Welcome to FOSS Club SSET (SCMS School of Engineering and Technology)

[Muneer_S]

Building a tech community in an Indian private college has to be one of the hardest things in the world. Even after knowing this, we took the challenge and decided to start our independent FOSS club anyway. We had to go through many restrictions and rejections, failed a lot, and learned. It took us nearly a year to get this community on its feet. It’s still not finished; I guess it’s never finished. With a few genuine people interested and devoted to promoting the FOSS culture, we continue our journey, but this time we have FOSS United by our side. We appreciate the support and hope to do more for the FOSS ecosystem.

In the past, we have conducted workshops, Linux installation parties, community meetups, and talks. People have gained a lot of knowledge from these sessions. From the very start, our mission has been to promote the FOSS culture, get more FOSS users and contributors, and gain practical developer experience through contributing. It will continue to be so.

[Shree_Kumar]

Welcome and please keep doing great work !

I had to do a search to figure out what SSET is. Figured out it’s in Kochi (correct me if I am wrong), and I am not surprised. I am assuming the restrictions and rejections had to do more with administrative/other things, rather than FOSS, given Kerala education is based on FOSS.

Question since you are from Kerala - do art schools/college in Kerala also run Linux ? Do they use GIMP/Krita ?

[Muneer_S]

Im sorry about the confusion, Yes its SCMS School Of Engineering And Technology. It says kochi on google, But its actually in northern Ernakulam, Angamaly. And i don’t know much about art colleges but im sure most of the institutions in kerala runs on Ubuntu, I remember using gimp when i was in junior high, So they must be using gimp at the very least. I don’t know about krita though, I’ve never an institution using kde so your guess is as good as mine

[Shree_Kumar]

Interesting. I am beginning to hate Google’s summaries even more. Yesterday in the news feed they killed Ustad Zhakir Hussain, while linking to stories where he was still alive.

@Muneer_S

And i don’t know much about art colleges but im sure most of the institutions in kerala runs on Ubuntu,

I am hoping you can help find this out, if you have friends, or if there is an art college close to where you are. Engineers are but a small part of FOSS - the real benefits accrue to the population.

[Muneer_S]

Sadly i don’t have any friends in arts colleges, But i will ask around

[Muneer_S]

FOSS Club SSET Monthly Meetup Dec’24

This was our third meetup of the year. The goal of our meetup is to bring FOSS enthusiasts and tech enthusiasts from around the campus together to discuss FOSS and technology in general. It was our first event since our collaboration with FOSS United. This time, our topic was self-hosting. We discussed it in depth and shared our experiences with hosting. The event went really well.

I spoke about why one might choose to self-host. While it offers users custody of their data and provides greater freedom, it can be impractical for an engineering student. It’s often more convenient to leave the “maintenance of a server headache” to someone else. However, from a philosophical standpoint, it’s a great learning experience and a lot of fun. We also discussed decentralization, peer-to-peer technologies, and self-hosting our daily tools and products.

It was a busy month for our college, with exams in the first two weeks, ongoing sports events, and holidays approaching. Despite this, we really wanted to hold the meetup, so we took the risk and decided to host it concurrently with the sports events. FOSS United was generous enough to provide refreshments. Around 25 people registered, and about 16 attended. I’ve always believed in prioritizing quality over quantity.

Lesson learned: Avoid scheduling events at the same time as something else, and don’t forget to take a group photo!

[Muneer_S]

From Data to Destination 2025

Back in August, me and some buddies went to this unofficial OpenStreetMap meetup. Until that point in my life, FOSS, to me, was all about making source code public—I had no idea how much it impacted people’s lives. That meetup was one of the best experiences I’ve had in FOSS.

Ever since then, we’ve been planning to organize an event related to open data and OSM, and it finally happened. This was our second and biggest event since our association with FOSS United, and it went really well.

From Data to Destination was a mini-workshop and introductory session on open data and OpenStreetMap, followed by a seven-day-long mapathon contest. Our speakers and advisors, Athul RT (Data Scientist, Freelance Developer) and Ranjith Siji (Bureaucrat of Malayalam Wikipedia), were active members of OSM Kerala, Open Data Kerala, and the Wikimedians User Group of Kerala, One of whom we had met at the meetup. The session took place on January 22nd, from 12:30 to 3:45 PM.

Our speakers discussed the importance of open data, Wikidata, and its impact on humanitarian efforts, along with various other applications. There was also a hands-on session with OpenStreetMap. At the end, we provided stickers and refreshments for the participants. Around 80 people registered, and approximately 67 attended, Most of them brought laptops (which is a really big deal).

The mapathon contest ran from January 22nd to 29th and was designed to be beginner-friendly. We created a document with everything an absolute beginner would need to participate, I even made a YouTube video explaining the process. The plan was to track individual contributions using the hashtag #fossclubsset, with the top three mappers winning prizes.

However, there was an issue where some participants submitted false data just to win the prize, Something our speakers had warned us about. Keeping this in mind, we tried to raise awareness about ethical contributions. Despite our efforts, the response wasn’t as strong as we had hoped. We expected people to see it as an opportunity to explore places with friends while mapping and competing for prizes. Unfortunately, it seemed that mapping wasn’t something people at our college were particularly passionate about.

To encourage the participants, we gave them custom stickers and keychains as a token of appreciation.

Overall, the mini-workshop was a great success, but the mapathon not so much. So, one win, one loss. But at the end of the day, we managed to convey an important message: tech doesn’t always have to be about making money, selling subscriptions, showing ads, or exploiting users’ private data. Sometimes, it can be about societal good, Helping each other live better lives or, in the best cases, saving lives. And that’s what truly matters.

Lesson learned: Gen Z kids generally aren’t that much into reading.