The FOSSEE project is celebrating the FOSSEE Arduino Day from 23 to 25 March 2026. Inviting both school and college students to be a part of India's biggest open-source hardware celebration. Whether, you are a school shaping young innovators or a college building real-world solutions, all are welcome. Give your students hands-on exposure to Arduino and Open-Source Hardware with guidance from the FOSSEE open source hardware team. FOSSEE is providing a platform for college students to showcase their innovation to the nation. Do participate and get the benefits of this unique opportunity! Know more about the event at: https://arduinoday26.fossee.in.

The FOSSEE CFD team conducted a workshop on the Basics of OpenFOAM workshop at Azeotropy 2026-Chemical Engineering Symposium, IIT Bombay on 14th March 2026. Participants learnt how to use OpenFOAM to solve a problem in CFD (a Case). They could simulate and run a Case during the workshop. 75 Chemical Engineering students attended the workshops at the Bytes Lab of IIT Bombay. 

The FOSSEE - eSim  team conducted a half day online workshop on eSim titled eSim Camp on Research Migration – Empowering Open-Source Research in Electronics in collaboration with the Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering (ECE), Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management, Mangaluru, Karnataka. This session focused  on introducing the capabilities of eSim 2.5 and educate the students on the process of migrating any published research work into the open-source simulation ecosystem, using eSim. The session was attended by around 200 students along with the faculty members. This session aimed, to encourage the students to contribute to open source, and build simulation competency aligned with industry standards. 

This initiative aims to encourage students to design and develop open, reproducible hardware solutions addressing real-world challenges in areas such as Healthcare, Energy, Smart Systems, and Sustainable Development, using open-source tools and methodologies.

This hackathon provides students with an opportunity to:

• Work on real-world problem statements using open-source hardware platforms

• Develop functional prototypes with proper documentation

• Learn best practices in open-source licensing and hardware design

• Receive mentorship and guidance from FOSSEE and domain experts

For registration & other details, please visit: https://oshw26.fossee.in.

An eSim Camp was successfully conducted at JSPM's Jayawantrao Sawant College of Engineering, Hadapsar, Pune, Maharashtra on 13 February 2026. Around 100 students from the Electronics and Telecommunications department attended the session.  The camp included a hands-on session on eSim where students gained practical exposure to circuit design and simulation. Various academic, research, and project opportunities that can be explored through eSim were also discussed.  The Principal and the Head of the Department (Electronics and Telecommunication) were also present with their continuous support and encouragement throughout the event. Their guidance and cooperation were instrumental in ensuring the smooth execution of the camp.

The DevConf.IN 2026 was hosted at MIT World Peace University, Pune on 13 - 14 February 2026. The eSim team of FOSSEE project, delivered a session titled “eSim: Building an Open-Source EDA Ecosystem for Education, R&D, and Community Innovation”. The session was attended by around 40 participants. The talk introduced eSim as a fully open-source Electronic Design Automation (EDA) toolchain for analog, digital, and mixed-signal circuit simulation, built on established FOSS tools such as ngspice, KiCad, GHDL, and Verilator. The technical overview of eSim’s architecture, simulation workflows, portability across environments, and its evolving AI-assisted capabilities aimed at improving usability and debugging were also presented in detail. The session also highlighted how open-source EDA tools can support education, research, and community driven innovation, while aligning with national initiatives such as the Indian Semiconductor Mission and broader open digital infrastructure efforts.

The FOSSEE project in collaboration with the Post Graduate Academic Council (PGAC) of IIT Bombay conducted a hands-on workshop on Scilab, a FOSS computational platform used for modelling, simulation and numerical computation. The workshop was conducted in the lecture hall complex of IIT Bombay on Saturday 31 January 2026. This workshop aimed to provide the students with a basic introduction to Scilab. The workshop was conducted using Scilab Spoken Tutorials to ensure effective learning of fundamental concepts. Around 21 post graduate students from various disciplines joined. Prof. Madhu Belur, a Co-PI of the FOSSEE project delivered a talk on the benefits of using open source software, particularly Scilab, instead of proprietary software such as MATLAB. He emphasized on how learning open source tools help students build stronger résumés, improve technical skills, and enhance employment opportunities. A demo of Scilab and the various activities under Scilab was given. The Spoken Tutorial videos of Scilab series were also shared with the students. They were given a detailed walk through on how to use this resource to learn Scilab. Overall, the feedback from participants was positive, and they showed enthusiasm for advanced workshops on Scilab in the future.

A workshop on intermediate and advanced level of OpenFOAM was organised at IIT Bombay on 9 January 2026, following the one day symposium on CFD using OpenFOAM. Prof. Chandan Bose, Project lead of FOSSEE-CFD and the FOSSEE team members conducted the workshop. Dr. Rahul Halder from SISSA Italy presented a demonstration session during the workshop. There were some demonstration as well as hands-on training sessions on OpenFOAM. Around 20 students from IIT Bombay who are using OpenFOAM in their course/ research work attended the workshop.

The one day FOSSEE OpenFOAM Symposium on CFD was conducted on 8 Jan 2026 from 10:30 AM in Aryabhata Seminar Room in the Aerospace Department, IIT Bombay. The symposium was arranged to bring together the OpenFOAm users of the IIT Bombay community. The event was attended by faculty, students and research scholars of IIT Bombay. There were more than 50 participants. Faculty members from various departments presented their work and talked how OpenFOAM was used in their research work. The OpenFOAM faculty lead Prof. Chandan Bose, visiting faculty, Chemical Engineering Department and the FOSSEE CFD team ensured a smooth conduct of the event. 

ANIMATE 2025 was an online Animation Hackathon using Synfig Studio (2D) and Blender (3D), organized by FOSSEE, IIT Bombay. The main objective of this event was to promote the learning and using the two open source software packages: Synfig Studio and Blender. The participants had to create a 2D (using Synfig Studio) or 3D (using Blender) animation video which is less than 3 minutes. All tools used for image creations, manipulation and video editing should be open source software.

Themes for the animation:

Blender (3D):

1. The Future Cityscape:  Envision cities of tomorrow – flying vehicles, vertical gardens, AI-powered infrastructure – bring your version of the future to life in stunning 3D.
2. Mythical Creatures: Dive into folklore and fantasy. Design and animate dragons, phoenixes, mermaids, or creatures of your own imagination.
3. Mechanical Marvels: Robots, steampunk machines, or futuristic gadgets – showcase mechanical brilliance with intricate design

Synfig Studio (2D):

1. Journey of a Hero: Craft a short narrative of a hero's path: challenges, growth, and triumph. Any genre, any setting, your hero, your rules.
2. Cultural Celebration: Highlight traditional festivals, folk dances, local attire, or rituals from around the world. Celebrate culture through vibrant visuals.
3. Nature’s Symphony: Animate the beauty, power, and serenity of nature: flowing rivers, whispering forests, singing birds, or majestic mountains.

The submission date closed on 15 August 2025. Then the submissions were evaluated by a team of experts and the winners were announced. The closing ceremony was held on November 25, 2025 at 5:00 PM. It was attended by the winners and the partners who supported the event. The winners list and other details can be found here: https://animate2025.fossee.in.