Let us
start by the familiar wikipedia definition of what exactly is an Non Governmental Organization
A non-governmental organization or non-governmental organisation in English (NGO) is an organization that is neither a part of a government nor a conventional for-profit business. Usually set up by ordinary citizens, NGOs may be funded by governments, foundations, businesses, or private persons. Some avoid formal funding altogether and are run primarily by volunteers. NGOs are highly diverse groups of organizations engaged in a wide range of activities, and take different forms in different parts of the world. Some may have charitable status, while others may be registered for tax exemption based on recognition of social purposes.
So
what is a post about an NGO doing on this blog focused towards the learning of
technologies and hacking? Well basically, after finishing my graduation and
before applying to universities for further studies or joining any company, as
an Engineer I had so much amount of time that I was desperately trying to be
busy by picking up internships and hacking websites and participating and
getting my name into various Security Hall(s)
Of Fame. While all this happened, I got called to come visit this NGO by a
genius, geeky and a very old neighbor of mine called Sharath Ram Chandra (My thanks
and gratitude to you).
First
Visit
Even
though I value time a lot, my first visit to this place started off pretty bad
with me being about 15-20 minutes late. However, once here, I was received and
introduced to this place called the CIS-India by
Sharath. Further on, I went on to get introduced to the Executive Director
Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Beli (Pardon me if I got any names wrong),
ending up with a small project and an opportunity to conduct pro bono
penetration tests on them.
First
Hack
I
would term my finding vulnerabilities on various places of CIS as a hack,
rather I'd say everything I learn here is a hack. Starting with networking with
people who absolutely do not belong to your domain or understand what you do
and vice versa. I must say, being a person involved with only technology and
nothing more than a bunch of codes with a mind full of ethics and beliefs,
working with a bunch of people making policies to help techies like us to
convert our beliefs into real life practice is probably the MOST
MOTIVATING FACTOR. I am a person who believes in open and free knowledge,
probably would mean that I am a hardcore Wikipedia person, and here I was in CIS, an NGO that worked day and night to
start and improve various communities in Wikipedia and helping out to provide
an Open Media. Anything and everything I saw here would surely keep me
motivated for the rest of my life.
Staff Meeting
I had previously experienced staff meeting in
various internships that I had done. But none of them has been worthy of
talking let alone praising. This staff meeting was held on a conference call
between the New Delhi and Bangalore with everyone having a distraction box with
internet connected to it in front of them. Here was the first time I felt as if
I experienced a motivating leader (Sunil). Starting off the meeting with his
speech about punctuality in a very different and unique way that would only
make one think how much of a burden he/she was to the team in turn making them
guilty conscious without really hurting any feelings. This meeting surely
showed an innovative way of keeping all their persons aware even though almost
everyone present had a laptop connected to the internet. Sunil surely set up
himself as an idol by being I think one of the only persons in the room,
listening and grasping almost everything that was being said in the room. This
meeting was surely a place you could learn a lot about various fields CIS was
working with, technically put I’d call this staff meeting something like the
Internet Relay Chat but only with voice. But really, hats off to
this charismatic leader - Sunil Abraham.
What
I think
CIS is
definitely a small office, but the work culture and the community feeling
between everyone here surely is a wonderful place to be at (I’d actually call
it more like a small home). If you have a mind for Open Internet or Free and
Open Knowledge you should probably volunteer up at CIS and work with all these
wonderful people. Finally, Even though you might feel a bit out of place as a
person working in the core of technologies, I surely think if you are anywhere
close to believing in Hacking or Openness and haven’t volunteered at any place
that is working hard to bringing the world together, you are missing out on a
wonderful experience and probably doing not doing the best thing.