Software freedom, in people’s hands.
An earlier chapter that still shapes how I work: bringing free software to students and institutions — less about ideology than about changing how people work and motivating them to adopt tools they can own.
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01 — Free Software Foundation Tamil Nadu · through 2023 Free software
FSFTN — organizer
Free software · digital literacy · public education
I was one of the organizers of Free Software Foundation Tamil Nadu, part of the movement that holds software should be free to run, study, share, and improve. The work was hands-on and about people: running workshops in colleges, showing students and staff how free and open-source tools could change the way they work, and motivating institutions to adopt tools they could actually own. My focus was always the workflow — making the better way easier to choose.
This work was profiled in Kungumam, a national Tamil magazine, in a feature on online data theft and the free-software movement.
Read the Kungumam feature → -
02 — Workshops Education
Free-software workshops for colleges
Tamil Nadu · GNU/Linux, shell, regional-language computing
Hands-on sessions that took free software from principle to practice — installing and using GNU/Linux, shell scripting, and computing in Tamil and other regional languages. The aim was simple: put working, free tools in front of students who were only ever shown the proprietary ones, and show them a way of working they could keep.
See the workshop photos in the Kungumam feature → -
03 — GLUG Community
GNU/Linux Users Group — organizer & volunteer
Meetups · workshops · mentoring
Organized and volunteered with the local GNU/Linux Users Group — workshops on shell scripting and computing in regional languages, and the steady, patient work of helping newcomers find their footing in free software.
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04 — Eegai Seivom Service
Eegai Seivom — core member
Community service
A core member of a community-service initiative. The work that had nothing to do with technology kept me grounded in why technology matters at all.
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05 — Podcast Guest
Hacktivist Athyayangal — guest, “Coded Bias”
Tamil-language podcast · algorithmic accountability
Guest on the Coded Bias episode, discussing algorithmic accountability and what happens when opaque systems make decisions about people who can’t inspect them.
See it on Press & Recognition → -
06 — Blocks & Checks YouTube
Blocks & Checks — creator
YouTube · blockchain for non-technical audiences
A YouTube channel demystifying blockchain for general audiences — started because every explainer I could find was written for people who already understood it.
Watch on YouTube →