FOSS Nepal wins SFD 2008 Best Event Award

FOSS Nepal has won Software Freedom Day 2008 Best Event Award among over 500 teams in almost 90 countries for second consecutive year. Congratulations and hats off to all FOSS enthusiasts who made this possible. Also, kudos to Bibek for such a wonderful report.

The winning entries were selected for the scope of their SFD activities, the number of people reached (particularly from the wider, non-technical community) and the quality of the reporting. The other winning teams were SFD Nicaragua and DabaweGNU.

Although this time SFD was celebrated with much less preparation, we had an incredible event. We had a FOSS Awareness Rally, Candlelight vigil and SFD main event. Hope this award will bring even more enthusiasm to the FOSS movement in Nepal.

From Software Freedom Day 2008 Rally and Candlelight Vigil

From Software Freedom Day 2008 Rally and Candlelight Vigil

2008 Resolutions

2007 rocked for me! But unfortunately signs are building up for the 2008 to be very hard and struggleful for me. College will be ending in a few months too. So lets do some planning, here are my primary resolutions (in no particular order).. ;)

• I'm gettin lots of job offers but no matter what, full time job - No nO! Part time home based ones - okay.
• Join masters within this year. Not gonna waste time. Gonna try US for ME (preferred). If not, MBA in Nepal.
• Tests and Certifications: GRE, RHCE and Cisco (all with flying colors :D)
  
• Travel and Adventure: Atleast i'm gonna go for rafting and bungy.
  
• Read a lot: Last 4 years of college didn't let me study anything truly out of study course. So anything that comes my way. Philosophy, journalism, photography.. maybe even porn novels ;).. anything..
• Programming Languages: Atleast i'm gonna learn LISP
• Skills: Linux Device Drivers (and lots n lots but writing all'll take eternity, :D)
  
• FOSS: Complete some softwares that i have started/are in my mind
  
• OLPC: This year would be for OLPC Content/software development
• Blog/Write More: Write everything that comes to me..
  
• Save Money: I know this is something i cant control, but i gotta try. Plus, i cant ask my dad for help for my further education.
  
• Stay busy: As college's gonna be over in a month, if i dont get busy i'll go mad..
  

-- And for private eyes --
This year is for you. We're gonna be together again..

Bye bye 2007, you rocked!!

The year 2007 got really incredible. Perhaps i never had a year so packed with fun and achievements.

The fun began right from the start. January, went to Dang as a coordinator for setting up the first LTSP based e-Library of Nepal. The same deployment brought a chain of LTSP installations in Nepal.

A month later, won the LOCUS Open Software Competition with Shishir. Also won third prize on LOCUS Paper presentation Competition with Ayush. Few months later also made it to finals in the CHC60 Competition organized by IEEE. Sad that we didnt win, but atleast making it to finals in IEEE Competition is a pretty impressive thing. ;)

Few months after that starting working for Flash Project of Department of Education as Lead Developer. Also traveled to Pokhara, Nepalgunj and Bardia for training sessions of the same. Got a nice paycheck too -> new laptop!

FOSS stuffs got nicer too.. We celebrated the Software Freedom Day 2007. I was in Public Relation and Documentation team. The final report i wrote/compiled got us the Best Event Award. By the way it's not fair to say that we won just bcoz of the report, as the event was incredible in the first place. We had such level of extravaganza in 2006's SFD too, but we didnt win due to lack of proper documentation. This year i'm proud to be a part of the award..

Talkin about FOSS, i also started volunteering at Kantipur FM on behalf of FOSS. The program is Cybertime airs every saturday, 8:30-9am. I prepare and anchor FOSS related report and news everyweek.

College life was cool too. Forth year, so not much headachie techie classes and lots of off classes. Actually it's not nice from academic point of view, but still was a relief after three years of rigorous techie studies. And it's always fun to go to canteen n having tea with frens.

Also went to Ghorepani hiking with college frens, which itself is one of the most memorable thing that has happened this year.

And the most important of all, i started blogging. Aint still a regular blogger, but atleast i do. And seems like it counts.

Well, there are some bad moments too, but why repent over?

Dear year 2007, you've been really nice to me. Dear Life, plz be like this year for the rest of you.. ;)