Scientific Foresight 2006 - Day 1

Hi All,

While a majority of world population is busy celebrating Christmas,a lot of young technology enthusiast had a chance to witness one of the most valuable scientific event of the year at Patna. Here is the highlights of Day 1 of Scientific Foresight 2006:

- We had more than 700 participants on Day 1 of the Event.
- The event was Inaugurated by Dr Anil Kumar S & T minister, Govt of Bihar.
- Function started Right on scheduled Time at 10.00AM
- Good contribution on presentation.
- The participants were enthusiastic about the event and this was evident from the presentations and the response it got from the audience.
- Total Submission exceeded 200 out of which 40 best presentations were selected for the event. Quite a few of them made it today and rest will be presented tomorrow.

There were a number of really outstanding presentations made by the eminent guests and the participants today and equally relevant presentations are slated to be presented tomorrow.

We would publish the details about these presentations as soon as we receive them from the 'The scientific fortnight' team.

We would like to congratulate all the people associated with this wonderful initiative and wish them all the best for tomorrow.

Have a good and safe holiday season.

Open Source - What is in it for Developers?

In previous post we discussed What is Available in terms of tools and technologies which is open source. Also we discussed Where the World is Heading in terms of Open Source.

But then the question comes is what does it provide to the developer community? What is in store for developers?

1. An Opportunity to Harness their Skills. This gives a chance for a developer to utilize the skill they learnt in past. This is one of the best way to keep updated with the skill set we are not using full-time.

2. An Opportunity to be part of World Class Product / Software Team. Being an Open Source developer one an submit changes / bug fixes to an already established software like My SQL, Eclipse etc. After few successful commits (submission) they do get chance to work as part of the team, which is very difficult otherwise.

3. An Opportunity to Learn new Skills. Most of the developers take up Open Source projects as a way to learn new tools, technologies etc. This way they get chance to do some live project in the new skill-set rather than doing some dummy project.

4. An Opportunity to Do Something for the World rather than for living. Most of the Open Source developers do it outside their working hours. They don't get paid for this work and they do it just because they want to do it. Its something they do as a matter of their commitment and dedication towards the developer community not driven by the salary or any other thing.

In a nutshell, Working on Open source is a passion. We developers do it not for living but for our own satisfaction. It is purely driven by our zest to do something different.

Until Next Time.. :)

Open Source - What is Available?

At times I have to face this question as What is available in Open Source World. People who dont know much about Open source ask what kind of Softwares I can find there? Initially when it all started there were not many softwares available as Open Source but today we have whole bunch of softwares available as open source.


Operating System:
Linux : Does not need any introduction.
JNode : A Java based Operating system. This is a work in progress and once completed will run the JVM upon boot. More information can be found at http://www.jnode.org/

Office Suite:
Star Office: One of the best alternative to Clumsy MS-Office. More information can be found at http://www.staroffice.org/

Dev Tools:
Eclipse : One of the Best Java IDE available today. Check it out at http://www.eclipse.org/

Free Pascal: The Pascal Compiler for Cross-Platform development. Visit http://freepascal.org/

Lazarus: The Open Source Delphi IDE Check it out at http://www.lazarus.org/

(R)DBMS:
MySQL : One of the best RDBMS available today. Check it out at http://www.mysql.com/

Application Server:
JBoss and TomCat are two most famous Application Servers in Developer Community.

Utilities:
DVDShrink is one of the utility to copy DVDs. Check it out at http://www.dvdshrink.com/

This is not the comprehensive list of Softwares available in this world. The list is very long and there are couple of sites which has lots of Open Source projects for one to look at and start participating. One such site is SourceForge.net.

Have a good time in the World of Open Source :) There is more for you to take from here than you can carry.

Until Next Time..:)

Scientific Foresight 2006

A group of people representing Academia and Industry in India and USA, have come together to organize a symposium called “Scientific Foresight 2006” on 23rd and 24th of December 2006 at “Indira Gandhi Science Complex – Planetarium” in Patna. More information can be found at www.scientificforesight.org.

With support from One-Bihar group (A conglomerate of like minded individuals interested in development of Bihar), this is an effort to provide an impetus to the scientific research and development activities in the state and to bring in a focus towards academic excellence. This will also provide an awareness of career options available in India and abroad to the participating students. Electronics, Computer and Information technology are the major focus areas.

