One day workshop on Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) based Thin Client-server Networks

The Symposium will be inaugurated by Mr. Ramesh Majhi, Minister IT, Government of Odisha, who will be the Chief Guest. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Editor -SAMBAD and Chairman – Sambad Ama Odisha Charitable Trust will preside and the key note will be given by Prof. Gopal Nayak, Director – IIIT, Bhubaneswar .

Mr. Saurabh Jain, Founder-CEO of Thinvent (http://www.thinvent.in/) will address Thin client-server architecture, Mr. Krishna Pagadala, Technology Officer - CISCO System, San Jose will talk about the Philosophy of Open source and Dr. Dhanada K. Mishra, HDF-KMBB Group will make a presentation on Ubuntu.

There will be demonstration of technology and interactive sessions followed by lunch.

Date - 26th July 2010
Time - 9:30 AM
Venue - Crown Hotel, Bhubaneswar

Attendance is limited to about 120 persons. All Engineering college students, faculty, promoters and people with interest in FOSS and accessible hardware issues are welcome to attend.

Want to cut down your total IT cost by drastically along with maintenance, security and network reliability problems, then this symposium is for you. You will be exposed to the rapidly growing technology phenomenon of FOSS and Thin client-server systems.

Thin Client-Server Network Thin Clients are PC like machines with varying configurations designed to take advantage of the resources of today's powerful PCs operating as servers for hard disk space and operating system as well as application software. Typical Thin client is a hard disk-less PC designed to be the Graphical User Interface for the user. When operating on efficient Linux based networks, Thin client-server architecture has the potential to reduce hardware cost significantly while not affecting the user experience or computing experience.

Free and Open Source Software The downside of using commercial proprietary software products requiring expensive hardware platforms is well known. The vulnerability of the operating systems to virus attack or the unnecessary bulk of the application software with unwanted features that slows down even the most expensive latest model PCs and laptops or the frequent crash and freeze one has to deal with are some of the more common phenomena. Of course for most of us who use 'un-paid for software we get notice of the same every time we boot our computer and perpetually live in the fear of being caught out.

As many of you would know the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement has been a silent revolution happening without much fanfare of publicity beyond the circles of the knowledgeable. Even many of the technically adept have not been able to extricate themself out of the clutches of poor quality, unreliable commercial softwares in spite of the best intentions and efforts to do so until in recent years.

With the arrival of Linux flavours like Ubuntu, which when inserted in any PC pleasantly instal itself with smooth re-formatting of the disk to maintain the earlier data and software intact surprises the user with great features such as speed, reliability, frequent upgrades from canonical foundation, automatic links to hosts of useful and educational free software, bundled software like Open Office etc. Its one of the best kept developments in the software world and has the ability to displace the entire proprietary software bundle in a typical PC. Being Free as in Freedom that is with access to source code and Free as in Free beer are added bonus. The general family of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is becoming popular among users community in a large scale, the natural progression will be towards localisation of operating systems and application software like Office. Once Oriya language software become available in FOSS platform, we can be sure of large scale penetration of IT in to the masses.

The Symposium will be addressed by Mr. Saurabh Jain, Founder-CEO of Thinvent (http://www.thinvent.in/), Prof. Gopal Nayak, Director - IIIT, Mr. Krishna Pagadala, Technology Officer - CISCO System, San Jose and Dhanada Mishra, HDF-KMBB Group. There will be demonstration of technology and interactive sessions followed by lunch.

Attendance is limited to about 120 persons. All Engineering college students, faculty, promoters and people with interest in FOSS and accessible hardware issues are welcome to attend