Hi all,

I just joined the group. So let me introduce myself first :)

I am A. Prem Kumar, asst. mgr. with Cognizant at Bangalore. Been in Cognizant for the past 7 years now. I have been involved with FLOSS since 1998, when I did my first Linux installation :) I maintain a blog on FLOSS in Cognizant's internal blog to spread its awareness & have been successful in getting many people interested in it. Some of my posts there have been sanitised & put in my external blog. [1]

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. [2]

Prajna, as you all might know, 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 sending across a mind map 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 a blog post of mine called "Satyagrah for Swatantra Software in India"[3]. 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.

You can also join in the conversations I am having in Orkut with the youngsters from college. [4]

I would like to ask for whatever help you all can provide us, monetary or with knowledge or with contacts or in any other way you think it will be helpful for us. And finally, seeking all your blessings & well wishes too.

-- [1] http://scorpfromhell.blogspot.com/ [2] http://scorpfromhell.blogspot.com/2007/08/praja-cognizant-floss-corps.html [3] http://scorpfromhell.blogspot.com/2007/07/satyagrah-for-swatantra-software-i... [4] http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=55950&tid=2548591294461293376