Darrel's notes from SFDS2010 Kick-off meeting

Here are Darrel's notes from the SFDS2010 Kick-off meeting, which took place Wednesday, 14 April 2010.

Thanks for the great turnout - this is certainly very encouraging! Hope we can keep the momentum going and grow from strength to strength. Here's the summary notes I took, let me know if I missed anything.

• Main Carnival. True to spirit of Software Freedom Day, we will focus on showcasing Free Software to public during the main event on Sat 18 Sep at National Library. Tom volunteered to come up with themes for different pavilions at the carnival. We will do our regular tech talks at Meetup nights. Chee Siong will handle the setup and logistics for carnival, as per last year.
• Liaison with various groups. Chris Harvey will start communicating with all the Open Source groups to get them prep up for the Carnival. We should also let the groups conduct their own events, culminating at the Main Carnival at NLB. Gaurav will provide Chris with the contact DB from last year's event.
• Theme. Chris Harvey proposed that we build this year's SFDS activities around a central theme. One possible theme mooted is mobile or mobility. Chris suggested that we all brainstorm (or suggest in forum) and regroup in 2 weeks to settle on the theme.
• Programming Contest. The group discussed an Inter-school Programming Competition using open source technologies, with the prize giving and winning entries showcased at Main Carnival. It is important to find major backer to give credibility and recognition to this competition to entice schools to participate. Darrel/Brandon/ChrisHarvey will start off the preparation.
• Website. David has volunteered to head up redesign and update of websites. Software freedom site will be subdomain within fosa.sg and will contain public info. David will also set up working forum in fosa site for organizing committee. Notes and ideas will be posted into the working forum. Tom can also provide videos from last year for the site.
• Event Organizer. Alix provided a contact who is an event organizer.
• Media/publicity. Darrel suggested that we need to do better in media and publicity. We would still adopt Google Ads, Facebook, posters, etc. However, we would want to try get writeup from newspapers on the event. However, we would need to firm up program and activities soon. Alix will help out in the marketing and media/publicity.

Let's break off and start our respective preparation and feel free to check back with me or any others. For the new members from Temasek Poly, welcome and feel free to distribute yourselves to various groups - you can drop a note to me. We hope you will find the experience both fun, interesting and satisfying.

David - can you start a forum topic for SFDS 2010 and post this there? Thanks. [Done! -- cdrigby]

See you all soon next meeting.
Darrel