Software Freedom Day ’20 – Colombo

Software freedom day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of free software that has been held on the third Saturday of September every year since 2004. And Software Freedom Day’20 Sri Lanka was the Sri Lankan version of the said celebration. Mozilla Communities and Free and Open Source Software(FOSS) Communities of three Sri Lankan universities joined hands to make this occasion a success. Namely Mozilla NSBM, Mozilla MORA, SLIIT Mozilla, FOSS NSBM, FOSS MORA and SLIIT FOSS.

After weeks of planning, preparing and working from dawn to dusk, Software Freedom Day 2020 Sri Lanka was held ceremoniously with the participation of a plethora of IT enthusiasts, on the 18th of September 2020, at the auditorium of NSBM Green University. It was seen that many health protection precautions were taken by FOSS volunteers due to the global pandemic of COVID 19.

  • The event started off with an introduction to SFD by FOSS and Mozilla volunteers, and a welcome by the Dean of Faculty of Computing of NSBM Green University, Dr. Rasika Ranaweera. 
  • The keynote was given by the founder of Mooniak, Mr. Pethum Egodawatta. 
  • Next was a session done by the Co-founder of Maturity, Ms. Charindra Wijemanne on Women Empowerment. 
  • It was followed by a short film by FOSS NSBM volunteers on women empowerment. 

The other speakers who graced this occasion with their valuable knowledge were: 

  • Senior Lecturer of NSBM Green University, Mr. Chaminda Wijesinghe, 
  • Co -founder and Engineering Director of Emojot, Mr. Andun Gunawardana, 
  • GitHub campus expert, Mr. Dilum De Silva,
  • The Founder of Bhasha Lanka, Mr. Dhanika Perera.
  • Mozilla Representatives

Along with all the tech talk, the participants had a great and refreshing time with the singing and dancing performances done by FOSS NSBM volunteers. And the hilarious performance done by the YouTube artists, “FortuneFilms” crew, brought tears of mirth to the eyes of the audience. Later, many of the participants won valuable gifts during a Q & A session done by FOSS Sri Lanka and Mozilla Sri Lanka representatives. Celebrating another victorious moment for FOSS volunteers, gifts were awarded to the three lucky winners of the photography competition “Opengraphy”, which was organized parallel to SFD’20 Sri Lanka, for their praiseworthy creativity.

We believe that Software Freedom Day 2020 Sri Lanka was held very successfully, due to the hard work of all the Mozilla and FOSS volunteers and FOSS Sri Lanka and Mozilla Sri Lanka representatives who worked tirelessly day and night. Their work is especially praiseworthy, as it’s very challenging to hold bigscale events such as this, during these trying times. While applauding all of them for their hard work, we sincerely hope to see another successful Software Freedom Day in the year 2021.

Special Thanks goes to our Sponsors, Mozilla Organization and Mooniac – Mr. Pathum Egodawaththa, Github, Jet-Brains to Sponsoring for the Software Freedom Day.

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