[Prospects-community] Welcome to the Prospects Community!

Mon Jul 29 09:55:29 BST 2013

Hi all,

Aladdin, great to have you on board :-) and Ranjit - thanks for the 
introduction and for outlining what you'd like to be involved in, great 
to hear! Have you come across Pratham Books before? ( 
http://prathambooks.org/ ) - they've just started releasing some books 
under Creative Commons Licenses, which is an exciting new model. At OKF 
we don't have any formal links with them, but I'd encourage you to get 
in touch if you like their model; anything in the 'open' movement is 
great as far as we're concerned :-)

With regards to your students; for those with programming and coding 
skills, I'd recommend they check out our newly launched OKFN labs 
http://okfnlabs.org/ - which is where they can find and contribute to 
cool new open coding projects. But if you don't have these technical 
skills, that is absolutely no barrier at all to getting involved in the 
Open Knowledge Foundation community; many of our most active members and 
contributors aren't coders but communicators and organising; both are 
essential to the open movement having an effect on the world :-)

And with others - please check out the Working Groups, 
http://okfn.org/wg/ - they all have open discussion lists, and are 
always really happy to have new members of the groups.

A couple of concrete projects that people could get involved in; School 
of Data http://schoolofdata.org/ - either taking the courses yourselves, 
or organising for someone else to carry out a workshop for another 
audience, and Open Spending, where you can add your country/city's 
spending data to the database, very easily. Some groups around the world 
recently organised Spending Parties 
<http://blog.okfn.org/2013/07/26/city-spending-party-around-the-world/>- 
you can get an idea of projects that people around the world are working 
on from the OKF blog :-) <http://blog.okfn.org/>

Otherwise, check out the Welcome Pack and please don't hesitate to dive 
straight in, introduce yourself, and get involved!

Best,

Zara

On 27/07/2013 16:12, Ranjit Goswami wrote:
> Dear Zara, Aladdin, Eva, and rest you all (as I had difficulties in 
> getting your 1st name from your e-mail ids),
>
> I have been trying to find and follow each of you and your activities 
> through SM - like twitter (@RanjiGoswami 
> <https://twitter.com/RanjiGoswami>) & FB (ranjit.goswami.5 
> <https://www.facebook.com/ranjit.goswami.5>).
>
> I guess most of you to be much younger than me (I am 43), and I 
> probably do not come with meaningful technical skills that may be much 
> desired for OFKN. I am the Dean of an apparently top-ranking Indian 
> B-School (IMT Nagpur <http://www.imtnagpur.ac.in/>, and my profile 
> <http://www.imtnagpur.ac.in/Dr.%20Ranjit%20Goswami.html>), having 
> teaching/research interests on ICTs, Global economics, geopolitics, 
> operations management, etc. Prior to my academic job, I worked in 
> corporate world for 12 years, in leading Indian companies to global 
> ones, like as Management Consultant in Siemens (SBS), and subsequently 
> as Associate Director of eBay (India), etc.
>
> I would be really keen to get involved in various possible ways, as 
> suggested by the welcome kit. My prime objective is to use OFKN/other 
> supporting initiatives in creating content for underprivileged school 
> kids, and if possible, making a little difference in the end-to-end 
> supply chain of its delivery. Difficulties here is having content in 
> various vernacular languages in a nation like India. India has been 
> trying to have a low-end tablet (Akash 4), although many such market 
> initiatives are also on (since OLTP days).
>
> In my opinion, availability of content, even open and free content, in 
> English is no longer the challenge (though it remains a challenge in 
> many Indian vernacular languages, we have more than 20), challenge is 
> in delivery of right content at right time to school kids or to 
> marginal farmers - most of whom again come from underprivileged and 
> socio-economically backward sections of society - be from India to 
> Africa to other places.
>
> One resource I do have is students (PG level) - who, I believe, can 
> work meaningfully in small projects and make things happen. Many of 
> these students, as it is India, come up with good programming level 
> skills too. Therefore, I would be keen to know about 
> projects/initiatives where these students can be involved.
>
> Best wishes to all of you, and thanks to the founders of OFKN,
>
> Prof. Ranjit Goswami
> Dean (Academics), IMT Nagpur, India
>
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:04 PM, Ala Haraty <aelharaty at gmail.com 
> <mailto:aelharaty at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Dear Zara:
>
>     It is a pleasure to correspond with you all! I have heard of the
>     great work you have done with OpenOil, and look forward to working
>     with everyone through the Prospects Community.
>
>     Thanks,
>
>     Aladdin
>
>
>     On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Zara Rahman
>     <zara.rahman at okfn.org <mailto:zara.rahman at okfn.org>> wrote:
>
>         Hi all,
>
>         Welcome to the Prospects Community, an opportunity for you to
>         get more engaged more in the Open Knowledge Foundation
>         community, and hopefully a step on your way to becoming an
>         official Open Knowledge Foundation Ambassador!
>
>         Let me introduce myself first; my name is Zara, and I work
>         closely with my colleagues Christian Villum and Neal Bastek to
>         support our lovely international community.
>
>         Here is the Welcome Pack for the Prospects Community
>         <https://docs.google.com/a/okfn.org/document/d/1zqYw8u_aXrf5G6nTfRcw_IZjrZG5mQH7o2t-ZbG2ifQ/edit>
>         that we have prepared for you. It includes a number of
>         suggestions for how you can begin to get engaged in the
>         community. We've also set up a discussion list for you,
>         prospects-community at lists.okfn.org
>         <mailto:prospects-community at lists.okfn.org> (cc'd above too!)
>         - please use this to communicate with your fellow Prospects.
>         Neal, Christian and I are also on this list, but if you'd like
>         to contact us separately, please email local at okfn.org
>         <mailto:local at okfn.org> ; we all receive emails sent to this
>         address, so it allows us to respond promptly between the three
>         of us!
>
>         You are the brave first round of our Prospects Community, so
>         we're especially happy to have you joining the community! If
>         you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask,
>         using the channels mentioned above.
>
>         We look forward to seeing all of your contributions to the
>         open movement!
>
>         Very best,
>
>         Zara
>
>         -- 
>         Zara Rahman
>         International Community Manager | skype: zara.rahman |
>         @zararah <http://www.twitter.com/zararah>
>         The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://www.okfn.org>
>         /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
>         http://www.okfn.org | @okfn <http://www.twitter.com/okfn> |
>         OKF on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/OKFNetwork> | Blog
>         <http://blog.okfn.org> | Newsletter
>         <http://okfn.org/about/newsletter/>
>
>
>

-- 
Zara Rahman
International Community Manager | skype: zara.rahman | @zararah 
<http://www.twitter.com/zararah>
The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://www.okfn.org>
/Empowering through Open Knowledge/
http://www.okfn.org | @okfn <http://www.twitter.com/okfn> | OKF on 
Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/OKFNetwork> | Blog 
<http://blog.okfn.org> | Newsletter <http://okfn.org/about/newsletter/>
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