Pakistan’s first Massive Open Online Course launches through an IndieGogo Campaign

Hasan Ijaz, an Electrical Engineer based in Islamabad, has launched an IndieGogo campaign for Pakistan’s first Massive Open Online Course. The course will be available online after mid August, but before officiating the course Hasan wanted to raise more awareness in the public regarding openFrameworks.

What exactly is openFrameworks?

Many of you may not have heard of openFrameworks but it has been around since 2005. It is an opensource toolkit that promotes ‘creative coding’. What is creative coding? You’ll find out soon. openFrameworks has been written in C++ and is compatible with Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS and Android. It assists in your creative process by bringing together OpenCV for computer vision, Poco for networking, rtAudio and OpenAL for audio input/output, GStreamer for video playback and grabbing, OpenGL for graphics and Freetype for fonts.

Is Raspberry Pi a software?

Raspberry Pi is neither a software nor an OS. It is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. But don’t let its size fool you. Raspberry Pi is capable of doing everything a regular-sized computer can do: be it browsing the internet, playing games or making documents. It allows people to explore computing and its ability to interact with the outside world makes it an integral part of this project, in fact, all projects will be done on a Raspberry Pi.

So what has Hasan Ijaz planned for his course? To get a better idea watch this video below!

OF Showreel from openFrameworks on Vimeo.

What this course aims to teach you

If you choose to sign up for this course, you will learn how to make interactive apps like the ones you saw in the video above. The course will start from the bottom, teaching you the very basics. You’ll then be working on real-world projects but before that you’ll learn:

• User Interaction (Camera Interface, Working with Ad-ons)
• Image Processing
• Image/Video IO
• Computer Vision

The four projects that the course offers are:

• Hand Gesture Recognition
• Remote Controlled iP-Camera
• A Swarm of Lights following Motion
• A String of RGB LEDs that follow the mood of a movie

Why you should opt for this course

This course if for anyone who appreciates learning new and creative things. Whether you’re a teacher looking to teach your students new things, a student who wants to get more exposure that would, let’s say, help you your in FYP’s, an entrepreneur hungry for ideas and the right skills or a visual artist looking to broaden his skill set, this course will take you beyond the usual classroom lessons.

This course will give you:

• A lifetime access for a single fee.
• The course’s project based approach guarantees that you will learn a lot.
• You will get to work on several open source projects with free previews.

The course is still looking for funding and if more than 500 people sign up this course will basically be free for everyone! To find out more watch Hasan Ijaz’s campaign video or head on over to the openFramework’s website if you’re still wondering what’s so inspiring about this idea!

Support Pakistan’s first MOOC at IndieGoGo here.