Prajña : Cognizant FLOSS Corps
I have started a new group (so far unofficial) in Cognizant which
endeavours to help in the upliftment of the rural & urban poor of
India by giving them a digital edge achieved by implementing &
teaching FLOSS based solutions in academic institutions & self help
communities.

We are Prajña : Cognizant FLOSS Corps.

Prajña, in Sanskrit, stands for wisdom, intelligence which we try to
impart & also comes closest to the translation of Cognizant. I plan to
use swan as a mascot. Swan is closest to Hamsa, Saraswati's vahan &
represents wisdom & knowledge too :)

It is still in its infancy (only two days old) and not much has been
setup, except for securing the help of some people who have promised
help in their personal capacities. I am putting a mind map here on my
plans for this group & solicit your feedback & suggestions.

The idea for starting such a group got seeded in my mind while I was
researching for the previous post of mine called " Satyagrah for
Swatantra Software in India". The blog has also been posted in
Cognizant's internal blogs (ch1blogs, short for Channel One Blogs)
where I maintain a blog called FLOSS Bites. I was very much impressed
& driven by the recent efforts of ilug-cal to implement LTSP in rural
schools & teaching the MLAs (I have mentioned it in my post too).

My idea got watered further during my various discussions on these
internal blogs wrt Charity in Hinduism & Cognizant's Corporate Social
Responsibility.
My driving force to start this group is my belief that the greatest
charity we can do in this day & age is to give somebody a job or teach
a job, so that they are self sufficient as well as strive to provide
employment to others too. And this self sufficiency is what will
provide actual freedom to all our poor. No wonder then that I choose
only Swatantra software (FLOSS).

Also, I will not consider using proprietary solutions even if given
away for free. This might seem extremist but that's my belief.
Teaching people proprietary solutions for free is a sure fire way to
get the people hooked onto a solution which they will not be able to
afford once they get addicted. This is pretty much like getting people
addicted to drugs for free & then making them pay heavily.

And finally, seeking all your blessings & well wishes too.
http://scorpfromhell.blogspot.com/2007/08/praja-cognizant-floss-corps.html
--
Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
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