User 2 Hacker workshop at NIT, Calicut
I have started my journey from Bangalore to Kozhikode on October 23. The purpose of my journey was to conduct a workshop on Tathva-09, the three-day annual techno-management festival of the National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NIT-C).
A week before this, Vivek (my friend from GEC who is currently doing in MS in NITC, a GNU/Linux hacker and geek) has called me and asked me whether I can present a session on how to contribute to Free Software projects. Though, it was the first time for me, I never wanted to say “NO” to Vivek. I have agreed to conduct the “User2Hacker” session and prepared the presentation in Latex+ beamer using Lyx.
I have reached NITC campus on 24th, Saturday morning. The organizers has arranged for a cab to pick me and they also arranged accommodation for me at the NITC hostel.
Since I was free on that day, I have decided to attend the “beagle board” session by Khasim. The session was very interesting and Khasim demonstrated some amazing ideas using beagle board. He also mentioned about the new “Hawk Board”.After that event, me and Vivek went to the Lab to setup the softwares needed to conduct the “Hands on session” . We have installed vim, indent, svn, git ..etc on 20 machines.
Next day, I went to Vivek’s room after breakfast. After that, we went to the lab. As I have called up Pramode sir about the talk, he has informed a number of students about the talk and almost 10 people from GEC, Thrissur came to attend my workshop. The total number of students attended the workshop was around 50. I was happy about this number as this was the healthiest number of participants for a “Hands on workshop”. Later I have presented the “User2Hacker” workshop.
User2Hacker @NITC
Response from the students were very good. Some of them hav already contributed to the FOSS community. Some of them are willing to contribute provided somebody guide them in the right way. I liked their attitude and determination. For me, this was the purpose of my workshop. I am glad that I could at least make a number of to seriously think about the various possibilities of the FOSS world.
The organizers were very energetic and professional. I felt the freshness of college after a couple of years. I thought about my days in GEC. The organizers has arranged a cab for my travel from NITC to Kozhikode Town.
I have tried the “Manchurian Dosa” for the first time from Kozhikkode. It is similar to Masala dosa .. however, in Manchurian Dosa, they replaced ordinary “masala” in masala dosa with Gobi Manchurian. It was an experiment worth trying 
The Hindu reported “The User 2 Hacker workshop had a positive response” : http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/26/stories/2009102650160200.htm
Ya..
Maxin sir’s class was really informative..
It was a great opening to the world of hacking..
Students of GEC TCR..