Dear Friends,<br>
    <br>
    National Convention for Academics and Research (NCAR) 2010 will be
    held from 16th to 18th December 2010 at Hyderabad. The event is
    being organized by Free Software Movement of India and hosted by
    Swecha. FSMI is organizing the first convention to spread awareness
    of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS/FLOSS) and its usage in
    Academia/Research communities. The theme for this convention will be
    &quot;<i>Computing Freedom in Education, Research and Technology</i>&quot; The
    convention provides a platform for sharing of experiences and views,
    to foster a collaborative approach to education and for improving
    educational aids including software tools. The convention will see
    participation of researchers and academicians from colleges and
    universities across the country including IITs, IISc, IIIT.<br>
    <br>
    The FOSS paradigm provides an opportunity to evolve a serious
    research community with global cooperation. This would also enable
    in bridging the gap between research-industry and societal demands.
    An integration for research between academia and industry is not up
    to the mark as it is in the case of developed nations. This
    convention shall provide space for faculty and students of
    Engineering Colleges to learn, interact, and network with their peer
    groups, leading to a development of a FOSS ecosystem.<br>
    <br>
    The convention will focus on a wide range of topics through
    dedicated track sessions on academic and research areas like
    scientific computing and visualization, to Indian Language
    technologies and application specific domains of Mobile, GIS and the
    like. In addition, it will also host demonstrations, exhibitions,
    and tutorial sessions for providing hands-on training on Free
    Software tools in research and education.<br>
    <br>
    Swecha and other member organizations of FSMI will be organizing a
    wide variety of run up events across India in promotion of Free
    Software and NCAR 2010. There will be workshops, seminars,
    &#39;train-the-trainer&#39; sessions. Apart from academicians and
    researchers, some of these events will be extended to other sections
    like students, Lab admins, developers, physically challenged users,
    print and electronic media etc.<br>
    <br>
    Swecha has also planned to hold a one-day workshop for women
    researchers and academicians on &quot;Women in Research - The FOSS
    paradigm&quot; to bring together like-minded women researchers and
    academicians to build an ecosystem where one can learn from each
    others&#39; experiences and works done.<br>
    <br>
    Visit <font color="#000099"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ncar2010.fsmi.in/">http://ncar2010.fsmi.in</a></font>
    for Online registration and more details.<br>
    <br>
    Regards,<br>
    Sarath M S.<br>
    <i><span class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.swecha.org/">www.swecha.org</a></span><br>
      <a href="http://ncar2010.fsmi.in">ncar2010.fsmi.in</a></i>