-india-at-gmrt-giant-metrewave-radio-telescope-centre/
[Science Day - 2018]
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uoo3stkt1sf1unr/AADA4w1hd6PMoFP-CrXiPvW6a/2018?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1
[Science Day Pictures]
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uoo3stkt1sf1unr/AABKVDP4WS3ppiki9O05H5K0a?dl=0
Please click on http://www.gmrt.ncra.tifr.res.in/gmrt_hpage/photo_gallery/gallery.php?dir1=science_day_2018/images/%20%20%20%20%20%20&dir2=science_day_2018/thumbs/ to find glimpses of last year's programme.
