Hi, The minutes from Mayank included a brief outline of my presentation, and the ensuing discussion, of the possibility of starting an active student mentorship program in collaboration with the NRCF and others. The slides of my presentation are available at http://oriya.sarovar.org/download/ilugd_gora_2005.pdf (Nishikant, could you upload it to the linux-delhi.org?). As I had volunteered to do this, I invite people who are willing to act as mentors to send an email to this list describing what FOSS area they are willing to mentor students in, the number of hours/ week that they are willing to volunteer, and any other thoughts they have in this area. Besides mentoring students, the initial work for such a program would also involve things like going around to local colleges, and talking to teachers in order to get them to accept such FOSS projects. We also need to discuss the structure of such a program. To set the ball rolling, here is an outline of what we need to decide upon: (a) Partners in the program: This will include ILUG-D, Sarai, the NRCF, and local colleges. Should we also try to involve similar projects by companies like Redhat, Novell, etc.? How about mentoring students in remote areas via an online forum? (b) Problems likely to crop up at the end of colleges: How are students assigned credit, how are examiners familiarized with the FOSS development process, what resources can students expect to draw upon and what extra work will they be expected to do on their own. (c) Mentor expectations: Should they be paid? If so, would that be a nominal sum, or market rates? If unpaid, how are mentors held to their commitments? Should there be provision for a phase-in period within which either side could decide to drop the collaboration for whatever reason? Also, if you are mentoring, please mention particular areas of expertise even if you are willing to mentor any FOSS project. Also, as it would be desirable to come up with a short list of possible projects, any ideas you have in this regard would be useful. Please keep in mind that the project, or at least a significant module, should be doable in the typical 6--9 month timeframe for student projects.
I will be glad to collate all repsonses, and ultimately write a proposal to the NRCF, or whoever, if that be the consensus on the way to proceed. For my part, I am volunteering to devote 10 hours/week (more if it can be paid work), to mentor any FOSS project related to Indian language computing. I have already prepared a short list of projects I had in mind at http://indlinux.org/wiki/index.php/SaraiFLOSSTasks, but, of course, student projects need not be limited to these. Regards, Gora Send instant messages to your online friends http://in.messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
