My Journey to G/ Karandeniya Central College with the FOSS Community of NSBM
The journey began around 5.45pm
from the Fort Station on 24th June 2014, which was another busy
Tuesday in the station. Very hardly fighting for a seat myself, Ruwan Ranganath
and Tharindu Samarasinghe got in to the train without any problem. We enjoyed
the beauty of the nature which passed by for about one hour and forty minutes, until
the train stopped urgently mile away to Ambalangoda Railway Station, luckily
which was our dispatch point. But after we got down from the train we saw that
the reason for the sudden stop was a man’s suicide attempt which killed him on
the spot shocking the people around.
After a sad moment we walked few
miles to the bus stand, we could catch the final bus to Mr. Chandana Sameera’s
home where other FOSS members who arrived before us was resting. After a small
rest we began to get ready for our big day on 25th June 2014. I
watched the FOSS crew of NSBM work so hard to make the event success. They
worked so hard which made me to write this post to admire their hard work, Determination
and the commitment to the work they are in.
The brightest sun was rising with
the background music of singing birds. In a hurry I was asked to wake up
because it was too late to get dressed. We all got dressed in a hurry and
rushed to Karandeniya Central College. It was 8.45am when we arrived at the
school main hall, after arriving the next thing we did was meeting up
Mr.D.Y.P.Wijeekara the principle of G/ Karandeniya Central College who invited
the FOSS crew of NSBM to their school.
At 9.00am after all the welcoming
with over 300 student participants Mr. Chandana Sameera who is a past student
of the school and a member of the FOSS community started the very first session
by introducing the FOSS community to the participants giving the best boost to
the program. Following the lead Mr.Sadeepa Dilruk and Mr.Lahiru Praboda
introduced what Linux was. Getting the total attraction from the crowd Mr.
Tharindu Samarainghe gave a whole big speech on FOSS communities all over the
globe, how they function, how the system of them work and how anyone can
contribute to them. When the sessions where in process NSBM crew never forgot
to distribute gifts to all the students who answered the questions and to all
the winners from games. Mr.Tharkana Kodagoda by attracting the crowd with his
special talents talked about Education tools and alternative software’s, where
he happened to explain all the best points for the students who are willing to
follow up in the IT field. Next person who came by was Mr. Aravinda
Meewalaarachi who successfully finished his speech of Privacy controlling and using
of social networks in a fruitful manner passed the mic to Mr. Ruwan Ranganath
who is a Committee member of the Mozilla Sri Lanka to introduce the Mozilla
activities and to give away Mozilla gifts to the winners. Because all the
successful things deserve a successful ending Mr. Chandana Sameera was given
the chance to end the session by thanking all the people who helped to make the
event successful. Mr. Danidu Suresh, Mr. Dillina Namal and Mr. Asanka Hendahewa
of NSBM FOSS Community did a great job managing total program staying behind
the scene.
Soon after the program we headed back to Colombo to attend
Google I/O Extended which is going be my next post all about…
Please visit https://plus.google.com/u/0/101979218723043139381 for more
photos on this event.
- අසිත ජයසිංහ -