This event would present a platform to the scientific community of the state, particularly senior science and technology students to put forth their ideas and innovations, who can rightly be assessed and guided by a battery of qualified and established professionals. The event calls up on scientists, academicians, researchers, and students to participate in:

• Research Paper Presentations,
• Project Demonstrations,
• Poster Presentations,
• Panel Discussions.

This event will be a landmark event and the forum will play a vital role in development of electronics, computer and Information technology related activities, and awareness among students, academia and the government.

People from outside India will be participating in presentations and question-answer sessions through real time video conferencing. The entire proceedings will be available online through Internet web casting.

The event aims at sending out a clear message about Biharis being at par with the technology know-how and its applications. The idea is to show case the capital of qualified human resources Bihar has. This aims towards generating more awareness among the academic bodies and student communities about technology domains and opportunity areas. At the same time it will be a confidence-building step for industry and investors.

People from almost all engineering and major science colleges in Bihar and Jharkhand, having Electronics or Computer science in curriculum are participating in the event.

The event has support from Hindustan Himes as media associate. IEEE and NASSCOM are likely to be joining.

Support Needed:
We need more popular participations, and right people to come forward for presentations. Please suggest popular and influential profiles in business and technology domain to be invited for talks and discussions.

We need sponsors and representatives from industry. People working in various organizations can also come in their individual capacities. This will work in inspiring faculty members and students, and help them in getting right information and approach.

We need to make it more popular so that it reaches to the right people in industry and government corridors. This will also help in improving the image of our beloved state, Bihar.

Contact:
Please forward your valuable feedbacks to scientificforesight@gmail.com or pramraj@gmail.com.

Let us join hands and make it a great success.

Open Source - Where the World is Heading?

Last week I discussed about the Why we need Open Source touching various aspects of Open-Source softwares. This week we will discuss where the world is heading to in terms of Open Source.

Recently there've been many activities in the IT Industry especially companies working on Open-Source softwares.

1. More and more Companies are moving to Open Source Softwares. There is a saying in IT Industry "Check for Open Source, Before you Build it". These days more and more companies are following this principle. They look for open source software which meets their requirement before they decide to build it.

2. Expanding Domains: Earlier Open Source were limited to utilities, components etc. But these days almost any kind of software is available as open source. At times the number of softwares are so many that one got to choose which one to go for and which one meets the requirement most. Isn't that a good thing to be :)

3. Increased Reliability: The open source softwares are more reliable these days than the Properitory softwares. The big example is more and more companies adopting MySQL database over Oracle, MS SQL Server etc. The usage of open source is not a scare anymore.

4. Adopted by big Corps: Eclipse project is adopted by IBM and they use the eclipse for their flagship product WebSphere Application Developer Studio. Eclipse project which is an open source project is funded by IBM is one of the best and most liked Java IDE today.

5. Becoming Popular Choice: It was couple of weeks back at our workplace we were discussing about a codec to stream media files over internet and we came across an Open Source software which is much more powerful than any other licensed software we evaluated. Also for all the real-time and mission critical applications we are using Unix and MySQL database in our global server network. We are not the only one. There are many companies around the globe who are looking at Open Source as their option when it comes to choosing a software.

Next week we will discuss about what is available in this open source world. Though the list is very long, I will put my best effort to give a snapshot of what is available.

Until Next Time...:)

Hindustan Times coverage of One Bihar initiative

HT coverage in its Patna city 'Short Takes' section, dtd. 28th Oct'06


 

Open Source - Why Open Source?

Last week I touched upon the Introduction of Open Source. We discussed what Open Source Software is all about. This week in continuation to the same we will talk about why do we need open source.

Personally when I am working on a Software Project the Time is the most critical factor there. The time

• To Delivery
• To implement a new Change Request
• To Test

and many other factors which affect project schedule. While doing that we as a project team have to choose between whether to go for a properitory solution or an equivalent open source solution. While Properitory solution works in few cases well, Open source takes precedence most of the time. There are various reasons we choose open source as our way to go:

1. Choice of Vendors: Today there are many development teams develop similar kind of utilities, component, softwares etc. So when we find that one software or component is not meeting our requirement we always have an option to try out other one.

2. No Hidden Agenda or Features: Rarely I came across an open source software which has some sort of hidden agendas or features. Privacy is the bigger concern in the development and user community these days. The open source softwares have nothing to hide and one can easily find if there are any hidden code in the system. Normally there are none and if they are, they are well documented.

