Education

The first Women Hackathon for the new academic year was conducted at College Of Engineering , Munnar on 19,20 and 21 of August,2016. The partcipants were around 16, second and final year girl students, from the college spanning different departments like Computer Science , Electronics and Communication and Electrical Engineering.

The workshop started on 19 th with an introductory session on free software. The idea of freedom in software as a form of knowledge was discussed in an interactive manner. The students were familiarized with the various freedoms users get to enjoy with a free software and the concept of copyleft.An initial skeptical audience soon found it comfortable with the software freedom as a way of sharing and multiplying the knowledge. After a break for lunch, a game was conducted to challenge students in building opinion on an idea independently, expressing the opinion and changing them if needed. A session on GNU/Linux followed, with a step-by- step procedure to install a Linux based operating system (Debian).

The Deshabhimani newspaper of July 3 rd 2016 carried an article on empowering Adivasi youth to document their own language, history and culture and share them with the world by building a website, which is to be launched next month. This is part of a project funded by SBI Life at MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), where Adivasi youth in the 18-35 age group are trained in web designing by SPACE.

A news article in the Matrubhumi newspaper of July 4 th 2016 discussed the proposed expansion of SPACE’s Insight project, which is now confined to Thiruvananthapuram district, to the rest of Kerala. Insight, presently supported by the Department of Social Justice, has crossed many hurdles and uncertainties to reach its sixth year of functioning.

As part of the Adivasi Youth Skill Development Program, ICT training was given to about 40 Adivasi youth in the age group of 15-25 years, from June 2015 onwards. The more backward Paniya community among the Adivasis were mostly included in the program.

With the support of Centre for Disability Studies (CeDS), SPACE is involved in the localisation of educational tools for differently abled children for the Insight project. As part of this, GCompris, a set of educational tools has been translated from English to Malayalam and its content localised and made more relevant – for example, by changing the names of some animals, food items, currency (dollars to rupees) etc.