THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state will celebrate Software Freedom Day on September 25 by conducting FOSS (Free Software) based technical classes in all 14 districts. The programme is jointly organised by the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) of the General Education Department and Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom (DAKF).
The highlight of the programme is that each district will cater a different FOSS theme for the class. General Education Minister V Sivankutty will inaugurate the programme on September 25 at 10am. Advisory Committee Member of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers) Sathish Babu will deliver a special session commemorating Amarnath Raja, FOSS practitioner and chairman and co-founder of InApp, who passed away recently. The programme will be telecast LIVE on KITE VICTERS educational channel.
FOSS based training programmes will be held at all 14 district offices of KITE from 11am. The theme of the training programme in each district is as follows: Kasaragod (Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia), Kannur (Scribus-DTP), Wayanad (OpenStreetMap), Kozhikode (ExpEyes-Open hardware), Malappuram( GNUKhata-Accounting), Palakkad (GeoGebra and Maths), Thrissur (Kdenlive-Video editing), Ernakulam (Scratch- Visual programming), Idukki (Opentoonz-Animation), Kottayam (IoT and Robotics), Alappuzha (App Inventor-Mobile App development), Pathanamthitta (Blender-3D animation), Kollam (Python-Programming) and Thiruvananthapuram (Krita-Graphics).
"Those who wish to participate in the training programme can register free on the website kite.kerala.gv.in/SFDay2022," said K Anvar Sadath, KITE CEO. Public can also view all classes live on the portal inaugurated by Sivankutty at KITE VICTERS studio in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.
Public awareness programmes on Free Software will also be conducted at all KITE district offices from 2pm to 4pm on September 25. Install Fests will also be held, where the latest version of KITE GNU Linux 20.04 will be freely installed for public. As a prelude to the Software Freedom Day celebrations, Free Software based training programmes will be telecast on KITE VICTERS channel from September 22 to 24. On these days, classes on animation will be aired at 9am, followed by a session on App Inventor at 1:30pm, Malayalam Computing and Internet at 6pm and a class on Scratch Visual Programming at 8.30pm.