A bunch of free software enthusiasts have banded together to host a Software Freedom Day event for South Africa on the Wits campus.
Software Freedom Day is a celebration of free software, held worldwide on 15 September.
The local event will host 18 speakers, each delivering 15 minute talks in an “un-conference” format on a variety of topics, ranging from 3D printing and aquaponics, to the web and programming languages.
It is scheduled to start at 09:30 with a keynote by Adrian Tiplady, the site bid manager of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project at SKA South Africa.
According to the SFD organising committee, the mission for the day is to help build the local free software communities, outreach, and to show what great things can be achieved with open source software.
In the spirit of free software, anyone who is interested in giving a “lightning talk” may also sign up on the day, the committee said.
User groups from the Jozi Linux User Group, House4Hack, the Drupal User Group – and local commercial open source companies such as Jumping Bean, Kenga Solutions and Suse – will also be exhibiting on the day.
The event will be hosted by the Wits School of Electrical & Information Engineering at the Chamber of Mines Building.
Space is limited, the organisers said, and anyone interested should sign up for the day on the event website.
The table below shows the speakers and topics confirmed for the day:
| 09:30 | 09:35 | “Welcome from Wits” by Prof Ken Nixon |
| 09:35 | 10:15 | Key Note + Questions: SKA |
| 10:15 | 10:30 | Alfresco and Liferay |
| 10:30 | 10:45 | Using Ubuntu Linux in embedded applications with & without a GUI |
| 10:45 | 11:00 | Smart cities |
| 11:00 | 11:15 | Exploring open data using R |
| 11:15 | 11:30 | 3D Printing from your Android |
| 11:30 | 11:45 | Connecting to the Wug in 10 minute |
| 11:45 | 12:00 | Open gov data |
| 12:00 | 12:15 | Hardware for brewing – monitoring and control |
| 12:15 | 12:30 | Bonding ADSL lines with open source software |
| 12:30 | 13:15 | Lunch |
| 13:15 | 13:30 | Open source in space |
| 13:30 | 13:45 | Responsive web design |
| 13:45 | 14:00 | Desktop Aquaponics : open hardware to turn fish food into vegetables |
| 14:00 | 14:15 | The semantic web |
| 14:15 | 14:30 | e-Breadboard : open source decision intelligence |
| 14:30 | 14:45 | Chisimba: opportunities for SA developers |
| 14:45 | 15:00 | IPV6 tunnels |
| 15:00 | 15:15 | An open source approach to running a small businesses |
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