[Ambassadors] Event Report:: Benedict College

[David Nalley]

Another person that I met at the Palmetto Open Source Conference this
year was <a href="http://with-robot.blogspot.com/">Dr. Hong Jiang</a>
a professor at <a href="http://benedict.edu">Benedict College</a>. She
invited me to come speak to computer science and other students. I was
told around 40-100 would show up, but when everything was said and
done I think the number was closer to 120-150. The lecture room was
standing room only. Apparently there are about 40 people in the class
that I was talking to, but the event had been well publicized ahead of
time, and lots of students attended, including the Vice President of
the college, the Assistant Dean of the School of Science Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics as well as 3-4 professors. I talked a bit
about Fedora and more directly about the benefits of using Open Source
as an educational tool. I talked about some of the opportunities that
existed to get involved with Fedora and OLPC - and of course the XO
that I brought along received lots of attention. In addition I passed
out over 100 Fedora 9 LiveCDs.There were a number of questions - to
the point that we had to limit them due to schedule constraints on the
room.
After the presentation I received a short tour of the campus, was
introduced to the campus <a
href="http://www.benedict.edu/divisions/stdnta/campus_safety/staff/bc-campus_safety-staff-haywood_bazemore.html">Police
Chief</a>, as well as several other faculty and staff members, and
enjoyed a wonderful lunch.
The group was very receptive - and I have a number of follow ups to
make already.