[Ambassadors] Software Freedom Day 2008 (Philippines)

[Heherson Pagcaliwagan]

I was waiting for Ma'am Magie to post the pics of our recently concluded SFD
celebration but since she's still probably recuperating from the event, let
me, in her stead, report what happened last Saturday at the National
Computer Center here in Quezon City.

Official registration was supposed to start 8:30 AM but when I passed by the
venue around 7:30AM on my way to my office, students were already milling
around the complex and a provincial bus was already parked beside the venue.
Talk about being early! When I returned around 8:45AM, the place was already
packed and Ma'am Magie was already going on circles :)

I was designated as the booth man by virtue of seniority :D *(Truth be told,
Ma'am Magie was busy organizing the whole event while Sir Engels was giving
speeches)*. The Fedora booth consisted of a tarpaulin, flyers, two LiveUSB
Station posters and my office laptop featuring Fedora 9. I originally
planned to bring my Asus eee loaded with eeedora to the event but I was
locked out of our office with no keys -- stupid me. A friend later took pity
on me and sent for his two laptops *(both of which are Windows)* and
together we burned away those USB sticks.

Apart from burning LiveUSBs, I gave away flyers, cajoled SFD-goers to try
Fedora 9 using my laptop, gave impromptu talks about the merit of Fedora and
its difference with other Linux distributions (most of the time - Ubuntu),
met students, teachers and other professionals and had a blast the whole
time. Talking particularly with the kids made me feel like a rock star :)

The major drawer of our booth was ceratinly the LiveUSB creation. It would
have been FreeMedia but early on, we have decided to do away with the
distribution of DVDs and LiveCDs because that would entail spending money we
don't really have much of. What meager funds we have scrapped together were
funneled into the whole event. Either way, we had registered around 50
individuals who still wanted to hear more about the Fedora Project and
possibly contribute themselves. These included teachers who want their
students contribute as ambassadors and/or developers, students who wanted to
make a case study in the use of Fedora and professionals who are interested
in holding seminars/trainings in deploying Fedora in their line of work.

~ Herson
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