Cept University hosts Free Culture Roadshow

Cept University on Friday hosted a Free Culture Roadshow on its premises here, which was addressed by three guest speakers from the US - Elizabeth Stark, Ben Malkowitz and Dean Janson.

The speakers are on a tour to India in order to promote talks on 'Free Culture', that could be created online and which meant a freedom of exchange and expression. The event began at 5 pm and ended in a two-hour session in support of the idea of a video alliance, a mention of the remake films happening in modern day and also of the fact that more universities can upload their educational works online and make it freely accessible for all.

"The concept is good for society and the idea is to promote Free and Open Source Software," said Elizabeth Stark, a student of Harvard Law School and a cultural activist.
She spoke about the idea of a Creative Commons, which is primarily focused on the idea of sharing a person's work with friends only for non-commercial purposes.

"You have the power to change things on the internet and I look forward for more free culture to happen, so that more videos and other works can be shared online," she said.
Stark also emphasised the fact that internet enabled volunteers to create the wikipedia and to edit it. She asked the audience to try their hand at editing it.

The event was jointly organised by professor Pratyu Shankar of the Cept University and a varsity student, Mustaqeel Khan.

Ben Malkowitz, a member of the Open Video Alliance, and Dean Janson, an artist, elaborated on the techniques of accessing videos and making them freely available to everyone.

Janson also spoke about how culture is getting affected by elements that are already there, and cited an example of how a group of people from Malegaon came out with a film, 'Malegaon Ke Sholay', by using their own techniques and methods of making the film.