Code Release, Sharing, and Party on Saturday, 27th of May between 11 AM to 4 PM at 3354, K.R.Road Bangalore - 76 (Directions on http://servelots.com)
Schedule
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11:00 AM Release of new version of Pantoto Communities
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Pantoto Communities software is designed for communities to manage community knowledge and is
developed based on the needs of some of the communities, small enterprises and NGOs who have been using Pantoto. (See http://servelots.com and http://janastu.org
).
This release includes: significant internal redesign, user interface
and usability(customizability of skins, new default skin, easy content
editing, simplification
of building custom forms for user input), protection against spam bots, RSS feeds and feed aggregation.
11.30 AM FLOSS development of products/services for local needs
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DISCUSSION: If you are interested in or if you are working on
developing FLOSS products/services to meet primarily local needs (not
necessarily for global market, but more for local communities, NGOs,
researchers, etc), please come and share your
interests, ideas and work. We are hoping that the
discussions would lead to a better appreciation of the importance and
the need to cater to local issues, spark new ideas and encourage
greater participation and collaboration. People who work on Pantoto,
NewsRack,
Mapunity.org, and integration of Indic and VoIP tools have confirmed their attendance.
1:00 PM Lunch
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2:00 PM Music and games
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Music by Dyuthi and friends Open space for participatory games, music, ..
(bring game ideas, songs, friends)
If you are in Bangalore hope you can make it.
Please pass this invite to your friends and other
groups.
There are new initiatives in the field of social development. There are decades of learnings and experiences too. Diverse Perspectives, Ideologies, Insights and approaches have been there Each one as important as the other.
Every tiny effort as an alternative path to development is important to challenge the monstrous capture by the consumerist mega players.
There have been numerous efforts towards people and community oriented development over the last few decades. And it is heartening to know that there are several new initiatives with innovative approaches and models of community development which has shown success.
To share such thoughts, learnings, experiences and some goodies and coffee/tea an evening of get-together was organized on 29th Jan 2005 at 4 PM at Servelots Infotech Pvt.Ltd., 3354 KR Road Bangalore 560070. ph: 080-26762963
A group of 25 People with years of experience in social development, people with success stories of new initiatives, thinkers and those interested in social development attended the meeting.
Highlights of the discussion:
Infrasys Ecomanagement systems Pvt., Ltd., by Mr.Murthy Sudhakar, Founder Director. Fire-flies, the earth spirituality ashram, Kanakapura, Bangalore. Servelots Infotech Pvt Ltd in the field of ICT for social development by Dr.T.B. Dinesh. Toehold, an initiative of ASCENT, by Hareesh. Bhajans by Mallikarjuna of Fireflies.
However, the forum was also free for all to introduce themselves and their work, display any material etc.
At the workshop titled "Communities Managing Community Knowledge", in October 2002 six Bangalore based NGOs were introduced to the concept of leveraging the Internet to manage information in a collaborative and inclusive manner.
The workshop included a theoretical introduction to Information and Communication Technologies and a hands-on session with the PANTOTO Communities Software. PANTOTO is an online community builder that allows user to create online support structures for communities.
At the workshop, Rema, a first time computer user, created an information management system. At the end of the workshop she was able to send a URL to a colleague who could post and view information that was being collected through a baseline survey of slums.
Addressing the workshop, Ms. Asha Prasanna Kumar said that allowing first time computer users to build application was a big step in taking ICT to the masses in India. She also added that for any project in the social development sector to be successful it is imperative to ensure participation and involvement and the PANTOTO Communities software was able to achieve this in a transparent and cost-effective manner.
Servelots Infotech Private Limited provides web services to Small to
Medium Enterprises (SME's) that enables them to manage their information
and communication in a very cost effective and user friendly way.
At Servelots, we have learned that the Free and Open Source technologies
have greatly enhanced our ability to develop software. Our motivation
for training is to spread the awareness of Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS/FLOSS) for two reasons:
1. To develop better code 2. These tools will themselves get
even better as more people will use them effectively.
Instructor
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Jason Stewart, a PhD in Computer Science, is an international trainer and
a sofware developer.
He has been working in the open source development community for 15
years and has managed a number of large software projects using open
source technologies.
While in Bangalore, Jason has been assisting software organizations
to streamline their project management and software development,
and has discovered the importance of educating the Bangalore IT
community to the advantages of using the existing open source
technologies in their projects.
