OpenHack ‘26 is an intensive 8-hour sprint Hackathon for builders and innovators. The event challenges students to collaborate and build impactful solutions to real-world problems using exclusively open-source technologies. Ultimately, it aims to instill software development best practices, emphasizing transparent version control and collaborative workflows. This is a college internal Hackathon. Students from all years are eligible to participate.

Date: 21st August, 2026

This will be the 13th FOSS Meetup of FOSS Mangalore!

Location: CCC, NITK Surathkal

RAGForge: Build Your Own Local AI Knowledge Assistant

Ever wondered how AI can answer questions from your own documents? What if you could run an AI model locally and build an application that can understand and retrieve information from your own data?

RAGForge is a hands-on workshop organized by FOSS-SRM that takes you from the fundamentals of Large Language Models (LLMs) to building your own Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) application.

In this workshop, you will explore how modern AI applications work under the hood and learn how different components come together to create a document-aware AI assistant.

What you’ll explore:

• Understanding Large Language Models (LLMs)

• Running LLMs locally using Ollama

• Working with Qwen

• Processing and chunking documents

• Understanding and generating embeddings

• Storing and retrieving information using vector databases

• Understanding semantic search and retrieval

• Building a complete RAG pipeline

• Integrating the LLM and RAG pipeline into an application

• Creating a user-friendly interface using Streamlit

What you’ll build

By the end of the workshop, you’ll build a local AI knowledge assistant that can take a document, retrieve relevant information from it, and use an LLM to generate meaningful answers to your questions.

The complete pipeline will look like:

Document → Chunking → Embeddings → Vector Database → Retrieval → Qwen → Answer

No prior experience with RAG is required. Basic familiarity with Python and a willingness to learn and experiment is recommended.

This is a hands-on workshop, so bring your laptop, be ready to code, experiment, break things, fix them, and most importantly — build something of your own.

Come curious. Leave with your own AI application.

Organized by FOSS-SRM.

🟢 SUDO REBOOT | BRAND NEW INSTALLATION DAY

Ready to break the default and build your own system? 💻🐧
FOSS CCE presents SUDO REBOOT — a brand-new installation day designed to get you started with Linux, open-source tools, and the FOSS community.
What’s happening? 🚀

🐧 Linux Installation Drive
🗺️ OpenStreetMap Collaboration
🔎 Treasure Hunt
📸 Photo Contest
No prior Linux experience needed.
Just bring your laptop and leave with Linux! 🐧💚

EVENT POSTPONED! New date and time will be shared soon!

📍 Venue : Room no 509, Chavara Block, Christ College of Engineering, Irinjalakuda, Thrissur - 680125

REGISTER NOW ⏬
🔗 RSVP: https://fossunited.org/c/christ-college-of-engineering/sudo-reboot/rsvp
☞ No prior Linux experience needed.
✯ Just bring your laptop and leave with Linux! 🐧💚

Coordinators

• G. Varun (S3 CS - C): +91 90480 35588

• Geo George (S5 CS - B): +91 7356574859

Break the default. Build your own system. 💚
#SudoReboot #FOSSCCE #Linux #OpenSource #LinuxInstallation #FOSS #CCE #OpenStreetMap #LinuxCommunity

The Maintainer Summit is a dedicated event for open-source and open-commons maintainers to get together and discuss their perspectives before IndiaFOSS. This is an unconference-style event, which means the schedule of sessions is decided upon by the attendees at the venue.

There will be a few relevant sessions for Indian Maintainers (think sustainability, grants, burnout, community) but the bulk of the schedule will be left open for the attendees. If your team would like to spend some time before IndiaFOSS to work together, we will have the space to make that happen as well.

1. This is an unconference, so scheduling will be fluid and happen at the venue.

2. Internet & Lunch will be available at the venue.

3. You can spend your time working with your colleagues as well, we will have space available for the same.

4. Please reach on time. Since this is an unconference, you don't know what you'll be missing by reaching late.

5. If you can't make it to the event, please let us know over email.
   

The organizing team is there to provide the support structure, the maintainers make the summit. This is a maintainer only event. As long as you are a core maintainer for a mid-large open-source or open-commons project, please apply. If you are unsure that you qualify - please apply.

This event is a continuation of Maintainer Meetups we've been organising throughout the year, see thread here for more details. Reach out to maintainers@fossunited.org for any clarifications.

Venue: Samagata Foundation, Church Street

MangaloreFOSS is FOSS United Mangalore Chapter's Flagship event.