FOSS.in– Closing Keynote Address by Kalyan Varma

It was an unusual way to end a predominantly techie meet…the FOSS.in (Free and Open Source Software annual meet which happens at the J N Tata Auditorium) closed with a keynote address by Kalyan Varma, who is well-known in software,photography, and wildlife circles.

The tagline for this year’s meet was, "Talk is cheap. Show me the code"!

After the "workouts" discussions and reports were over, the well-"connected" audience settled down for the keynote address:

Kalyan, about whom I have written in Citizen Matters here and here , put the finishing touches to his presentation:

He then talked about "Free World:Sharing and Caring".

He started out with the example from Nature, about how wasps evolved from being solitary creatures to social ones, where sharing tasks meant more security. Security, indeed, was the hot topic of today, he added, and said that most people just didn’t understand either was real security was, or how to ensure it. He demonstrated how easily internet security could be breached, and fraud perpetrated.

He then drew parallels between the principles of free and open software, and those of photogpraphy, including tenets like "Rely On Your Friends".

He then went on to show some the images he and his friends have taken in the forests of India, and opened the audience’s eyes to the immense impact of how the simplest things about our lifestyles impacted the environment. He took the example of a cup of tea….the tea meant that large tracts of rainforest were hacked down to make tea plantations; water often means damming of rivers and resultant loss of forest areas; milk means more cattle, grazing in the forests and preventing new plants from coming up, and sugar meant more deforestation, and subsequent man-animal conflict, as the animal’s habitats were reduced.

He asked the audience to be more ecologically aware of their actions, and concluded a crisp presentation that was laced with very striking images, including the one of jumping ants that won him the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award in 2005.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Similar Story

Nature Feature: A dinner invitation

"Will you walk into my parlour?" Said the spider to the fly. "I've spread a carpet of silk and diamonds! Walk in, and don't be shy! Do come along, for I grow thinner... I've LOVE to have you, ahem, for dinner!" Jokes apart, Funnel Web Spiders also called Wolf Spiders, are named because of the funnel-like web they weave...and the second name is given because they are ferocious predators. They build a flat sheet of nonsticky web with a funnel-shaped retreat to one side or occasionally in the middle, depending on the situation and species. The typical hunting mode is…

Similar Story

Theatre Review: “Credit Titles” by Bangalore Little Theatre

It was like a rare alignment of the planets: several factors come together to pull me out of my usual Ranga Shankara ambit for watching a play. I had not been to visit Bangalore International Centre, which opened a while ago in Domlur; Bangalore Little Theatre, as part of their "VP 80" festival, was staging "Credit Titles"; the play, written by Vijay Padaki, whose 80th birthday the festival marks, was based on a story by Vinod Vyasulu, an eminent economist whom I've known for a long time, as our daughters share a cose friendship dating from 1988. And last but…