3. Access to Source Code: Every developer has a wish to see the source code which performs a complex operation or excutes in an efficient way. In open source we are supplied with the source code. So one has complete access to the source code and can always

4. Free to Customize: More often than not we come across a software component which meets 90% of our requirement but requires some sort of customization. Since the source code is supplied with an Open source software, we can easily customize it as per our needs. The only thing we need to keep in mind not to forget giving credit to the original author. The GPL (GNU Public License) asks us to give the original author the credit for the work they've done. See its so easy :)

5. Fast Turnaround time: If the software component is having some bug then one can file the bug report in their bug tracking system. Most of the time the patch is made available within a week or so. As many people work in a team and they are so passionate about their work (Open Source) that they take the bugs logged as top priority and make the fix available overnight (at times). I bet one can't expect a fast response time like that from a properitory software vendor.

There are quite a few reasons why we go for open source softare. In next Blog we will discuss where the world is heading in relation to Open Source.

Until next Time..:)

Open Source - An Introduction

I am sure many of the experience IT professionals are familiar with what the Open source but there is still a majority of Computer Enthusiasts who are not very familiar with the Open Source Concept/philosophy. In this series of Blog on Open Source I will be giving a brief overview of what the Open Source Philosophy and Software is All about.

In this blog, I'm going to write about what the Open Source is which will be followed by few more blogs on Open Source and later will take to the world of Open Source:

Open Source is:

• Source Code available with Working Software. So we not only get the executable but also the Code so that if required we can build our own executables.
  
• Available at No Cost to the user. This does not cost a penny to the user. All binaries and code are available for free.
  
• One can Modify the code as per their requirement and nobody raises a finger on it. But it is reccomended that if you modify the original source code, give some credits to the original author as a gesture of courtsey.
  
• No Licensing Agreement Required. GNU Public license which talks about giving credit to the original author and is very simple to follow. No complex legal issues involved.
  
• User can be part of Development team too. If you can come out with new ideas, fix the existing bugs, that's all it takes to rub shoulders with the developers who created the software originally.

We will discuss more on open source in coming blogs.

Until Next Time...:)

One Bihar Shines

The festival session in Bihar saw an initiative of a new kind when a few Biharis from across the world converged in Patna to demonstrate the power of knowledge and collaboration in a flat world.

For the first time, students from Patna saw a team of committed and experienced professionals from world's well known organizations and having collective expertise in diverse areas ranging from management to technology coming on a single platform under the One Bihar Initiative. "A New Awakening" was palpable as the sons of the soils came together for sharing their experience of corporate worlds and giving a realistic picture of various career options like IT, Management, Media.

The event was organized in B N College Seminar hall and it was kick started with the inaugural speech of Dr Sukhda Prasad, Principal Magadh Mahila College, who shared her thoughts on the untapped talent pool which Bihar has. She stressed the fact that despite the best of Human Resource talent available in the state, Bihar has not been able to develop up to its true potential. She was enthused by the kind of commitment which the One Bihar team has shown in giving back in terms of helping the students to achieve the potential in the best possible way. Dr. Ramesh Prasad, Principal BN College, also graced the occasion. The One Bihar team acknowledged and thanked him for his kind support.

The first presentation of the seminar was on Careers from Human resource perspective by Ajit Chouhan from Infosys HRD team. He shared some facts and analysis on how our talent pool has not been able to keep pace with the growing demand of IT and ITES professional. He stressed the fact that only 25 % of the total engineering graduates in India are employable. The talent crunch is likely to be serious bottleneck in the growth of Indian economy and the ITES services in the country. And here students from Bihar can tap the opportunity.

The next presentation was on various options available for Management students and this was jointly conducted by Atul Kumar, an IIM Ahmadabad Alumnus, Mayank Krishna, an alumnus of IMT, Ghaziabad, and Rajiv Vidyarthi, an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. The interaction was focused on the different aspects of Management education, the types of institutes, on factors which one must weigh before opting for management as a career. A realistic perspective with focus on practical aspects of management education was discussed in detail. They also spoke about the different streams of management such as finance, marketing and Information systems with inputs on real life job scenarios and practical applications. The team shared its learning as professional working in different organizations and exhorted students to focus on their strengths and work around their weaknesses in their endeavour to strive for excellence.

