[Reader-list] [Announcements] Science, Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF)

[Gnowledge Project]

Dear Friends:

A one day conference on "Science, Education and Learning in Freedom
(SELF)" is being organised by Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education
(HBCSE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) on FRIDAY 2
FEBRUARY 2007 from 9.00 A.M. to 6.00 P.M. at the Homi Bhabha Auditorium,
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Colaba, Mumbai, India.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are drastically
transforming human society into a very different world. Perhaps no other
human invention introduced such a transformation, except may be
agriculture. However, not many among us are aware of another parallel
revolutionary under-current that is shaping up as a novel cultural and
political movement, tiding under the waves of the ICT revolution. This
movement is growing at an unprecedented pace influencing the way how
science, software and other kinds of symbolic forms are created,
published and distributed. This culture is often called copyleft,
identified with the Free Software Movement, because this movement took
off by an innovative use of existing copyright law by Richard Stallman,
who founded the movement by publishing software under a copyleft
license. This license is essentially about giving four fundamental
rights to the user of the software published under the copyleft license:
to use it for any purpose, to understand how it works, to make
modifications, and to distribute the modifications.

One of the major outcomes of this revolution is the GNU/Linux operating
system (popularly known by its misnomer, Linux). This copyleft movement
is currently transforming other fields of human creativity as well --
science, poetry, music, cinema and other symbolic forms. Of these, the
most popular success story is Wikipedia http://www.wikpedia.org , the
largest multilingual encyclopedia of the world. We are variously
bombarded by most media, often exclusively, about the various aspects of
ICT revolution, but very little awareness is commonly found about the
copyleft movement. The main purpose of this conference therefore is to
bridge this gap and generate awareness about this revolution, and also
invite far greater participation from all sections of the community. The
conference will inform about the copyleft movement in general, and its
relation to science and education in particular. At this conference
distinguished speakers from around the world will talk about free
software, free knowledge and open standards, specifically in the context
of science and education. 

The conference will take place from 9.00 A.M. to 6.00 P.M. on FRIDAY 2
FEBRUARY 2007, and will have four main sessions:

* Inauguration and Launching of the community portal,
http://gnowledge.org
* Introduction to "SELF: Science, Education and Learning in Freedom"
European Commission Project, http://selfproject.eu
* Copyleft in Science, Education and Culture
* Protecting Knowledge: Open Standards and Copyleft 

The conference is now open for registration. Please read the full
announcement, list of speakers, schedule, venue and registration details
at http://self.gnowledge.org Please register online before Saturday 27
January 2007. Registration fees will be Rs. 200, which will be collected
at registration desk on the day of conference. Please circulate this
information to your friends and colleagues, and put it up on your notice
boards. For more information, kindly contact us on
selfcontact at gnowledge.org

Thanks, 

SELF Conference Team
Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE)
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai


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