SFD within 10 days of Ambassadorship :D !!

It was the 11 pm at night on 16 September when I received a mail (actually mailed to my HOD & cc'ed to me) from SUN Microsystems saying "It gives me great pleasure to communicate that Saurabh Aggarwal from your Institute is selected as Sun campus Ambassador for FYO9. Congratulations!!!......... "

Woha !!
It was a moment of great joy for me to be selected for such a great position !!
I was always in love with Java & other cool SUN Technologies & wanted to spread a similar vibe among all other students of my institute. This was a golden opportunity for me to do so.

The next day I got an invite for this site (sunambassadors.com) & started exploring it out. Then I found out about "Software Freedom Day" & that it has to be organized on 20th September !!
Woops !! (if you couldn't figure out from above details, then it was already 17th Sept).........to say the least, I had not even gathered a team of volunteers !! But to my relief, I was told, I could organize it next week.

The next thing to be done was to decide what I should do on "The Day". I thought to myself - "Had there been an event by SUN, what is that thing that would tempt me to go rather than playing Counter Strike or Age of Empires in my room ?".
I soon found out that the answer was - "some really cool technology which I can learn, and then boast to all my friends !!". And yes, that is what I believe every "IT-BHU-ian's" true inner desire is - "to stand apart from the rest of the crowd".

So, I decided to give a technical demonstration of the cool SUN Technologies - ZFS, DTrace, Zones & Containers. Besides this, I also scheduled a talk on Open Source (after all, that is the theme of "Software Freedom Day") & also openSolaris installfest. So, it was like tempting the crowd by first demonstrating the cool technologies using openSolaris, then getting them to install it :D.........

But the real challenge was that even I was a "n00b" in these technologies, and if one wants to demonstrate it in front of a huge crowd, then one must first make oneself a "bond" in it. So, I began by first installing openSolaris on my own computer & checking out all the various features. The Ambassador Resources came in handy here. And along with a little googling and fiddling around with my system, I got the hang of these techs.

Then slowly, days passed by, each day with a specific agenda, all targeting towards making this event a success !!
Then came "The Day", on 27th September......

I reached the venue along with all the volunteers an hour before the scheduled time along with all the supplies of CD's & other SUN gears. Then students started coming, it was really, nice to see the enthusiasm on their faces, some already wearing SUN caps (must've got 'em from last year's events), many with their laptops, all ready for checking out openSolaris.

I started out with first figuring out on what level my audience were. Some of them didn't know anything about open source, some had never gone beyond the "closed - source" world of Microsoft, but most of them including those who had already tried their hands on one or the other Linux distro, and wanted to know whats cool about openSolaris.
I also asked a few questions and gave away chocolates & SUN gears for their answers :).

I began with introducing people to what "Software Freedom" is all about. Then we had a seminar on open source and explaining people how they can contribute to the world of open source from a minimum of "using foss" & "submitting bugs" upto "writing the codes". Then I demonstrated ZFS, DTrace, Zones & Containers. Also comparing them with their Windows & Linux counterparts. The students really loved the comparisons & realized that SUN was way ahead of MS and also edging ahead of Linux. I was also bombarded with lots of doubts by the students & I was able to answer all their queries :)

Then I distributed the openSolaris CD's & explained the step by step procedure of installing openSolaris within VirtualBox and "on the metal". All carrying their laptops started to follow the steps. After the installation started, we enjoyed snacks & drinks and had a great time !!
Overall it was a great event, all enjoyed to the fullest & also learnt cool techs :).......

So, what next ?
Maybe a tech demo on J2ME, creating some cool app from scratch & demonstrating it, not only on the simulator, but also on my mobile....... or would it be on Netbeans, whatever it is, it will be something cool enough to learn that would take us ahead of the crowd, as I said, that is what every "IT-BHUian wants", including me :).......