Swecha is a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

formerly called Free Software Foundation Andhra Pradesh (FSF-AP). It is a Telugu

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

released in the year 2005, and is a part of Free Software Movement of India (FSMI). The organization is a

social movement A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or Political movement, political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to re ...

working towards educating the masses with the essence of

Free Software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

and to provide knowledge to the

commoner A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...

s. Swecha organizes workshops and seminars in the Indian states of

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. Presently Swecha is active GLUG ( GNU/Linux User Group) in many engineering colleges like

International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad The International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-Hyderabad or IIIT-H) is a premier deemed university, founded as a non-profit public-private partnership (N-PPP), located in Hyderabad, India. It is the first IIIT in India ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU Hyderabad) is a public university, located in Hyderabad, Telangana. Founded in 1965 as the Nagarjuna Sagar Engineering College, it was established as a university in 1972 by ''The Jawah ...

Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) is a private engineering college located in Gandipet, near Financial District, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The college is affiliated to Osmania University and is accredited by the National ...

, St. Martin's Engineering College, Sridevi Women's Engineering College, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology, SCIENT Institute of Technology, CMR Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, Jyothishmathi College of Engineering and Technology, MVGR College of Engineering, K L University and Ace Engineering College.

Objectives

The main objectives of the organization are as follows: * To take forward free software and its

ideological An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

implications to all corners of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

from the developed domains to the underprivileged. * To create awareness among computer users in the use of free software. * To work towards usage of free software in all streams of

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

s and

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

. * To take forward implementation and usage of free software in school education, academics and higher education. * To work towards e-literacy and bridging

digital divide The digital divide is the unequal access to information technology, digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide worsens inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information ...

based on free software and mobilizing the underprivileged. * To work among developers on solutions catering to societal & national requirements. * To work towards a policy change favoring free software in all walks of life.

Activities

* Swecha hosted a National Convention for Academics and Research which was attended by

ers and academicians from different parts of the country. Former President of India Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam while inaugurating the conference and declaring it open has asked everyone to Embrace Free Software and the Philosophy associated with it. * Technology should also be within the reach of everybody. At a time when technology has become all pervasive and people are increasingly dependent on it, transparency in software code is the need of the hour. "One needs to know what is going on in your mobile phone or computer," said D. Bhuvan Krishna, co-convener of Swecha project which code is available for anyone and everyone to modify fills this gap, felt speakers at an event organised to spread the word of

Free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

(FOSS) and celebrate the launch of latest web browser from the Mozilla Foundation's stable,

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...

3.5. * Swecha, has organised a 15-day workshop in

(CBIT) for budding software engineers from across the country. The idea is to provide students with an opportunity on the importance of students contributing towards the development of free software as it would not only allow students to exercise their creative faculties but also will help society to free itself from the clutches of proprietary software. * Swecha, an organisation floated to promote free software movement in India, has organised a one-day workshop on free software in the Department of

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

Systems Engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their Enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering uti ...

, Andhra University College of Engineering, the students who attended the workshop along with the faculty members joined to formally launch the GNU/Linux User Group(GLUG). * In order to build a mass movement for

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

, Swecha organizes Freedom Fest to promoting use of free software, About 1,500 students from 80 colleges from

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (; ) is a landlocked States and union territories of India, state in Central India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the List ...

converged on the campus to voice their concerns against proprietary software and share their passion for free software. * Swecha hosted A 2 Days International Technical Symposium on Free Internet (DFI) & Free Software in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

, Gachibowli in the month of 24 January 2014. More than 4700 participants attended including the 20+ delegates from ThoughtWorks & Social Activist across the world. * Swecha organises summer camps every year in which large number of students participate. The camps focus on training students on Free Software Technology and the culture of sharing and collaborative development of free software. In the 2014 itself 15 days camps were conducted for 2000+ students. It is here participants collaboratively engage in the conduct of the Summer Camps.

