Making a difference

KOCHI: Programmer Harisankar P S believes in embracing the ‘different’. He is also one of the few advocates of India’s Open Software movement, especially the Ruby programming language. Harisankar, founder of Red Panthers, a Software Solutions in Kochi and his team were recently selected as the only Asians to represent the nation at the Southeast Ruby event in Nashville, TN, USA and Ruby Conf Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia.

According to him, the Ruby language which was founded in Japan, is more simple and programme-friendly and if propogated well can make a wave of difference in the IT industry in India, especially Kerala. “At the moment, countries like the United States of America and Europe are known for their expertise in this field. We have experts in this field too, but India is yet to make it into the world map,” says the Ruby developer.  Harisankar holds frequent workshops for Ruby enthusiasts and students across the state. He has also represented the state at many forums.

 “Most of our engineering colleges are job-oriented and prepare students for computer programming languages like Java and PHP. We need to bring a change in the mindset so that international companies see as quality developers rather than just product outsourcers,” says Harisankar.   Tony Vincent, who also spoke at the Ruby Conf Indonesia is from Arthunkal village in Alappuzha.

He works as a backend developer at Red Panthers Kochi. He has been building web applications using Ruby programming language for the past 2 years and recently developed a passion for Crystal language. Nimmy Vipin has been working at Red Panthers, Kochi for the past one year.

She is interested in open source and attends Open Source Saturdays and Ruby Meetups in Kochi. Nimmy has studied Computer Science and Engineering at Christ Knowledge City, Kochi. When not coding, she spends her time in activist work, blogging and watching south Indian movies.