Samir Mishra, an IT consultant based in Australia, spoke on the various options of Higher Studies which were available for students who intended to go abroad. He spoke about the various processes and steps involved for getting into the top institutions outside India. Samir shared his experience of getting the requisite clearance and his academic experience in Australia. He also spoke about the new trends like open source and usage of IT in acquiring the right information for seeking career opportunities aboard.


A presentation on career opportunities Media was presented by Frank Krishner. The presentation was contributed by Sweta Singh, Program Coordinator with Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication. The talk was focused around the opportunities which media and mass communication provides to the students. Students were informed about the different course and institutes which are offering these vocational courses. Frank used his journalistic experience to demonstrated the realistic aspect of a career in journalism.

Chandan Singh from the One Bihar team and a key proponent of the Patna rice project shared the experience of the group which worked as a virtual team from all over the world .Chandan with other members shared the experience of working as 24*7 team for this event organized under the One Bihar platform. Rahul Barnwal of Seimen's Power, anchored the event with great aplomb. The event was also addressed by Dr. P C Verma, an economist and professor of Patna University. He gave his thumbs up to the new initiative where people of Bihar were coming back to help their fellow Biharis in achieving career objectives. He also stressed on the need for sharing their corporate experience with institutions in Bihar to create more market and industry friendly academic atmosphere in Bihar.

After the program, the charged up students interacted individually with members of the One Bihar team and discussed their individual queries, doubts, and any other thing that was on their mind related to career. The One Bihar team also committed to students that they could seek their help anytime in future through e-mail ( one.bihar@gmail.com) and they would be glad to help students with their career related queries.

One Bihar:A New Awakening

Bihar – our motherland – has gone through a very difficult phase in last few decades/centuries. We have moved from the glorious days of being at the heart of the ancient Indian Civilization, Education & Economy to periphery significance. While Biharis have done exceedingly well in traditional careers like Civil Services (IAS/IFS/IPS), Banking, Medical & Engineering, and recently Management related careers, Bihar hasn’t seen many opportunities within Bihar in non-Govt. careers. As a result, in the last 30-40 years, we have seen Biharis migrate across Globe and within India for education, career and other reasons.

We might be spread across world or remote corners of world but our hearts still lie in our motherland. Wherever we are, we miss the warmth of our Bihari culture and regret the untapped potential of Bihar’s Talent Pool and resulting under-development of our motherland. We do pay occasional visits to meet our families, for festivals, social occasions etc. but feel that we can and should do more. No matter how well we do in our personal careers & life, we will never feel proud unless and until Bihar – our “extended family” – does well.

Bihar has to change for the better and needs some payback from it sons & daughters. To create awareness towards this purpose, there are various online groups, which are active in different areas. Some of the online groups on yahoo are Bihari, Coolbihari, Biharbrains, WorldBihariForum, NonResidentBiharis, BiharisInMedia, Golghar and many more on Orkut.

Between Diwali & Chath many of the non-resident Biharis will converge in Bihar from across India and world. They have planned an informal career seminar in Patna with help from all online & offline groups. Primary agenda is to provide an opportunity for students of +2 and higher level to get some insights from people who are already in Industry and to provide an opportunity to ask career questions in an informal and friendly setting. Depending on response to this initiative, we can make it a half-yearly or yearly event on a grand scale. We also plan to come up with an online discussion forum so that students have access to experts from across the Globe on a real time basis.

Venue: B N College, Patna Date: 25-October-2006

Agenda


10:00 - 10:15 Introduction and What the whole event is all about
10:15 - 10:45 New Career Paths from HR Perspective
10:45 - 11:30 Career Paths in Management / CAT-XLRI-ISB and beyond
11:30 - 12:00 Higher Studies options abroad
12:00 - 12:30 Careers in Media and Mass Communication
12:30 - 13:00 Open Source Software Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
13:00 - 13:10 Introduction to the Career Brochure prepared by Bihari Group
13:10 - 13:15 Closing Note
13:15 - 14:00 One to One Interaction with Students
14:00 Wind – up


Look forward to an invigorating day with you!