Jason brings to these courses his energy, enthusiasm, and humor as well
as a firm belief that using these tools and techniques will make the
life of a software developer easier and more enjoyable.
About the courses
-----------------
The courses being offered are hands on, with a mix of lecture and computer
work - so
that developers can practice what they are learning, while they are
learning.
An online resource center will be available for distributing the course
materials and interacting with students and faculty - before, during and
after the course.
Introductory offers from Servelots
-----------------------------------
Ant for 3.5 hrs of class on
Nov 9th (2:00 p.m - 6 p.m)
Rs 1,000/person
Subversion for 3.5 hrs of class on
Nov 10th (2.00 p.m - 6 p.m)
Rs 1,000/person
Hibernate for 7 hrs of class on Nov 11th (9.00 a.m - 6 p.m)
Rs 1,500/person
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Source code management (SCM) using Subversion (Svn)
Subversion has become the replacement for the universally used CVS.
Course will cover the following topics:
-- svn working methodology
-- retrieving code from a repository
-- committing code to a repository
-- working with tags and branches
-- tools (diff, log, blame, ...)
-- merging different code branches
-- repository maintenance
-----------
Java project management using Apache Ant
Ant is an open-source Java-based build tool from the Apache Software
Foundation. It's rapidly become the de-facto build tool for J2EE
projects, so for developers, it's certainly worth becoming familiar with
the basics of Ant.
Course will cover the following topics:
-- Java project organization (files, directory structure)
-- organizing Ant (build.properties, build.xml)
-- creating Ant targets with dependencies
-- integrating other tools (svn, junit, checkstyle, ...)
-- using Ant as more than just a build tool (deployment,
documentation, unit testing, style checking)
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Object-relational mapping with Hibernate (Essentials)
Hibernate is a powerful, ultra-high performance object/relational
persistence and query service for Java. Hibernate lets you develop
persistent classes following common Java idiom - including association,
inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and the Java collections framework.
Course will cover the following topics:
-- integration with Ant
-- creating new persistent classes
-- loading and storing objects
-- using the hibernate transaction model
-- mapping complex object relationships
Topics that will be introduced, but not covered in detail including
integration with Eclipse IDE, mapping legacy DB projects and code
optimization. These topics will be covered in more detail in our
advanced Hibernate course. Hibernate course will assume knowledge of Ant.
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Discounts of 25% for Multiple Courses, Groups of 3 or more, or for a
FOSS software developer. (Discuss discounts while registering for the
courses.)
For all courses, tea will be provided during the breaks, but lunch is
not provided.
37th Annual Convention of Computer Society of India: 29th - 31st October 2002
JANASTU, the social development unit of Servelots had a stall at the Computer Society of India's 37th annual convention. Dr. T.B. Dinesh also presented a paper on "Communities Managing Community Knowledge" at the convention.
The CSI one of the largest events in the Indian IT calendars and is attended by Corporate bodies, Academicians, developers and students. For Janastu it was an ideal opportunity to demonstrate how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be demystified for underserved communities.
The stall, which had the look and feel of a village, was armed with demos that showcased how communities can create their own ICT solutions.
We would like to thank Nihilent Technologies for sponsoring the stall and Rose for putting us in touch with Nihilent.
Held on Dec 6th 2003. The event started on the evening of 5th December and ended on the morning ofl the 7th December. We had an open house to make
a permanent exhibit of art work on our office walls, inside or outside.
The walls of Servelots and Janastu were colorfully painted by Artists, experimenters, community space creators! One corner was painted by talented school kids.
The suggested theme was colorscapes; mandalas, yantras, Escher and fusion. Huge ones or tiny ones.. Inspirations
Pantoto Community Information Management Case Studies will be presented at Freedel (Delhi, September 17 and 18, 2005). Freedel is an event for the promoton of Linux, Free and Open Source Software organized by India Linux Users' Group, Delhi Chapter (ILUG-Delhi) and PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI).
More Information about event can be found at http://www.linux-delhi.org/anCMS/
Servelots team went out for a retreat at an undisclosed location from August 18th to August 23rd. All that we know so far is that it was in
the middle of a forest.
Various programmes were organized for the team members::
1. A sensitisation workshop conducted by Jinan (Kumbham Murals)
2. A gender sensitisation program conducted by Jecintha (Sakti)
3. An internal review of our individual activities
4. Technical sessions on development
