Deepan Chakravarthy and myself conducted a one-day workshop for the Bioinformatics department, Karpagam Arts and Science College, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India on Saturday, September 9, 2006.

I introduced them to FLOSS, and then Deepan spoke on how FLOSS is useful in bioinformatics. He showed a demo of Emboss, and lot of other applications. After lunch, I gave a demo of the GNU/Linux desktop environment, and also explained basic commands that they can use in the console environment. Deepan then continued with his demo of bioinformatics applications and discussed about FLOSS projects at bioinformatics.org.

The students/faculty were really enthusiastic, and wanted follow-up sessions. I emphasized that they should get started with setting up a FLOSS lab, and a GNU/Linux user group on-campus. They are ready to provide facilities, stay, food even if you want to spend a week there, and give them hands-on training. There are no distractions until October 5, 2006, after which they have model exams, followed by holidays and exams.

I would like to thank Prof. Hemalatha for working with us for the past couple of weeks in coordinating and organizing this event. Special thanks to the department faculty and management for the facilities and hospitality offered.