Last Updated on 11th Aug. 2020
[Please note that currently the Misc category of this site is active and has posts related to computer and Internet usage (use Misc link button above to see those posts). The activity on the FOSS projects part and most of the other parts of this site (besides Misc) has been suspended due to lack of time. To see my other websites/blogs & books, please see this ‘About me & my books and blogs’ page – https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/p/about-ravi-s-iyer.html.]
Readers & Visitors are welcome to explore participation in a stress-free and happy, part-time or any-time volunteer role in these “Service to Society” Information Technology Free And Open Source Software (FOSS) projects promoted by Ravi Iyer. The progress in these projects is completely dependent on the contributions made by interested volunteers with Ravi currently playing a Seva coordinator role and, where appropriate, a part-time contributor role.
As the software would be Free And Open Source Ravi hopes that others would, somewhere down the line, play the Seva coordinator role for these and any future such “Service to Society” IT projects. Ravi has no financial profit motive at all in these projects.
Currently only one project is actively being considered which is: Spoken English Application [5th May 2014: This activity has been suspended due to lack of time (as other activities took up and continue to take up my time). Current status (last activity on this seems to have been in December 2011) is that only some very preliminary work has been done which can be seen by visiting the Spoken English menu links (both App. and App. blog links).]
Another project which can be very useful for rural society which may be considered in future is: Rural Agricultural Portal
Ravi’s stint of many years as a volunteer in the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Samithi, Dombivli, Maharashtra has taught him a lot of things about volunteer activity. One very important learning is that there should be no compulsion whatsoever – guys are doing it for free!!! The volunteers have their own jobs & family priorities – the volunteer activity is done when they are free and the motivation is the “feel good” factor and the joy they get out of participation in collective service to society activities. Of course, if the volunteers treat the activity as a service offering to God then there is an all-important, for them at least, spiritual angle to the activity as well.
Ravi feels it will be best to wait & watch and see whether the ideas put forward in this web site catch the enthusiasm of volunteers and take root.
Sathyannaasti Paro Dharmaha
Hindu Scripture
There is no higher way of living than TRUTH.
Karmanyevaadhikaraste Maa Phalesu Kadaachana
Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma te Sangostvakarmani
Bhagavad Geeta: Chapter 2, Verse 47
You have a right to action but do not have desire for the fruit of the action;
Do not let the fruit of the action be your motive, do not get attached to inaction.
[Note that this interpretation of the above famous shloka is based on Gita Vahini by Sri Sathya Sai Baba: http://www.sssbpt.info/vahinis/Gita/Gita05.pdf]
Inshallah!
As is God’s Will!
Allah Maalik!
God is the Master!
raviiyer.org 
Initially I (Ravi Iyer) had not enabled comments on this page. I received some comments over email which I have put down below. In cases where I am not sure whether it is appropriate for me to mention the commentator’s name I have mentioned Anon.
Congratulations and all the very best. I just had a look at the site – will go through it later. – Raj S. Chittar
Hi Ravi, very cool endeavor! My sincere and best wishes for your self-less service projects! – Chandu
Nice to know about your new site. Do keep up the good work!! Heartfelt appreciation for the wonderful work you are undertaking. – Anon.
Congratulations sir, it is a noble endeavour. I just had a first look at it. Very promising. High ideals, high thinking. Rural agricultural portal and Spoken English application. I will be happy to see these ideals bear fruit. I don’t know whether I can be of any help. Time is the greatest factor. But maybe that these can be taken up only as an activity at our leisure. It is my personal viewpoint.
Thank you so much, Rajesh. Your good wishes are very important for me.
And yes you are right, for those persons who are busy with work & family responsibilities, these activities can be taken up only at our leisure.
But for those who do have some spare time these may be interesting options.
Very nice endeavour sir. I wish you the best. Basic lessons in spoken & written english will help the rural folk get better information out of the rural agricultural portal 🙂 … so they are interrelated I guess.
All the Very Best For Your Noble Endeavour Sir.
I Pray To Swami to Give You the Strength and Make it a boon to the Farmers
All the Very Best for the Noble Endevour sir.
I Pray to Bhagawan to Give You the Strength to make it happen.
Sairam.
Thanks funnyfeelsumar S (wonder who you are :-)).
I feel that a rural agricultural portal MUST eventually deliver content in Indian languages like Telugu, though initial versions may be in English only.
Thanks Sailesh. I leave it to Swami’s Will.
Sairam, sir i am happy to see such a noble cause with the help of technology to help the rural, because India is almost the Agricultural land after China, but truly there is no proper guidance or tech support that really would help them out. & hence I am in support of this & also am spreading this to my known friends circle. we never know the ways of Swamy’s working, the help could come from any where. I wish us all the best in achieving a humble & noble cause.
Thank you so much, Suresh. Taking help of technology to help rural society – I think you captured it quite well there.
Ways of Swamy’s working are always wonderful! If the efforts are done with a pure heart and commitment I am quite sure Swamy will send help whenever required.
Sairam, sir, i have doubts to ask :
1) How will this reach the Farmers ?, as they may not have system to access such information or may not know how to operate one or they may not understand how to start.
2) Will they interact through this to this portal for queries & help?
I had seen the spoken English & the Agricultural portals, its really amazing, but who will take this to them (farmers)?
Sir i don’t know if i put relevant questions to ask, but i would like to know, thank you sir SAiram.
Sairam brother,
Thank you for your interest.
1 & part-of-2) As of now nothing is being done on Agricultural portal as I am focusing on Spoken English App. Eventually, God Willing, I will move on to it. At that time initially everything may be in English. So to reach the info. to rural farmers we may need an intermediary who can visit villages like Swami’s mobile hospital van. The intermediary could typically have a wireless laptop on which he can show the portal to farmers, answer those queries for which the portal has info. by accessing those pages (or external links) and, when the portal does not have the info., the intermediary can post the query to an expert who will answer it later on.
These visits of the intermediary can be periodic like the mobile hospital van.
These are just some thoughts now. It is when we start defining the prototype version of agricultural portal that we will start seeing some shape. As of now, I have no idea when I can start on that.
Spoken English-2) The Spoken English app. is meant for rural youth. In the intial version we are aiming for a web application. So the youth will need to have internet access typically from a PC.
For those cases where there is no PC available I really don’t have a solution – mobile van may not make sense for this application.
Eventually we hope to be able to show this application on mobile phones with internet access. Not sure about internet access from mobile cost. If it is reasonable then an internet spoken english app. accessible on mobile Internet will have larger reach.
Hope this answers your questions. If you have some ideas in this regard I would be glad to hear them.
Great beginning to a good idea. Looking forward to collaborate.
Thanks PC Rao brother. But right now I am caught up in other stuff. Hope to get back to Spoken English & FOSS-IT stuff after 3 to 6 months.
Sai Ram Sir . Great beginning and excellent work.
Thanks brother Jaganmohan for your kind words. However, as I wrote at the top of this home page, most of the work on this site has been suspended for lack of time. I am working on my other sites/blogs which are listed in the About Ravi page (menu link is available at the top).