On September 15, 2007 , the whole world shall celebrate the third annual Software Freedom Day (SFD). SFD (as briefly described in softwarefreedomday.org – its official website) is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

Local teams from around the world are organizing events for that special day. For the local SFD celebration in the NCR, Philippines; the UP Linux Users' Group (UnPLUG) , Computer Professionals' Union (CPU) and the Association for Computing Machinery – UP Student Chapter (UP ACM) have decided to collaborate.

The Philippine Emerging Startups Open (PESO) Challenge 2007 is a business plan competition among technology ventures that fosters innovation and marketing skills of its participants. Not only cash prizes awaits its winners but a chance to be a part of a network of industry professionals.

In relation to this, PESO Inc., in cooperation with the University of the Philippines Association for Computing Machinery (UP ACM) would like to invite your department/organization to a talk on the PESO Challenge 2007 to be held at Classroom 1 of the the College of Engineering Library II and Computer Science Building on the 11th of September, 10:00 A.M.

To know more about the PESO Challenge, you can visit the contest website at http:// www.pesochallenge.org

Please confirm your attendance by sending your representatives' name to Vanie Castro at vaniecastro@acm.org.

Thank you very much and see you there!

KISSS (Knowledge, Information, and Skills Sharing Sessions), now on its third year, is the tie-up event of the UP Cursor (UP Association of Computer Science Majors) and UP ACM (UP Association for Computing Machinery). It aims to give free tutorials to any interested students, especially incoming UP Diliman freshmen and Computer Science students.

This year’s KISSS was spearheaded by Heads Jennylyn Sze (UP ACM) and JC Borja (UP CURSOR) with their Co-Heads Cez Castro and Mark Roxas (UP CURSOR). The event was sponsored by the Adobe Users Group-Philippines. The tutorials were held at the new CS Building’s Teaching Lab 3 on two consecutive Saturdays, June 23 and 30, from 8:00 am to 5:00pm. Two sessions were held for each day. An hour was allotted for registration before every session, after which the session itself consumed 3 hours. Each session had about 30 participants. Most of the participants were CS Freshies. There were also participants from other colleges and universities such as ADMU and DLSU.

June 23, 2007. The morning session’s topic was HTML and CSS, with Jeune Asuncion, a member of UP Cursor, as the instructor. The afternoon session on Blender 3D animation was conducted by Michelle Ongkingco, a UP ACM Alumni. She was assisted by Michael Chua, a Computer Science Major, and Abbi Cabanding, Records Head of UP ACM. Unfortunately, the projector was unavailable for this session, but the tutorial was still able to continue successfully.

June 30, 2007. The Flash tutorial was conducted by Ms. Kiran Budrani, an instructor in the IT Department of the College of Computer Studies and a member of the Adobe Users Group. The Photoshop tutorial had Noel Perlas as its instructor. He is the creative director of Perlas Design Studio and concurrently the creative manager for Novare Technologies . He is also a member of the Adobe Users Group.

Finally, a raffle was held after the Photoshop tutorial, which marked the end of the event. 4 ball pens, 1 cap, 2 shirts, 1 usb mouse, and 1 usb cellphone charger were given away in the raffle. These Adobe items were provided by Reynard Kreisler C. Raquedan, user group manager of the Adobe User Group-Philippines.

This coming June 23 and 30, 2007, UP ACM, together with the UP CURSOR will conduct Knowledge, Information, and Skills Sharing Sessions(KISSS). It is a free tutorial which is aimed to benefit the incoming UP Diliman freshmen, Computer Science students, and everyone else from UP and other schools who would be interested to join. Now on its third year, the topics that will be included in the tutorial are Flash, Photoshop, Blender, and HTML/CSS.

See you there!

The UP ACM would like to call for volunteers for the DCS moveout. Our education head mentioned the benefits the most appealing of which include FREE FOOD and PARTY for volunteers. The work is FLEXIBLE meaning you do not need to allocate your whole day for volunteer work and are not required to come everyday. Aside from these, as a UP ACM member, this will be credited to you and you will receive POINTS which can be used for member benefits. Please do contact Jen or reply to her e-mails for more details.

Thank you.

Last Monday, 19th January, the Microsoft Student Partners in partnership with Association for Computing Machinery - UP Student Chapter and UP Education Society held the Launch of Vista and Office 2007, an Event at UP (LOVE@UP), a Vista Campus Launch, at the Engineering Theater, College of Engineering, Melchor Hall. More than 160 students from different colleges attended the event.