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ICT4D

ICT for Development

Entries Tagged as 'FOSS'

The German Government via its Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) released a call to fund research partnerships between German Research institutions and partners in Subsaharan Africa. One of the main goals is to build  African ICT study courses and to fund exploratory measures / pilot measures in  “Applied information and communication technologies (ICT)”  via German-African research partnerships.

If you are a German institution and looking for educational partners in Africa for the call, please check the network “ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Africa”. Through this African expert network, you will have access to over 500 ICT multiplier all over Africa, which work at universities, training institutions and other educational institutions as well as the business community.

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GIZ contributes by its programme ict@innovation to the 5th African Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons (Idlelo 5) as an integral part of the cooperation with FOSSFA and a contribution to the development of ICT in Africa. As such we will be hosting several sessions including workshops on community empowerment, African FOSS business models, a bootcamp on Linux system administration (together with Linux Professional Institute of Nigeria) as well as an award for “The Best FOSS Business Innovation in Africa”.

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The programme ict@innovation of GIZ and FOSSFA  is proud to announce the first regional Training of Trainers on “Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Business Models” in Western Africa to be held in Abuja, Nigeria, from October 24 to November 4, 2011. This Training of Trainers is designed to enable interested people, institutions and businesses to act as trainers on the subject of building a business with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). It follows-up on a series of training programmes in Southern and East Africa, which have formed the “African FOSS Business Models (FBT) community” of http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net/.

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GIZ’s Volker Lichtenthäler in discussion with Dr Robert Kisusu of "The Local Government Training Institute of Tanzania" and another visitor of the GIZ stand.“Quality, open innovation and the GC21 E-Academy” – these themes have been at the core of GIZ’s engagement at eLearning Africa, the continents largest conference on ICT for development, education and training. The ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)’ reached out to the more than 1700 participants from all over the world gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from May 25 to 27.

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Trainer Trust at the second Linux Admin Training of Trainers workshop of ict@innovation The second Linux Admin Training of Trainers workshop of ict@innovation just ended in Jo-hannesburg, capacitating 18 more Linux Trainers from South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Malawi. A majority of the IT-experts got immediate proof of their skills upgrade: They passed the international certificate of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification (LPI 101), which enables them to spread Linux Admin Training in their countries.
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I had the good fortune to participate in three fascinating events this month, all with overlapping themes that matter to Kabissa but taking different approaches and targeting different communities. If you were at one of these events, I’d like to invite you to check out the other ones and look for collaboration opportunities. Please also join Kabissa, add your organizations working in Africa to the Kabissa directory and introduce yourself in the groups. (crossposted from Kabissa ICT Peer Learning group) [Read more →]

Yesterday, I took the opportunity of talks at the working group on “innovative business models” to do the “Berlin Launch” of our open training material “ict@innovation: Free your IT-Business in Africa!”, which showcases innovative business models in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that work in Africa. All 20 books were gone in a second, but unlimited copies are available at http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net/node/4252. The handbook includes numerous successful business models suited to the African context, such as Software Selection, Software Installation, FOSS Training, Maintenance and Support, Software / Systems Migration, Consultancy, Software Localization and Internalization, FOSS Customization as well as Technical / Legal Certification. Eight in-depth case studies of successful African IT-businesses give concrete avenues for Free and Open Source business models that work in Africa.

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Jon “maddog” Hall, the international open source expert and elder statesman of the programming community, just published a comprehensive piece on IT / open source training and Linux certification in Africa. The blog entry on the LPI site talks about the Linux Admin certification programme of  ict@innovation.
Source: Picture by "Flyhighplato" on Wikipedia.orgict@innovation is a partnership between FOSSFA (Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa) and InWEnt – Capacity Building International (Germany) and is funded by  the German Ministry Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).
For more, see Johns blog titled “Open Source Lights Up Darkest Africa“.  Thanks, Jon!

Photo by ”Flyhighplato” on Wikipedia.org, see cc licence there.

FLOSS –  (auch) in D. scheint die Lobbyarbeit von proprietär orientierten IT-Firmen Früchte zu tragen, s. dazu den aktuellen Artikel:

http://www.silicon.de/cio/wirtschaft-politik/0,39038992,41532861,00/politiker+und+open+source+toelpel+oder+lobby_opfer.htm

