Welcome to FOSS Club @ SGP!
Well, hello there folks and welcome to the forum thread for the FOSS Club at Siliguri Government Polytechnic (referring to it as SGP from this point onward for ease)! We’re in the works for creating a hub for open-source collaboration and innovation, beyond the campus and across the region of North Bengal. More than just coding, we’re here to build a culture of knowledge-sharing and accessibility.
Expect engaging seminars and hands-on workshops covering everything from open-source basics to whatever’s hot in the tech world. We aim to equip students with skills, insights, and a passion for libre software, as well as open data and open knowledge, shaping the tech landscape in the region.
The Team (and the structure)
The club is managed by a team of 6 members, including me, who’ll be acting as the Club Lead, and a Co-Lead. The structure is as follows:
- Technologist: 2 Members
- Designer: 1 Member
- Outreach: 2 Members
- Social Media: 1 Member
Apart from that, we also have a couple of juniors (students who are late into their first year) as shadow members, who are going to assist the core team members whenever needed and will be replacing the current core team after graduation.
We’ll be releasing the program schedule (and other stuff) soon, so stay tuned! :))
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Minutes of the Meet
1st March 2025 @ 16:00 Hours
Attendees: Me (@nilabrata_sanyal) and @fossdot
What we discussed on/about:
- Tentative dates for the event/s.
- Potentially having an online event or two in case we can’t avail the college’s resources (The answer? It’s highly discouraged; defeats the whole purpose of doing it offline in the first place).
- Having a couple of folks join in-person for the talks/workshops. Doesn’t necessarily have to be from the very beginning and could be there from events in the next semester.
- Invoicing - What if vendors don’t have GST Invoices?
Summary
- Tentative dates to be announced shortly in this thread, with the first event on March 6th.
- All events will be offline, temporarily restricted by college to students within our own college.
- Will coordinate with Core Team members from 2nd March to ensure that the event goes smoothly.
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Updates on the inaugral event (06th March 2025)
So, it finally happened! The event went quite great, with about 37 attendees (including our HOD and Core Team Members), with a turnout of roughly two-thirds of people who had RSVPed for the event.
Pictures:
- Session 1: “An introduction to FOSS & Liberated Hardware” by @Het_Joshi
- Session 2: “An introduction to OpenStreetMap” by Kiran Ahire
- Session 3: “An introduction to YouthMappers” by Sawan Shariar
- 1st YouthMappers@SGP Mapping Party
The Goods:
- 2/3rd of people who RSVPed had joined.
- Most of the students showed great interest in the talks.
- 8 People joined for the mapping party.
- The HOD, as well as another lecturer joined the event and showed interest in the talks.
The Not-so-goods:
- Most of the students from 1st year didn’t join, including those who had RSVPed.
- We started with a delay of ~30 minutes due to issues with the college’s networking infrastructure.
- Some students found it hard to comprehend the ideas because of their limited proficiency in English.
- The mapping party was cut short due to our semester results being announced.
What’s next?
- Communicate with all faculty members and HODs of other departments to ensure low-to-none friction in attending future events.
- Organise follow-up sessions in Bengali to ensure the knowledge gap is bridged.
- Not rushing things too much. I believe this is what caused the limited outreach amongst students of other departments, especially juniors.
