Free Culture Roadshow 2009

Some of the Mozilla Reps, students, and friends stuck around after the talk at Anna University.

We were very well received at Anna University (seriously, one of the warmest greetings to date here in India!). Despite a few technical difficulties with the audio, which the students solved, the talks went off without a hitch. I think Ben made one of the students in the front row a bit nervous when he set up a role playing scenario where Ben was the RIAA accusing a person (the student) of allegedly sharing media illegally. It was all in good fun.

We ended up giving away one of the Flip cams to Santhosh for a talk about an open system for health care. He narrowly beat out his opponent, Rupak (there were only two speakers).

Watched a great presentation on a new documentation strategy for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, given by Prof. Kannan Moudgalya of IIT-Bombay. The basic concept is using peer produced “spoken tutorials,” which are essentially screencasts, to demonstrate a program function or explain a single concept for a FOSS application or framework. The project is being funded by a national initiative to raise levels of education, part of it specifically to boost learning among economically poor students. You can see examples of spoken tutorials on Prof. Moudgalya’s website: http://moudgalya.org/

Postage Stamp Example of a Spoken Tutorial for CamStudio (FOSS screen capture for Windows)

By keeping the tutorials simple and concise he envisions an easy-to-use index of video tutorials for a given app that give the learner instant access to the thing they’re interested in learning about. Furthermore, both authoring and translating the tutorials is simple enough that it could be done by an army of dedicated volunteers.

Prof. Moudgalya emphasizes the importance of low-cost solutions for this kind of distributed work. A spoken tutorial can be created on most hardware, usually only a cheap microphone will be the only extra necessity. The software he recommends for capturing the tutorial is also available cheap or free; FOSS on Linux and Windows and relatively inexpensive on Mac.

At this point, there are spoken tutorials for a handful of FOSS applications, including Scilab (a Matlab alternative). Additionally, they have created tutorials that demonstrate how to use the software to make a tutorial (there are versions for Linux, Windows, and Mac).

In addition to the low cost imperative, Prof. Moudgalya also highlighted the fact that India has a huge number of languages that are spoken. In light of this, he has created tutorials that demonstrate how to translate (via overdubbing voice on the video) using free or cheap software. This is so important that his department hosted a contest to translate the “how to re-dub tutorials” spoken tutorial into as many languages as possible. In the end, they had the video dubbed into 15 different languages and had a total of 25 submissions. Looks like there’s a contest going now to dub the Windows Movie Maker spoken tutorial.

Prof. Moudgalya has a team of students developing a social network specifically to host and encourage production of more spoken tutorials. While we didn’t get a lot of details about the network, Prof. Moudgalya assured me he’ll send an email as soon as they unveil—we will post about it here as well!

On December 16 in Bangalore, we have a special night of 5 minute talks. Speakers will highlight their open web ideas, or explain the importance of the open web. For details, see here.

The venue and time have been adjusted. Please change your plans accordingly:

Venue: TERI ((TERI-SRC) 4th Main, 2nd Cross, Domlur II Stage, Bangalore)
Time: Dec 16, 7:00pm to 9:00pm
City: Bangalore
Details: Special evening—your talks only

Heading to IIT-M today.

Have greatly enjoyed meeting people in Mumbai and Chennai. Warmly welcomed by IIT-B, TISS, and Anna University. Great student talks at Anna!

Are you passionate about the open web? In addition to the scheduled talks, we’re inviting you to give your own five-minute talk at your local event. You could win a Flip Ultra series handheld video camera, or the chance to give your talk at the Mozilla Drumbeat festival next year. Check out the talk guidelines at the sign up page.

At the end of each event, the crowd will pick the best talk. We’ll also record your talk and post it to the Drumbeat website.

Sign up here!

December 17, 2009

City: Bangalore
Venue: National Law School
Time: 2:30pm onwards
Details: co-hosted by NLS

Please note that the FC Roadshow in Delhi has been changed to DEC 20th!

We love the web, and you do too. It creates huge opportunities along with new tensions.

What will the web look like in 5, 10, or 25 years? Will it still be a platform for creativity, self-expression, and open commerce? Or will it be enclosed by private interests and enveloped by surveillance and censorship?

We’re traveling from city to city to celebrate the open web and remix culture. Join us for some illuminating talks, to speak your mind, and to meet new friends. Details here.

The Roadshow events are 100% free and open to everyone. Stay tuned for dates, and make sure to follow us with RSS or Twitter.

We’re pleased to announce the two talks you’ll hear on the Free Culture Roadshow:

The Right to Share: What Does Copying Have to Do with Freedom?

The Internet has unleashed the potential to communicate and collaborate like never before, and the result has been an unprecedented flow of culture and information. Millions of individuals are now sharing and creating culture: copying, cutting, remixing, and participating in new and different ways. Sometimes this activity is transformative. Sometimes it’s straight copying. In either case, there is a clear connection between this sharing of culture and personal freedom.

This talk will explore how various conceptions of “freedom” have shaped the social movements for free software, free culture, and free knowledge, and how this ideology has manifested itself in real action. It will connect theory with practice, exploring the cultural innovations and political changes that have spawned forth from these movements. Lastly, it will make the case that the broad-based availability, accessibility, and abundance of culture is a good thing for our global society.

Elizabeth Stark

Elizabeth Stark is a leader in the global free culture movement. She is a Fellow at the Yale Information Society Project and a Lecturer in Computer Science at Yale University. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Stark founded the Harvard Free Culture Group and served on the board of directors of Students for Free Culture. While at Harvard, she was Editor-at-Large of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, and worked on using new media to promote human rights with the Harvard Advocates for Human Rights. Elizabeth has worked extensively with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and has taught courses in Cyberlaw, Digital Copyright, Technology and Politics, and Electronic Music. She recently produced the inaugural Open Video Conference in NYC, garnering over 8000 viewers across the web. Elizabeth regularly gives talks around the world on free culture, and has collaborated with myriad organizations on promoting shared knowledge and the open web.

The Revolution Will Be Recorded, Remixed, and Redistributed: The Promise of Open Video

Between news, cinema, television, and documentary film, we find ourselves swimming in a sea of moving images. This has been the story of the 20th century. Yet in this age, the tools for creating and sharing video are becoming widely distributed in the hands of millions of individuals. Desktop video editing software is pervasive; webcams and video-equipped mobile phones abound. Video now belongs to everyone. It is becoming a powerful medium for self-expression, a kind of cultural currency.

How will this phenomenon change the Internet? How will it change society? What questions persist for the architecture of the Internet, and how will public policy address this ultimately political transformation? This talk sets forth a vision of networked video as a truly participatory medium, one that will power the next 10 years of innovation on the web. Dean Jansen and Ben Moskowitz introduce some core technologies for open video, and the obstacles they face on the road to mass adoption.

Dean Jansen

Dean Jansen is a Free Culture activist and guerrilla artist based in New York. He attended Harvard University and was a leader in the Harvard Free Culture Group. Dean assisted in teaching media studies and law courses at MIT and Harvard, and has organized numerous academic conferences. He currently serves as outreach director at the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation, makers of the Miro internet TV player. His art projects can be viewed at www.notthemessiah.net.

Ben Moskowitz

Ben Moskowitz is general coordinator at the Open Video Alliance, a coalition to democratize the moving image. Ben co-founded the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Free Culture and taught a seminar on the politics of piracy at Berkeley’s School of Information. He currently serves on the board of directors of the international organization Students for Free Culture, dedicated to promoting access to knowledge, technological freedom, and participatory culture.
Remember, the Free Culture Roadshow is 100% free. Bring your friends!