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Areeb was a truly good person with a diverse and very interesting personality with so much to discover. He had a special humor as one could see in his tagline on social media “Coder . Introvert . Gruelingly Boring”. He was not an introvert when he worked on software. He shared his knowledge with the world openly and freely. He wanted to make the world a better place. He helped so many to learn how to use and develop technologies. He was an amazing person, a brilliant developer. I wanted to talk to him many times and ask him to change his tagline. I thought it was just not correct. That is not him. But, I also thought this is his way and idea to show himself. So, I never asked him to change it.

I had the chance to meet him only a few times in person. I always hoped we would have an opportunity to live together in the same city for some time and I can get to know him better. We were building a friendship while we have worked together since 2017. Over the last two years we communicated several times nearly each day. He was working very hard, extremely hard and we both shared a passion for the projects we worked on together. I could send him a message at any time and to my surprise he responded right away even at 2 AM. I asked him to take some time off, but when he traveled somewhere he still responded to questions of other developers from his phone. He was so supportive to everyone.

He was a straightforward person, but respectful of people in his communication. It is sometimes difficult for me to find the right words in discussions with developers from India and all around the world, but with Areeb it was all possible. He could always make things work. Areeb achieved to create an amazingly efficient collaborative environment where developers and community contributors could thrive and we could build something together that was valued by thousands around the world. Some of the most outstanding developers in the world used what Areeb built when they joined our annual event online just a month ago. It was a good feeling.

Areeb was a fighter for free speech, privacy, justice and democracy. He did not do it with big words, sometimes he shared his views online, but mostly he tried to change the world more through his actions and work in the open source and free software community. 

The memes and cartoons he shared often had a sarcastic touch and I believe this gave him strength to continue despite a lot of injustices that happened in his home country India and around him. Once he shared a photo of Modi with Shahrukh and Aamir Khan and wrote “Best actor of India with Shahrukh and Aamir Khan” it made me laugh and at the same time the laughter got stuck in my throat when I thought about politics in India. But, this was the humor of Areeb. 

He was not as geeky as he might have appeared to some. Only today I saw his post of his computer set up last month with a lot of colorful blinking lights. He liked to learn about the world, watch and read about science, nature and humanity. Besides all the scientific and political literature he also liked a book with a love story – though with a love story with a challenge – and he also liked all the Harry Potter books.

While I never saw any attempt of him dancing I know that he liked Indian music, Bollywood, Elvis Presley and Enrique Iglesias. Our tastes of music were not so different, but we will never have the chance to enjoy them together now. 

Traveling was difficult for him as he had to deal with corrupt and bureaucratic administration to even get travel documents. When he was finally getting a passport the pandemic made it impossible for us to meet again in Singapore.

I am grateful that I had the chance to meet Areeb in Hyderabad and Delhi and spent time with him. Last year we organized the OpenTechSummit India as a small event in Delhi and discussed our plans for the future. He was getting on board as a full time developer with FOSSASIA and we discussed our ideas to make projects into their own Open Source companies. Areeb was too young to leave us. For many years we were working with different people and great developers in the community, but to find Areeb with such a strong dedication and understanding of technology and logic – this was a once-in-a-lifetime lucky chance. Areeb wanted to go further and built an example of a technology project and company that is doing good. He wanted to prove that his and our ideas to create a free, respecting and sharing world is possible. Areeb, you are leaving a huge gap. We will miss you forever.

GitHub: https://github.com/iamareebjamal

Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamareebjamal

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamareebjamal/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IamAreebJamal

It is been a great second day at the FOSSASIA Summit with a focus on open hardware and open science. Thank you very much to all speakers and participants. You find the video of the live stream of day 2 here.

The virtual summit will continue today on Monday 15th March from 13:00 to 23:00 (SGT). We start after lunch with:

• A panel of industry experts on “How open source has helped proliferate blockchain”
• Followed by a keynote about “The State of Hyperledger and Enterprise Blockchain” by Brian Behlendorf, General Manager for Blockchain, Healthcare, and Identity initiatives at the Linux Foundation.

Apart from Blockchain, topics of the third day include open hardware, the LambdaChip, and FreeCAD, Linux desktop apps and building an Open Source webcam.

We will have a session about “Physical Interfaces for Live Coding Music”, and in an online workshop of Mitch Altman we will be practicing soldering with the ArduTouch music synthesizer kit and make music, sound, and noise.

In the Lifelong Learning Institute we are running onsite workshops about Python, Git and data science. You can participate remotely in the dedicated virtual video room.

How can you access the video rooms? Please login to the eventyay summit page and click on the right-side “Join Live Event” button. On the left a side-panel opens. You will see the different video channels of the event listed here as well as the event chat that is open for participants around the clock.

Please also visit our online exhibition where you find information from community partners from across Asia and our sponsors Microsoft, Oracle, MySQL, OpenTAP Keysight, Linux Professional Institute, Elasticsearch, OpnTec, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and many others. We have prepared a video guide to get you started.

FOSSASIA Summit Sessions on Monday, 15 March

Below are the sessions taking place on Monday, March 15 all listed in Singapore timezone (SGT). You can access the online schedule of the day here.

13:00 How open source has helped proliferate blockchain, Gaurang Torvekar, Brian Behlendorf, Eddy Travia, Anson Zeall (Panel 55min)

13:00 Introduction to Python, Ng Jia Xiang; Evangeline Ho Xin Ying; Eric Wang  (Workshop 2h)

14:00 Keynote: The State of Hyperledger and Enterprise Blockchain, Brian Behlendorf (Talk 40min)

16:00 Introduction to Git/ Github, Lam Jun Rong  (Workshop 2h)

16:00 Diem (prev Libra): Open Source Financial Network, Thorsten Neumann (Talk 25min)

16:45 My experience of developing Linux desktop app for scanning QR code, Nguyen Hong Quan (Talk 15min)

17:00 FreeCAD on Steroids, Zheng Lei (郑雷) (Talk 25min)

17:30 Physical/Tangible Interfaces for Live Coding Music, Daniel Wessolek (Talk 25min)

18:00 LambdaChip – A Gate Between Functional Programming and Embedded Devices, Rafael Lee (Talk 25min)

18:30 Building an open-source webcam with a Raspberry Pi for Work, Play, and Education, Huan Truong (Talk 25min)

19:00 Introduction to Data Science, Javier Lim (Workshop 2h)

19:00 Raspberry Pi latest Updates, use cases/trial and more, Masafumi Ohta (Talk 40min)

20:00 Learn to Solder with ArduTouch music synthesizer kit and make music, sound, and noise! Mitch Altman (Workshop 3h)