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Profile of the One Bihar Team

Ajit Chouhan: Ajit is working as Business Partner-HR with Infosys Technologies Limited in Mysore. Ajit has a Post Graduate Certificate in Human Resource Management from XLRI and also has a Master’s degree in PMIR from Patna University. He is one of the founder members of the core group of Patna Rice Project. Ajit's expertise lies in Performance Management, Career Development, Talent Retention, and Human Resource Information Systems. Ajit is owner of the Cool Bihari group and also Cool Bihari blog ,the first blog dedicated to Bihar. Ajit is a member of Patna University PMIR Alumni Group, and XLRI Alumni Network. He is the owner of an International HR group, HR Funda, having over 800 members from HR Fraternity. He also writes an HR focused blog, HR Funda .He hosts “The Job Shop” that is dedicated to listing of HR opening in India. Ajit is also involved with Local Bihar level NGO’s which are actively working with destitute children’s and slum dwellers.

Atul Kumar: Atul is AVP at Genpact located in Danbury, CT. Atul did his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Prior to his current role, Atul served in various roles with GE Commercial Finance, and GE Capital International Services. He has significant work experience in Europe. He is one of the founder members of the core group of Patna Rice Project. Atul is a member of World Affairs Forum, IIMUSA and IIMA and various Bihari groups including AN College Patna Alumni group. He is also associated with Bihar and Patna focused developmental/education projects. Atul also blogs at www.atultech.blogspot.com

Chandan : Chandan is working for Tiger conservation project with WWF and Greenpower Canada. He is presently based in Patna.

Mayank Krishna: Mayank is Sales Manager at Pidilite Industries Limited. He did MBA from IMT Ghaziabad. He is one of the founder members of the core group of Patna Rice Project. He was awarded CRISIL Young Thought Leader award in 2003. Mayank is a prolific writer and has some published articles in publications like The Economic Times, Times of India, Indiainfoline, etc. He also writes a business management blog, Logical String, at http://www.mayankkrishna.blogspot.com/. He is an active member of the Cool Bihari group.

Rahul Kumar Barnwal: Rahul is Manager at Siemens Power Engineering Limited in Gurgaon. Prior to his current role, Rahul served as Executive Engineer at Larsen & Tourbo Limited in Baroda. Rahul has a B Tech from NIT, Surat and his core expertise includes Power Plant Engineering co-ordination & management. Rahul is one of the founder members of the core group of Patna Rice Project.

Rajiv Vidyarthi: Rajiv is a senior consultant with Capgemini Consulting India Pvt Ltd. Rajiv completed his B Tech from IIT Delhi and MBA from IIM Lucknow. Rajiv's expertise includes business analysis, proposal preparation, project bidding, market research and new product development. Rajiv is a moderator and core group member of the largest Bihar based groups "Bihari".

Saroj Kumar: Saroj is Senior Consultant at Satyam Computers located in Fremont, CA. Saroj attended Regional Engineering College, Trichy where he studied Production Engineering and earned a Bachelors degree. Saroj is moderator of the Bihari group. Web:http://bihariworld.blogspot.com/

Samir Misra: Samir is with IBS SafeWorld and based out of Australia. Samir has over 10 years of experience in IT and Technology solution in reputed organizations like Cognizant Technology Solutions, PSI Data Systems Limited, iGate Global Solutions, etc. Samir is a member of various groups like IT Pro Australia, Bihari, Bihar Brains, Patna Rice.org and Cool Bihari group. Samir is a Master’s in Computer Science from IGNOU. He blogs at www.semanticdb.blogspot.com.

Sweta Singh: Sweta is Program Coordinator with Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication New Delhi. She is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. She has worked as reporter with Doordarshan News and Aaj Tak in New Delhi. She is also the moderator of a couple of online groups, the most active being the “biharis in media” group on Yahoo.

Thakur Vikas Sinha: Thakur Vikas is a Sr. VP at Polaris Software based out of Mumbai. He in an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur and B Tech from IT BHU. Prior to his current profile, he has served in senior level position in reputed IT companies like Mphasis, and CMC Ltd. He is one of the founder members of the core group of Patna Rice Project and currently its chairman. He is a member of Bihari Org. He is a prolific writer on Bihar related issues and his articles are regularly published on the Patna Daily (http://www.patnadaily.com/) and the Cool Bihari Blog (www.coolbihari.blogspot.com).

Hindustan on One Bihar

Times of India on One bihar

Career seminar pictures.

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

One Bihar.. a new awakening.

First career conference held at B N Collage, Patna on 25th Oct 2006