Swecha is a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

formerly called as Free Software Foundation Andhra Pradesh (FSF-AP) later changed name to Swecha. It is a

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Operating System An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

released in the year 2005, and is a part of

Free Software Movement of India Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) is a national coalition of various regional and sectoral free software movements operating in different parts of India. The formation of FSMI was announced in the valedictory function of the National Free Sof ...

(FSMI). The organization is a social movement working towards educating the masses with the essence of

Free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

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 state of

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian subcontinent, Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India b ...

and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

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

International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

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 Boar ...

, St. Martin's Engineering College, Sridevi Women's Engineering College,

Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology (MGIT) is a technological institution (Autonomous) located in Gandipet, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was started in 1997 by the Chaitanya Bharathi Educational Society (CBES), Hyderabad, registered und ...

, SCIENT Institute of Technology,

CMR Institute of Technology, Hyderabad The C.M.R. Institute of Technology is an undergraduate and postgraduate engineering college in Hyderabad, India. It was established in 2005 and is affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad. CMR Institute of Technolog ...

, 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 philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...

implications to all corners of our country 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 endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

s and

research Research is "creativity, 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 att ...

. * 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 digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...

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 researchers 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 a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

(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 current and a ...

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, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

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 util ...

Andhra University College of Engineering Andhra University College of Engineering, also known as AU College of Engineering, is an autonomous college and extension campus of the Andhra University located at Visakhapatnam, India. It is the first Indian institution to have a Department of ...

, 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 or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

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

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is 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 India ...

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

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 and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

Gachibowli Gachibowli is a suburb of Hyderabad, Telangana, India, located in the Serilingampally mandal of the Rangareddy district. It is situated about 5 km away from HITEC City, another IT hub. Gachibowli is home to numerous tech companies and resi ...

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 ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

Operating System in

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 living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

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 an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its 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 which r ...

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

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 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (), or SSA, is an Indian Government programme aimed at the universalisation of Elementary education "in a time bound manner", the 86th Amendment to the Constitution of India making free and compulsory education to children ...

" 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 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 discriminatio ...

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 Information Technology Act, 2000 (also known as ITA-2000, or the IT Act) is an Act of the Indian Parliament (No 21 of 2000) notified on 17 October 2000. It is the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce. Secon ...

* The Swecha was in the forefront of the protests against the inclusion of

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

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. Established in November 1945 first as an advisory body and later on in ...

(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 hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an ''eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters (called ''Erfa-Kreise'') in ...

Andy Müller-Maguhn Andy Müller-Maguhn (born 3 October 1971) is a member of the German hacker association Chaos Computer Club (CCC). Having been a member since 1986, he was appointed as a spokesman for the club in 1990, and later served on its board until 2012. He ...

, director of Social and Economic Justice at Thoughtworks,

Matt Simons Matt Simons (born February 20, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York City. Self-releasing his first EP ''Living Proof'' in 2012, he has since gone on to release two full-length albums globally, achieving chart succes ...

and secretary of

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 Neville Roy Singham (born May 13, 1954) is an American businessman and social activist. He is the founder and former chairman of ThoughtWorks, an IT consulting company that provides custom software, software tools, and consulting services. Earl ...

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 The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

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 Zack Exley (born December 5, 1969) is an American political and technology consultant. Early life and education Exley was raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. He studied abroad at Shanxi Normal University before earning his B.A. in Social Th ...

, 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 Acharya Nagarjuna University (IAST: ''Ācārya Nāgārjuna Vișvavidyālaya'') is a state university in Namburu, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, India. History The university was established as Nagarjuna University by Act 43 of 1976 of A.P. ...

campus. * Swecha has demanded that the Central and State governments bring in policy changes on

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

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