Projects

Swecha is a

project aimed at coming out with a localised version of

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

operating system in Telugu and providing global software solutions to the local people with the Free Software development model by working together with the

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

of developers and users all over. The prime objective of Swecha OS is to provide a complete computing solution to a population that speaks and understands only Telugu. The target users of the Distro being the entire community that is a prey of the

. This project helps in coming out with a solution for the digital divide and allows the possibility of digital unite becoming a reality. The project aims at bridging the gap between the computer technology that exists predominantly in English and the Telugu-speaking community of India. The project also aims at providing a framework for development and maintenance of Free Software projects taken up by the community. Bala Swecha is a free software project, initiated by the Swecha for tiny tots, It is a school distro with many of the useful interactive applications for the school goers. Its stack is filled with educational suites for all the standards right from elementary to tenth standards. They cover a wide range of applications which make the student learn

Maths Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, theories and theorems that are developed and proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include num ...

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

etc., very easily. Swecha has taken up many activities in training the school teachers, computer instructors of several government schools. The aim of the Distro is to deliver a Free Software-based operating system for the project of " Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan" initiated by the government. There isn't such operating system till now which gives full freedom with an educational stack. Swecha has the plans of localizing BalaSwecha for the benefit of Telugu medium students. E-Swecha is a free software project initiated by the Swecha and is aimed at developing a free operating system, which is not built by a software firm.. neither is it built by a few programmers.. it is a collaborative work of hundreds of Swecha Volunteers/engineering students in and around Hyderabad to, for and by the engineering students.

Activism

* Swecha organised a free software workshop and delivered a talk on "The Age of Inequality", Mr.

Palagummi Sainath Palagummi Sainath (born 13 May 1957) is an Indian columnist and author of the acclaimed book '' Everybody Loves a Good Drought''. He has extensively written on rural India, his notable interests are poverty, structural inequities, caste discri ...

told the gathered engineering students and researchers that half of the country's children suffered from

malnourishment Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...

and at the same time, the situation was getting worse for farmers and suicides among them were high, Despite a high growth rate, malnourishment of children in the country remained at 46 per cent which was behind countries of Sub-Saharan Africa where these figures stood between 32 per cent to 35 percent * Swecha widespread protests taking place across the country after the arrest of two girls over a Facebook comment, have now reached Hyderabad. On Sunday, a group, consisting mostly of IT professionals, students and academicians, protested at Indira Park against the controversial Section 66 (A) of Information Technology Act * The Swecha was in the forefront of the protests against the inclusion of

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

in the representation to

All India Council for Technical Education The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is a statutory body, and a national-level council for technical education, under the Department of Higher Education (India), Department of Higher Education. Established in November 1945 firs ...

(AICTE) against the deal with Microsoft. * Swecha organised a seminar on "Employment opportunities in changing technology landscape", on 23 September at Mahima Gardens, Member of German Hacker Association

Chaos Computer Club The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of Hacker (computer security), hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an ''eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters ...

, Andy Müller-Maguhn, director of Social and Economic Justice at Thoughtworks, Matt Simons and secretary of Free Software Movement of India Y.Kiran Chandra addressed the students and later joined the Free Software Movement started by

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

. * The seminar was organised by Swecha, on the free software development model, Mr Neville Roy Singham explained that spying or surveillance can be easily done through hardware as well as software, and that no electronic device can be safe from it. The NSA is doing it because it is simply very cheap for them, and that they are taking in literally every piece of information they can get. More than 3,000 students, mainly from the engineering stream attended the seminar, which continued till late evening, as many other speakers like Renata Avila, a human rights lawyer and internet freedom activist from Guatemala, Dmytri Kleiner, Telemiscommunications specialist, and Zack Exley, ex-Chief Revenue Officer, Wikimedia foundation also conducted seminars and interacted with students. * Internet surveillance and digital snooping on the people is the biggest threat to democracy said by the

Internet surveillance and spying is dangerous and threatens the functioning of democracy, Dr. Stallman told students at a seminar on "Free Software and Internet Freedom", organised by Swecha on the Acharya Nagarjuna University campus. * Swecha has demanded that the Central and State governments bring in policy changes on

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

to give fillip to hardware manufacturing, setting up of data centres and software design centres. Mr. Y. Kiranchandra Chairman of Swecha quoted data from the mobile telephony market to augment his demand. "The annual market for mobile telephones in the country is about Rs. 16,000 crore, yet India is yet to have its own mobile manufacturing unit. The mobile handsets designed in China, South Korea and Finland are simply being relabelled and sold in the country".

References

External links