This site is the landing page for all things Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) at Rochester Institute of Technology. Here you can find information and updates on the open courses, open co-ops, and open projects at and around campus.
The RIT Lab for Technological Literacy houses FOSS@RIT, an initiative that grew out of the Department of Interactive Games and Media's course in educational game development for the OLPC. We bring FOSS speakers to campus, sponsor professional development opportunities for faculty, house externally sponsored and faculty and student created research and development projects and have brought an annual regional FOSS conference to the RIT campus, all since January 2009.
RIT to host Reading and Book Signing with Walter Bender, Executive Director of SugarLabs and Co-Founder of One Laptop Per Child
WHAT: Free book reading and signing
WHEN: 7:00 p.m., Wednesday April 17th
WHERE: Golisano Hall atrium and auditorium (Bldg 70, Room 1400)
PARKING: Parking is available in J Lot, on the north side of RIT’s campus
Sponsors: RIT MAGIC Center, Red Hat, StormFrog, RIT Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Lab for Technological Literacy
Copies of "Learning to Change The World" will be available for purchase at the signing.
Walter Bender has worked to empower the children of developing countries to learn using technology. The co-founder of One Laptop Per Child and founder of Sugar Labs will share his lessons with educators, social entrepreneurs and technologists during a free and open talk at 7 p.m. April 17 at Rochester Institute of Technology.
The discussion, held in Golisano Hall auditorium, will address the history of One Laptop Per Child, social entrepreneurship lessons and a futuristic look at attaining the organizations educational goals. The talk will include a discussion of points from his book, Learning to Change the World: The Social Impact of One Laptop Per Child.
Bender is currently executive director of Sugar Labs, a non-profit foundation that develops Sugar—a free and open source desktop environment designed with the goal of being used by children for interactive learning. He is the former director of MIT’s Media Lab and a co-founder of One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organization with the mission of providing more information and better education to the world’s underprivileged via an inexpensive laptop.
“Bender’s book not only tells the story of this pioneering effort, but also puts the lessons of what it means to collaborate and work in this environment into perspective for educators and future social entrepreneurs,” says Stephen Jacobs, a professor in RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the signing. The talk is sponsored by RIT’s new MAGIC Center, Red Hat, StormFrog, the Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Lab for Technological Literacy. For more information on the talk, contact Jacobs at sxjics@rit.edu.
IGM will again be running the course "Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software Development" this Spring. It'll be taught this year by established Hacker Justin Sherrill (http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/author/admin). This course provides the novices an opportunity to get started in Open Source, and the pros the flexibility to get deeper into the field. The course has an emphasis on, but is not restricted to, the creation of Free/Open Source/Open Content educational games and software, but has also supported projects looking at networking, server infrastructures, and other full-stack applications. The majority of projects that have come out of the course in the past have supported the One Laptop Per Child (http://laptop.org) and Sugar Labs projects (http://sugarlabs.org). OLPC XO computers will be signed out to each student for use and development during the quarter.
The course's number is 4080-445 and it is offered Tuesday and Thursday nights, 6-8 pm. The prerequisites are two previous programming courses, but if you have an interest in FOSS development, or any FOSS development experience, contact us and the prerequisites can be waived by the instructor. If you are having trouble registering, don't fret! Email Prof. Stephen Jacobs, and we'll register you for the course manually: sj[at]mail[dot]rit[dot]edu.
Save The Date! Our application for Rochester was accepted! We will be one of 50 cities around the world, on all 7 continents, competing in the NASA SpaceAppsChallenge!!!
American Greetings is sponsoring a major Hackathon at RIT January 18th-19th!
Over $1000 in prizes!
Four Submission Categories in Games, Mobile, Web, and Creative.
Registration and Information here: http://hack.ag.com/rit
Day Time What
Fr 1/18 6:00pm Opening Reception
Fr 1/18 6:30pm Keynote Address
Fr 1/18 7:00pm Team Pitches
Fr 1/18 8:00pm Hacking Begins
Sa 1/19 10:00am Breakfast
Sa 1/19 2:30pm Lunch
Sa 1/19 7:00pm Closing Reception
Sa 1/19 8:00pm Presentations Begin
Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.
The non-profit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.
All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.
Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups. If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now.
For more information about StartupWeekendSyracuse, check out their webpage here.
Join the Office of Cooperative Education & Career Services, students, alumni and co-op employers, as we celebrate 100 years of cooperative education and experiential learning here at RIT! We’ll recognize past achievements and the importance of co-op to the success of our graduates, and look ahead to remaining a global leader in cooperative education and experiential learning.
Our keynote speaker will be Lindsey Pollak, a career and workplace expert and spokesperson for LinkedIn, who will talk about what the future holds for students and universities.
Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere! The non-profit company Software Freedom Internationalcoordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.
Many thanks to our Sponsors and Supporters without whom we could not make such an event happen.
Printer-friendly version
