kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

I am so tired. Its been a tough month for me. A tougher month awaits. First was OSScamp Pantnagar, then was the MozillaCamp (I will be talking about it in this post). Now, upcoming are OSScamp Delhi and OSScamp Chennai. But then, they are immense events in prospects and i do hope to get a lot of community support (unlike the previous times). It would be unfair to add that kudos to the Pantnagar student for the awesome camp they organised in their university. The only thing lacking in OSScamp Pantnagar was the absence of professionals. It was predominantly a student’s camp.

Now about the recent MozillaCamp – How and what of it. (And, I am sorry for writing this post so late)

It all began with a phone call I received from Mohak, when he introduced himself and his idea for MozillaCamp Delhi. The basic idea was that Arun and Seth were coming to India for Techkriti and GNUnify. Mohak talked with Mary Colvig at Mozilla and ensured that Arun and Seth spend a day at Delhi too. Problem was they’d be in Delhi on Tuesday the Tenth. And so started our endeavour to organise a technology unconference for working professionals on a weekday. If anything was supposed not to work, this was it.

Mohak’s first and foremost instruction to me was ‘meet me before you leave for Pantnagar’ and we worked on a number of issues related to sponsorships and venues on phone. Finally, we met for the first time at JIMS (Rithala), to scout it for a venue. In the meanwhile, I had got us our only sponsorship – from OSSCube (my company, but that doesn’t mean it was easy).

In the meanwhile, I also asked Yadu to design the visual assets for the camp and he did a splendid job. Mohak and his team of volunteers did a lot of running job to all sponsors, printers, and supporters. Mohak’s efforts on pre-event promotion paid of really well. But the event was on Tuesday and we had our doubts about the possible attendance. Registrations on the wiki were only about 150.

The biggest challenge for us was to find a venue at such a short notice. We shifted from JIMS (Rithala) to IIT Delhi to finally at Indian Social Institute.

Came Tuesday. Untill 11 only about 10 participants were on the venue. But soon, the hall was full with over 80 participants. It made a grand sight. Arun and Seth were to join us by around 2. So for the morning session, the participants were left at the mercies of me and Mohak. And we ran rampant! The morning session was a drag without any quality session and while breaking for lunch my main concern was – how many will return ?

Return they did from a not-sponsored lunch. (There was hardly any point in sponsoring it either – the venue didnt allow a caterer and their canteen sux). Then, we were joined by Seth and Arun and the rest as they say is history.

The first session was by Pascal Finette on the Concept Series by Mozilla Labs. He talked in length about what is the aim of Concept Series and how is it creatign a better Firefox and a better web. Seth, then, introduced us all to Mozilla and their efforts on Localisation. He discussed emerging issues and challenges in localisation over the web. Then the floor belonged to Arun who talked at length about the new and exciting things coming up in Mozilla Firefox 3.1, HTML 5, Video Tags, and Canvas. His sesion included a number of live demos and was very entertaining event for the non-geeks (a small section of the audeince).Soon it was 5:30pm and we had to wind up.

Mohak and I joined Arun and Seth, then, at the India Habitat Center for a short interview that I recorded for OSSCube, which basically discussed the emerging issues and challenges on the web.

You will find a lot of pictures from the event at: http://tr.im/gd3b and http://tr.im/gd3e
Videos will be uploaded soon at http://youtube.com/osscube . Keep watching that space.

Every Beginning Has An End, Neo!

And similarly this series comes to an end. Not an exceptional series by any means but teh fact that this is the first series I am successfully completing. Taking cue from this, I shall now work harder at my long pending series.

There has, obviously, been literary mistakes in this text owing to my limited expertise at the English Language. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to poke a finger and feel around.

OSScamp Bengaluru was a wonderful experience. Managing an Event all alone is critical experience and has its own, both, pros and cons. While there were aspects of it I didn’t like at all, there were things that I really loved. Strangely, one of these was dining, with an artificial effort, because my body needed food while I cannot dine alone. Weird fellow, ain’t I?

Pictures from the trip can be found on my flickr account.

Kinshuk

Many of my friends are leaving Delhi to move to their Jobs… so just taken example and done some inspirational creative writing :P (Don’t tell me how crappy it is, if you don’t have any good to say .. muhahahaha.. fear me, i am evil :P)

You only sit quietly,
you maintain the posture,
you are afraid,
any change will betray you,
betray what’s in your heart.
You look up,
you meet the gaze,
but it’s straight in the gut,
you look away.
You try to speak,
but you know she doesn’t want to hear it,
and there is a lump,
and the word’s wont come out.

And it’s so hard to find words to say
‘I will wait’
when you can’t say
‘Don’t Go’
(more…)

I am sharing with you an exchange of emails with someone from the Free Software Foundation, India, while working on the OSSCamp Delhi (September 2007). I am censoring it, snipping out few portions and identities from the email that would hint or disclose the other person’s identity for the sole reason that he never gave me his permission to post this exchange on my blog. Other than the identity-hinting portions, I have not snipped anything else. Let me know, what you think of the discussion.

***

Dear FSF India
My name is Kinshuk Sunil and I am a Student. Me and my friends are trying to organize an Open Source Event on the lines of the world famous Bar Camps (http://www.barcamp.org ). The name of the event is OSS Camp Delhi [Open Source Software Camp, Delhi]. It is scheduled for September 8th-9th 2007. More information about the event is available at [http://www.osscamp.in/OSSCampDelhi]

The event is free for all and all cost will be managed by the sponsors. I am not writing you this mail to request you to sponsor us. The target audience of the event are Open Source Practitioners and Open Source Enthusiasts, alike and we plan to arrange about 300-500 people. I am asking for your help to spread the word for the event so that people interested in Open Source may choose to be present at this event and contribute to its success.
Some of my friends have already organized one such camp OSSBarCampMumbai in Mumbai on 23rd March 2007 [http://www.barcamp.org/OssBarCampMumbai] and so we are confident of successfully organizing this event too.

I am requesting you to help us spread the word about the event so that people interested in Open Source technologies may attend it. This is a free-for-all event and our objective is not to make any money out of it. This is just facilitating the open source community in India by providing it a favorable platform.

And if you find it deserving, you might also help us by sponsoring it.

Thank you for your valuable time.
Kinshuk Sunil

I got the following reply:

(more…)

Ah Well, Lame Joke! I know. But today I received my first salary. Well its not the first, technically, because my first salary was earned somewhere in late 2004/early 2005 when Subodh shared a token from its first profits amongst its founding members. That salary was a token amount of Rs. 100 (great idea by Bhupi) and I don’t rememebr what I did of it. But, I still have the envelope preserved :D

Anyhow, Since this is my first “job” job, we shall assume this as my first salary; and me mum was proud – with twinkling eyes she commented: her son has finally grown up (how wrong she is :P). I only wish I could have earned a better amount for her, but hey! it’s a start… beware world, I am coming :P

But most of you don’t even know about my job. So, I shall take this opportunity to update you on my professional front (I never update on personal fronts :P).

On 21st May 2008, I joined OSS Cube as a Community Manager, with a decent package to start with. A lot of my Job Profile is Hush-Hush and Shhh-Shhh so you get the idea, don’t you? Figures! Well, I am looking after a number of Community-related aspects of OSS Cube. Better?

That would be all for now, I guess. Oh! By the way, I am finally migrating to Linux – just very confused about which distro to use, but the mighty tux it will be. And yes, I am writing this post while running internet from an Ubuntu Live CD (funny, I never configured my IPs and yet the net works… learn windows, learn!).

Signing Off. Take Care

Kinshuk