INAUGURATION OF FOSS CENTER

IIT Bombay inaugurated the First Free Open Source Software Center (FOSS) of Uttar Pradesh at Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida on May 12, 2016. Students & Faculty from colleges including Janhit Institute of Education and Information, Kailash Institute of Nursing and Para, Patronage Institute of Professional Studies, etc. witnessed the inauguration ceremony.

The Spoken Tutorial project is the initiative of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT), launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India. The Spoken Tutorial project is being developed by IIT Bombay.

The chief guest for the inauguration program was Ms. Neha Srivastava, Training Manager, Uttar Pradesh, Spoken Tutorial, IIT Bombay. Mr. Aashraya Seth, Training Coordinator Spoken Tutorial, IIT Bombay graced the occasion as Guest of Honor.

The program started with floral welcome of the guests by Prof. (Dr.) S. K. Bagga, Director DGI. Ms. Shivangi Maheshwari, coordinator of the Spoken Tutorial program at the institute summarized the activities & certification programs conducted by various departments of the institute during last 3 years. Ms. Maheshwari highlighted the fact that 8000 students from DGI have been certified by Spoken Tutorial IIT Bombay during last five years.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms.Neha Srivastava said that learning is more effective when animation and narration are presented simultaneously. Audio - video demonstrations can illustrate features with maximum clarity. Keeping this in mind and to pass on the knowledge of technology and free and open source software (FOSS) to the students and faculty members who lack opportunities or access to learn any software the FOSS center was established at the institute.

During her inaugural address Ms. Neha Srivastava briefed the audience about objective of establishing FOSS center at the institute. Ms. Neha commended the effort taken by DGI towards imparting software training to its students and said the first FOSS Center of the state at the institute will definitely help students in the region to get to know about various software offered by spoken tutorial project.

Mr. Aashraya Seth interacted with students and conveyed the concept of active learning and side by side learning. Mr. Aashraya talked on future FOSS activities offered by spoken tutorial project IIT Bombay. He said that the Spoken Tutorial Project is about teaching and learning a particular FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) like Linux, Scilab, LaTeX, PHP & MySQL, Java, C/C++, LibreOffice etc.

During the lab session students and faculty visited the FOSS center where well equipped lab having software like Linux, Scilab, LaTeX, PHP & MySQL, Java, C/C++, LibreOffice were demonstrated. Students got first hand information about applications of the software in real life. Hands - on - training instilled confidence in students about use of the software and they were excited to learn more about the software.

The program came to an end with vote of thanks by Ms. Shivangi Maheshwari, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, DGI Greater Noida. Mr. Siwal thanked all the participants from different colleges, faculty coordinators and management for making event successful.