The image of a young man sitting patiently at a computer and typing several lines of code is hardly anybody’s idea of an activist. But that is exactly what 26-year-old Sanjay Bhangar — who left college because he found it too boring, does — type code (a computer programme), so that our future generations do not have to fall into the trap of proprietary software.
“I just returned from an open video conferencing in New York, where issues surrounding the importance of open video were discussed. It’s a defining moment for video on the internet today. It is a kind of war between formats and standards,” he said.
The war Sanjay is talking about is not difficult to grasp. Most software we use is proprietary, implying that someone sells it to us. The vision he has is of a world where software is free and open to further improvement and modification by anyone.
A good example of such software is the Firefox internet browser, which is the result of a collaborative effort involving thousands of programmers the world over, including Sanjay.
Sanjay has also been seeking to work on projects that marry technology and interest of the common man. For instance, at Jogeshwari, Sanjay and his coding buddies helped youngsters make a video about their incessant water problems. He is now busy making the video formats on the web user-friendly.
“YouTube pays huge licence fees to use the programme it uses for its videos. If you want to set up a video-sharing website of your own, you can’t afford it,” he explained.
At the heart of his video revolution is pad.ma, a video-archiving website created with fellow programmers where anyone can access video footage for free.
“There is no charge for basic footage, but for high-grade film footage, one can contact the individual film-maker who has uploaded it on pad.ma.”
