Photo of @laktek, by Malinthe

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Janith is on stage alternately demoing and exposing bugs in his bus route app. I know a lot of these guys from online but it’s different when you actually meat. I mean meet. The room does have that warm hacker smell.

As Janith closes, he reiterates that the project is open source and invites everyone to contribute. He say something like, ‘I think it’s something we can all be proud of as Sri Lankans’. I smile. I’m quite happy to be alive.

I’m a geek. I like ideas, I like computers, I like books, I like to play. I’m not a war blogger. That’s just the way things turned out. When I came back to Sri Lanka in 2004 I thought the war was over. I thought the peace process was going to work. It didn’t, and the war just got worse. I’ve been writing about war and politics for six years now, but it’s not me. It’s not who I am. I’m a geek.

Why I’m so happy is that groups like Refresh Colombo are growing and that there are kids on Kottu and all over who are interested in Linux or Android or obscure databases and bits of javascript. That’s cool. That’s how it should be. I pray that kids in the north and east will get the same chance. They are, and they will, though God knows they’ve been disconnected to long. The government isn’t doing right by them by farm, but for the first time in 30 years, they have a chance. We all do.

Before Janith, this great geek came onstage and joked about his unpronounceable name Sivagurunathan Thejomayanantha (@aerobender). He then proceeded to give the most entertaining and enlightening takedown of mobile operating systems I’ve ever heard. Well, I haven’t heard many, but it was good. His name is Tamil, but in that room he was just a geek. On Twitter he says he’s a ‘A KDE Loving, DRM hating Sri Lankan.’ Finally, some acronyms worth debating.

Posted on Friday, July 29th, 2011 in Sri Lanka, Tech.