Sunday Morning Recap: June 1st, 2014

“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”  – Malcolm X

One could say this week began with SLIIT’s Play with FOSS, which marked the resurgence of something truly welcome: SLIIT’s FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) event. It’s sad to see that, in our post-Android, post-Mac world, the words FOSS and Linux barely mean anything anymore. There was a time when SLIIT’s FOSS events were jam-packed and organizers would fling installation CDs into the crowd like food for sharks. This was a time when to cut a custom Linux Live CD was the epitome of being a Gen 2.0 geek: now, sadly, that status goes to the guy with the oversize spectacles and the Macbook Air.

Which is rather sad, since Linux is now one of the most widely used operating systems in the world – Android, I’m looking at you here. The world, it seems, has moved on: Sri Lanka has moved a few steps in the other direction. Regardless, there still is a strong push to rectify this, as you’ll see.

SLIIT gathered over 250 FOSS advocates into one place

Proving that the species has not died out….yet.

We spoke with Dulith Herath, the CEO of Kapruka.com

And the king of Sri Lankan e-commerce had some amazing lessons to share with us.

SLASSCOM held a supremely relevant CXO Breakfast Meetup

On diversity, gender equality and inclusiveness in the workplace, with some surprising lessons

We reviewed Dialog’s quad-core ‘Droid

And for once, we liked it

Season One of the Lankan Summoner’s League began

A sizeable step towards establishing the world’s most played game in the Lankan eSports scene.

There was a FOSS seminar targeting Lankan SMEs

Pointing out some very valid lessons- especially given how expensive software is on a Sri Lankan scale

As the deadline draws close, hSenid held yet another TADHack developer meetup

We’re certainly looking forward to what might very well be the most global hackathon of this year.

A certain telco overextended itself with their HD Voice campaign

Proving that marketing departments really need to use Google before they write something

CMBHack just ended

After hours of crunching, crunching Pizza and pitching, Orion City saw some cool entrants and perhaps the next generation of Sri Lankan tech startups. We’ll see what emerges!