Hi all, As discussed in the December's meeting, PLUG is likely to participate in the CMDA IT Expo Exhibition to be held in Pune from 15th - 18th December at COEP ground. Check www.cmdapune.com for more info. PLUG has been participating in this event for the last 8-9 years.
We usually have a small stall (in yesteryear’s we used to get the stall at gratis , now at discounted rate). This space is used to promote GNU/Linux and FOSS in general among a large audience coming from diverse backgrounds - from students, vendors, shoppers, professionals, non-techies, visitors curios about expo ... ). Usual activities have been * Awareness about PLUG and its activities. * Talks at CMDA expo (we usually get couple of talk slots for FOSS). * Demos of FOSS technologies. * Providing CD/DVD/Iso images of popular distributions. * Signing up people interested in Linux awareness program & any other training workshops planned. See here for more http://www.plug.org.in/training-and-courses/. * Raising funds for PLUG as society through membership and merchandise. PLUG is a registered not-for-profit society - please see http://www.plug.org.in/about/ We need volunteers to help with the stall in different capacities 1) Interacting with expo visitors on above activities (or frankly to say manning the stall ;-) for 4 days of expo from around 10 am to 8 pm. One need not be present for 4 days or even all day, but as much time one could spare (3-4 hours is also good enough). If anyone is interested please respond on which day/time you would be interested to volunteer, so that time slots could be planned in advance. If response is poor, possibly might drop participating in the expo, so need to know interest as early as possible. 2) Promoting FOSS: If you are active contributor/advocate for some FOSS stuff, and would like to promote, share experience, talk about it or give demos etc. you are welcome to participate. 3) Providing CD/DVDs of GNU/Linux distributions & other FOSS software (as per their re-distribution policy). PLUG usually takes booking of DVDs on make copies on demand. Since some distros like Debian, Fedora, Knoppix, Ubuntu are in popular demand, we burn some stock before hand to cater to demand spike. Would need help in burning CD/DVDs. 4) Create promotion material: banner, posters / leaflets : expressing your creativity using FOSS tools :) 5) Domain experts / trainers for LAP or any other training workshops that could be organized around FOSS technologies. Post expo there usually have been few LAP sessions on demand (typically 100-150 ppl in total attending each year). If some FOSS training workshops are possible then could plan and announce during expo. Workshops are paid for, to account for the logistics & time of trainers. Any suggestions/comments/questions/criticism welcome on above activities or wrt participation in expo. Hoping for good response, Karunakar _______________________________________ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List
