Uganda Linux User Group

Uganda LUG has always been about doing new things, and this event was no different. This was the first time we had organised a nationwide event involving bring LUGgers from both Jinja and Mbarara. After their successful arrival in Kampala we converged at the venue Makarere National Software Incubator Centre, in one of the labs, to begin setting up, and preparing our guests. The lab had been outfitted with 2 Sun Servers running Ubuntu 9.10 and connected to Sun Ray 2 Clients. We had had a little inkling that the numbers might be good, but I don't think it fully prepared us for the 150+ people who showed up. With the coordinated efforts of 10 organisers we managed to finished setting up the lab, projectors and signs in a record amount of time as the crowd continued to grow. Our superb registration desk jotted down names and gave the first 100 or so entrants a free Ubuntu DVD.

At a little after 13.30pm we opened the doors and allowed the members to enter. The outline for the day was as initially as follows;

12:30 - Doors Open
13:00 - Event Starts Outline programme
13:15 - Introduce the LUG and the up-country chapter members
13:30 - What is Open Source?
13:45 - Introduce Local Businesses
14:00 - Introduce the Apps4Africa Competition
14:10 - Introduction to Python
16:10 - Break
16:25 - Google AppEngine - Richard Ngamita
18:25 - Wrap up
19:00 - Google Party!

After a short session Introducing the LUG+ up-country chapters and the idea of Open Source to those who hadn't heard of it before, I kicked off the Introduce to Local Businesses segment. The idea was to introduce the audience to local businesses about how they were introduced to and continued to use Open Source Software.

I was followed by Johnny Long from the Jinja LUG and Hackers for Charity http://www.hackersforcharity.org/ his local community centre ;

"In poverty-stricken parts of the world, it’s no secret that job training is key to interrupting the cycle of poverty. Most job training programs focus on local trades: tailoring, wood working, farming, etc. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an overlooked and understaffed job market, especially in underdeveloped countries where computers and technology trainers are scarce. " - Johnny Long

Rob Orenstein then introduced us to S7 - http://www.s7project.com/. S7 is designed as a logical next step for secondary school leavers looking to train in IT skills. His lab and now Internet Cafe has completely switched over to running Ubuntu Linux with much success.

Reinier Battenberg - www.mountbatten.net, detailed how they use FOSS applications such as Drupal, PHP and Apache to develop Websites.

We then handed over to Richard Zulu and Bridgette Sexton who gave us a introduction to the local Google Technical Users Group (GTUG) - http://kampala.gtugs.org/

Josh Goldstein then followed up with a short introduction to the Apps4Africa competition. This is a developer competition to encourage people to write applications for Africa, the total prize money is 30 Millions Shilling and including unfortunately proprietary iFluff. Non the less its well worth checking out. http://apps4africa.org/

We then launched into the first of our practical sessions lead by Jon Chamberlain - Introducing Python. This was a fantastic session and people were getting truly engrossed in the development of a guessing game, whilst learning fundamental Python principles.

After a short break to rest everyone's brains we launched into our next session by Richard Ngamita, this was always going to be a far more challenging session as the topic was more complex and time was really too short. A lesson I think we all took for next time is to maybe allow more time and better prepare for this. Plus running 70-80 Google AppEngine instances across two Sun Servers was really asking way to much of the hardware. Despite all this Richard managed to get through a fair amount of the tutorial and explain a lot of the principles.

The last lab event was an introduction to Daniel Stern of U-Connect http://www.u-connect.org who invited the participants to visit the Educational media lab truck he had brought along for the day. The truck which was recently converted to Ubuntu with the help of Kyle and I, runs the RACHEL server http://www.worldpossible.org/

After a totally exhausting day we finally closed the day at the Googles Offices for some well deserved beer and pizza! The pizza supplied by our good friend Ben from Palm Cafe, went down so well we had to immediately order another round!

I'd like to close this with a massive thank-you to everyone who helped make the day such a amazing success. But especially, Bridgette Sexton, Richard Ngamita from Google for sponsoring our members travel, stay and all the lovely drinks and pizza. David, Richard and Michael from the Makarere lab for their support in giving us the lab, hard work helping set-up, and tear down.
Ashis for manning the door, and scaring the life out of any potential deserters ;-) Janosch, Johnny, Jon, Rob, Reinier for providing backup, getting LUG members to the venue and back home and generally being cool. Pearl for registering the massive crowds.Faith, Virginia and Hanna for helping organise drinks at Half-time. Lastly I'd like to thank all those who came to attend the event. Your the reason we do these events and make it such a success.

Well that's all from this month and we'll see you all next Month.