On 25-08-2005 and 26-08-2005, I had an opportunity to stay at Karunya
Institute of Technology. It is really very pleasant and cool to be
there. Sri Ranjani and myself went to participate in various
competitons in Opzione’05. Opzione is the symposium organised by
Association of Computer Engineers (ACE as they call). We went to
participate in Paper and software presentation, fortunately we
cleared the prelims for quiz and we had an opportunity to take the
quiz also.
One interesting thing which urged us to put our efforts to go for
Karunya was their poster, which laid emphasis on Open Source
Technologies (“May the source be with U” this was their caption). On
25th we went to Coimbatore. Dheepan took us to Karunya and I was given
a room at Hepzibah block (no:30). It was very nice to be in that room,
very silent and pleasant. Two guys from Sona College of Engg. were at
the room next to me and gave me good company. We both went to the
auditorium and there we had a slight disappointment. Their theme was
open source, but nothing was in accordance with their theme. They had
a presentation about Free software on a Propritary OS 
We didnt get any prize in the Paper presentation event. The following
day we had software presentation and quiz. On that evening I was a bit
upset over not getting a prize for our paper and also I feared that
there wont be any recognition for our software, since I coudnt figure
out any soul cared about free softwares. But before I could give up, I
met Johnny Jacob and Swen George, two cool guyz who were so passionate
about GNU/Linux and the free software philosophy. Hmmm… then I got
pretty interested in participating in the following day events. In the
evening Johnny, Swen and myself had a discussion on bringing awareness
on GNU/Linux to the students of Karunya. They had plans of starting a
GNU/Linux user groups in their college. They showed me the stuff they
had prepared for that and I gave my suggestions. It was a nice talk we
had and I enjoyed it. A third year guy Vamsi Krishna was also there
with us during the discussion.
Next day we got second place for our software and third place in
quiz. In the evening we had prize distribution and recieved the cash After a small delay guyz in Karunya have started their own Kits
Linux Club in their campus. Am very glad about it. I wish all success
for their new initiative and I hope this Club is gonna rock Coimbatore
GNU/Linux Users
