International conference on Science, Education and Learning in Freedom

organised by Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, on 2nd February 2007, in Mumbai, India.

After the advent of information and communication technology human society is drastically transforming into a very different world. Perhaps, no other human invention introduced such a transformation, except may be agriculture. However, not many among us are aware of another parallel revolutionary under-current that is shaping up as a novel cultural and political movement, tiding under the waves of the ICT revolution. This movement is growing at an unprecedented pace influencing the way how science, software and other kinds of symbolic forms are created, published and distributed. This culture is often called copyleft, identified with the Free Software Movement, because this movement took off by an innovative use of existing copyright law by Richard Stallman, who founded the movement by publishing software under a copyleft license. This license is essentially about giving four fundamental rights to the user of the software published under the copyleft license: to use it for any purpose, to understand how it works, to make modifications, and to distribute the modifications.

One of the major outcomes of this revolution is the GNU/Linux operating system (popularly known by its misnomer, Linux). This copyleft movement is currently transforming other fields of human creativity as well - science, poetry, music, cinema and other symbolic forms. Of these, the most popular success story is Wikipedia.org, the largest multilingual encyclopedia of the world. There are other, not yet fully fructified, movements such as the public library of science, open music, etc.

We are variously bombarded by most media, often exclusively, about the various aspects of ICT revolution, but very little awareness is commonly found about the copyleft movement. The main purpose of this conference therefore is to bridge this gap and generate awareness about this revolution, and also invite far greater participation from all sections of the community. The conference will inform about the copyleft movement in general, and its relation to science and education in particular. We have very eminent speakers from around the world including Richard Stallman, who will address the conference from the USA over a video conference. A snapshot of the gnowledge portal will be distributed in a DVD containing free software and free knowledge resources, including Wikipedia, to all participants.

Venue: Homi Bhabha Auditorium, TIFR, Mumbai
Day: 2nd February 2007
Time: 9am - 6pm

The conference will include four main tracks:

1. Inauguration and Launching of the community portal: Gnowledge.org
2. SELF: Science, Education and Learning in Freedom
3. Copyleft in Science, Software, Education and Culture
4. Open Standards
Hosts:
Shobo Bhattacharya, Director TIFR
Arvind Kumar, Centre Director, HBCSE
Gnowledge Laboratory, HBCSE

Invitees/Speakers (not all confirmed yet):

• Hinde ten Berge / Internet Society Netherlands
• Nagarjuna G / HBCSE, TIFR
• Georg Greve / President, Free Software Foundation Europe
• Arvind Gupta / IUCAA, Pune
• Venkatesh Hariharan / Redhat India
• Federico Heinz / Fundacion Via Libre, Argentina
• Mathais Klang / University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• C.N. Krishnan / NRC, FOSS
• Prof. Arvind Kumar / HBCSE, TIFR
• Sasi Kumar / FSF India
• Siva Kumar / Head, Computer Science, IIT Mumbai, OSSRC
• Lawrence Liang / Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
• Arun M / Secretary, FSF India
• David Megias / Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
• Chandita Mukherjee / Comet Media
• Jonas Oberg / Free Software Foundation Europe
• Dragoslava Pefeva / Internet Society, Bulgaria
• DB Phatak / KRESIT, IIT Mumbai
• S. Ramkrishnan / CDAC
• Richard M. Stallman / President, Free Software Foundation
• Wouter Tebbens / Internet Society Netherlands & SELF project coordinator

Conference is open for registration . Please register online before 23th January 2007. Conference registration fees will be Rs. 200/- which will be collected at registration desk on the day of conference.

More information and registration