On 22nd of February 2020 GUILD conducted its first ever event, an introductory session on Free Software and the goals of GUILD. As a student body it is dedicated to furthering the ideals of Free/Libre and Open Source Software and its philosophy in order to help solve real world problems.
GUILD is a GNU/Linux User Group (GLUG) which is associated to FSMK - Free Software Movement Karnataka, a statewide not-for-profit organization that promotes the usage of Free Software in all fields. FSMK is a sub-group of FSMI - Free Software Movement of India , which is a nation wide movement with similar goals and objectives.
The event was conducted in Dhwani from 11 a.m., the event started off with a song performed by soumya and sadhanafrom 2nd semester , which helped the proceedings start off on an extremely positive note.
Invited guests were Mr. Rameez and Mr. Sai Madhu from FSMK, Dr. B. Narasimha Murthy, Vice Principal of CMRIT, Dr. Pushpa Mohan, CMRIT FOSS Cell Head and GUILD faculty coordinator, and Mr. Pranav Bhat, CMRIT alumni, Social Entrepreneur and the former student lead of GLUG.
The Vice Principal, the Chief Guest, gave us an eye opening speech about going above and beyond our limited syllabus to become competent employees, following which he helped distribute and award certificates for the members of GUILD who are graduating this semester, as a token of appreciation and gratitude recognizing their dedication and their commitment to the cause.
Next, Mr. Pranav gave a talk on the importance of being socially conscious citizens, in which he covered various examples and instances and the importance of being socially conscious.
Following this, Mr. Saket Vaibhav, current student head of GUILD, gave a talk briefly introducing the concept Free Software and urging students to pursue something meaningful to help motivate them to become better engineers.
After Saket’s talk, Mr. Ashwin M, GUILD core team member, gave a brief intro of GUILD, their values, goals and objectives. He also displayed the various projects that the club had previously worked on and the different kinds of technology that had been used to give an example of the kind of scope the club has.
After this Mr. Rameez from FSMK gave a session about the history, future, and importance of Free Software along with all the various social projects that FSMK has done, and all the various different problems that FSMK is trying to solve presently. Mr. Rameez educated the audience by talking to them about important topics like, “What is the difference between Free and Freedom?”, “What is Net Neutrality?” and “Why is privacy important?”. He also helped clear a lot of myths that are associated with Free Software.
The talk was extremely important and helped put things into perspective as it provided a very broad overview of the Free Software Movement and how it is relevant to the individual as well as to the society.
At the end of the event, GUILD took in registrations from all the interested students who would like to promote Free Software and be an active part of the Free Software Movement.