During my holidays I made it, among other beautiful stops, to the wonderful city of Esfahan.
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While I was there, Software Freedom Day was being celebrated at the University of Esfahan. I met Ehsan Shahrokhi a day earlier and he gave me the opportunity to give a brief talk at SFD.
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Like all the other experiences I made in the country, it was absolutely fantastic. Everybody was incredibly welcoming, everybody was extremely friendly, very helpful and just wonderful.
I loved the atmosphere there. Everybody was trying hard to contribute something good to the Open Source world. There was a large Ubuntu following and there were people of other parts of the wider community, but there was no bickering, complaining or distro, flavour, editor, or desktop environment wars going on.
Apart from that dedication there were two other things that really impressed me:
- The percentage of women. There were at least 40%-50% of women in the audience. It was just fantastic to see much more women participating than in any other places as I had seen up until now.
- How the event in Esfahan attracted people from all over the country. There were people who drove there from Mashhad, from Tehran and other places. Take a look at a map and see how far it is.
In just one day I made lots of new friends in Esfahan who are all determined to bring something good to the world. People who welcomed me in an incredibly friendly, hospitable way and with lots of good humour. Thanks a lot everybody!
It was easy to promise to come back one day again. 