Free Geek Vancouver/Advertising

Simon Fraser University

These are some avenues for promoting Free Geek on campus:

• Posters: We have many posters advertising recycling computers at the SFPIRG up all over campus.
• Eye in the Sky: In the future, we can have a promotional Power Point slide appear on the TVs all over campus.
• Radio: We could have a Free Geek radio spot or public service announcement played on the SFU radio station. Also on the UBC and Coop Radio stations.
• Clubs Days: Free Geek had a table at the last SFU clubs days.
• Sustainability Fair: There's a sustainability fair on campus this fall. Contact the SFU sustainability office: http://www.sfu.ca/~sustain/

Groups we can coordinate with:

• The Computing Science Student Society
• The Engineering Science Student Society
• The Sun Campus Ambassador
• The Google Campus Ambassador
• The Open Systems Lab: http://costar.sfu.ca/
• A Free Geek club. We have enough signatures for a Free Geek club with student society funding.
• An SFPIRG Technology Action Group. We can start a Technology Action Group, there's lots of interest and support.

As you can see, there's lots of support and money available for events on campus. A challenge of organizing events on campus is students are so busy. There are just too many free pizza events and recruiting fairs. To be worth students interest, we need to have some interesting, valuable information to present, or some fun activities to do.

Getting people involved in Free Geek is hard. There's the work we do, but aside from this activity, what activity is there for volunteers?

Some ideas for activities about which students would give a damn:

• Software workshops. Lots of first years need Linux skills for classes. Give classes on open source programming, ideally in mandarin, and LOTS of students would come! Themes could include installing Linux, using Linux, programming in Python / Perl / PHP, using open source IDEs and finally a "grad level" workshop on contributing to open source projects, open source etiquette, and how to successfully apply to Google's Summer of Code. The SFPIRG is coordinating a workshop series this September we should coordinate with.
• Hackathon. Create a software or hardware project and network students to get involved, say at a 12 hour hackathon.
• Dance party. SFU is not a great location for a dance party because it's up on a hill and people don't usually come here after dark - people get away! But if we have a dance party off campus, what is the relevance to the Free Geek club or Technology Action Group?