Categories: Event Report

Swatantra 2014

Swatantra 2014 was the fifth international free software conference organized by ICFOSS.Bearing the tag of India’s first-ever Free Software event, “Freedom First!” that was convened in Trivandrum in 2001. It was a much awaited event for FOSS lovers around the world.

swatantra 2014 logo

The theme for Swatantra 2014 was “Free Software for a Free World”. This reflected emerging concerns that citizens and communities face vis-a-vis privacy, online rights & freedom, and security at a global level.

The event comprised of 150+ talks, and 30+ workshops held in parallel over a span of 3 days. The event was kick-started by the father of free software – Dr. Richard Stallman addressing on the topic “Free Software and Beyond”.

Mr. Anivar Aravind from Swathanthra Malayalam Computing coordinated two tracks for Mozilla at Swatantra 2014 with the assistance of Representative of Mozilla (ReMo) Anush.

  • Free Mobile Platforms
  • Mapping & Open-StreetMaps

Each track in Swatantra 2014 composed of 4-5 speakers, headed by a chair, who were allotted time based on the total time available for the particular track. We had mozillian Praveen Sridhar from Mozilla Kerala and Soumya Deb from Mozilla India as speakers for the event.

Topic Presenters
Track 6 : Free Mobile Platforms
Chair : Dr. G. Nagarjuna, FSF-India
2:30PM – 5:00PM | 19 Dec | Hall 1
Firefox OS Mr. Praveen Sridhar, Mozilla
Cyanogenmod & AOSP Mr. Jishnu Mohan, SMC
Replicant Mr. Paul Kocialkowski, Replicant (Video)
Indic keyboard, Firefox Indic IME & Silpa Android SDK Mr. Hrishikesh K.B, SMC
A dive into various Free and OpenSource Mobile Platforms -Current state & Challenges Mr. Siji Sunny, MELabs
Praveen speaking on Firefox OS

Praveen speaking on Firefox OS

Topic Presenters
Track 9 : Mapping & OpenStreetMaps
Chair : Mr. Praveen A, SMC
9:45 am – 12:15 pm | 20 Dec | Hall 3
FOSS tools for Remotesensing and Geoprocessing Mr. Sajith VK
Mapping efforts in an unsurveyed land – an Open Street Map experiment at Koorachundu Village Panchayat Mr. Jaisen Nedumpala, Mr. Ark Arjun
Mozilla Location Services Mr. Soumya Deb, Mozilla
Deb talking on Geolocation

Deb talking on the Mozilla GeoLocation Project

It was a great experience for the Mozillians and other participants of Swatantra 2014. We’re eagerly awaiting the next edition in 2017.

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