Akash Santhosh

I'm a computer enthusiast and a network engineering student who started using Debian and other Free Software at the age of 14 when I didn't know what free software was. I love managing servers and self-hosting free software and hobby projects at home. Since 2019, I understood that there is a wider community of Free Software Enthusiasts who share similar ideologies and I joined them. Since then, I have encouraged more and more people to transition and adopt the usage of Free Software, mainly to Debian or Ubuntu. The fact that my words have influenced a lot of people, such as large-scale organizations including an Internet Service Provider company that adopted Debian and Debian-based OSes into their daily machines, made me realize that I am kind of a Free Software Advocate. I have actively participated in the miniDebConfs and DebUstavs in India and made it to the Local Team of DebConf23 Kochi managing logistics, implementing networks and assisting the video team. Meeting the people in Debian, I feel like seeing myself in a mirror, most of them had gadgets in their backpacks like I did, shared similar ideas and had a positive attitude for helping people understand and learn the things they don't know, which made me even closer to the Debian Project. One of my goals is to set up an official Debian mirror for India and one of my interests would be to volunteer for the Debian community team.