Anbei ein kurzes Update zum Start von  ”Idlelo 4“, das ist die alle zwei Jahre stattfindende Konferenz der Afrikanischen Open Source Community – wir sind über das Programm “ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa” mit dabei … BG Balthas, InWEnt.
This years Idlelo conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons is taking place from  May 17th – May 21st, 2010 in  Accra, Ghana. The IDLELO Conference, themed „Development with Ownership“, is a premier international forum on Free and Open Source Software in Africa and is therefore an especially important event for any ICT programme. It presents the opportunity to discuss new issues, tackle complex problems and find advanced enabling solutions able to shape new trends in FOSS and related technologies on the African continent. For ict@innovation, contribution to the conference is an integral part of the cooperation with FOSSFA and a contribution to the development of ICT in Africa. As such we will be hosting several sessions including pre-conference FOSS business training.
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The regional Open Source gathering “Asia Source 3″ in the Philippines in November 2009 was a culminating point of five years of regional FOSS support by InWEnt in Southeast Asia. Over this period, InWEnt has trained and connected more than 1000 experts from Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines in more than 30 training courses under its it@foss program. While most technology conferences happen as swanky, slick, and well-rehearsed events, Asia Source 3 took the opposite track and ran a camp that was spartan yet spontaneous. From November 7 to 12, 2009, Asia Source 3 gathered 150 representatives in the Yen Center to discuss developments in open source. For those six days, the campers lived in a communal environment that married fun and relaxation with exchange of ideas.

For more information on Asia Source 3 and it@foss, see http://www.it-foss.org/e82/e237/NewsDetail750/index_eng.html

Liebe KollegInnen, letzten Monat habe ich unter dem Titel FOSS – Ein Thema für die Privatwirtschaftsentwicklung in Partnerländern? eine Präsentation im Kompetenzfeld Privatwirtschaftsentwicklung und Wirtschaftspolitik (gtz Zentrale) gehalten, u.a. mit Zahlen zu Job-Creation durch FOSS in Europa und Links zur “Nawi-Wirkungskette” (siehe Anhang). Über Kommentare/ Feedback und Input freue ich mich, auch über Mitstreiter, um die noch weitere Links zwischen Privatwirtschaftsentwicklung und FOSS zu finden. BG Balthas

Dear ICT4D community. Please find below a call for participation in our Training of Trainers on “African FOSS Business Models”. Thanks in advance for sharing with partners and friends. Cheers, Balthas (InWEnt).

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Wanted: Future trainers on “Free & Open Source Business Models for Africa” in East and Southern Africa!

Application Deadline is May 30, 2009.

- Are you interested in building a successful business in Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), and in helping others to do the same?

- Do you have a solid background in business and FOSS?

- Do you have experience in training others, and/or are you part of a training institution?

Then respond by MAY 30 to become part of an exciting training programme on building businesses with Free/Open Source Software.

The call for participants in the Training of Trainers is now open at http://ict-innovation.fossfa.net/call.

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Telepolis hat gerade einen interessanten Hintergrundartikel zum Thema Free and Open Source Software in Afrika online gestellt: Freie Software, freies Afrika?

Was ich zum Anlass nehme, hier als Einführung kurz ein Projekt vorzustellen, das in dem Artikel u.a. erwähnt wird: ict@innovation – Creating Business and Learning Opportunities with Free and Open Source Software in Africa – Mehr online unter  http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net - bei Interesse kann man sich auch hier registrieren. Mehr zu den InWEnt-Projekten im Bereich ICT4D ist auf http://www.inwent.org/it-inwent/ - wir freuen uns über Feedback & Anknüpfungsmöglichkeiten. Ansonsten: vielen Dank nochmals für das Öffnen des Blogs für alle DOs (siehe Post vom 12.12.2008)! Balthas, InWEnt.

Talking about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), did you know that the German Federal Foreign Office (AA) actually uses a Debian-based operating system on its 11.000 computers world-wide? All embassies are connected via a secured intranet and MS-Windows only runs on those systems within a virtual software environment to provide MS-Office functionality to those documents the OpenOffice suite still has problems* with. [Read more →]

A number of leading developers have left the OLPC initiative recently – probably due to Negropontes’ mismanagement. A look at Ivan Krstić post shows a number of staggering problems, e.g. the deployment problem:
“(…) now the company has half a million laptops in the wild, with no one even pretending to be officially in charge of deployment.”

Looks like OLPC will run into huge problems this year…

Der Einsatz von Open-Source-Software kann diffizile Rechtsfragen mit sich bringen. Fremdentwickelten Code aus dem Internet zu beziehen, ist heute eine leichte Übung. Daraus können sich allerdings urheberrechtliche Fragen mit daraus folgenden rechtlichen Konsequenzen ergeben. Freie Software und/oder OSS kann durchaus bedeuten „Free as in ‚freedom’, not as in ‚free beer’“ (Richard Stallmann). 

Eine Art OS-Risikomanagement muss her …, die entsprechende Lektüre dazu: „Der virale Effekt“ als kostenlosen Download unter
                                                                    http://www.uvka.de/univerlag/volltexte/2007/242

An dieser Stelle ein wenig Eigenwerbung. Ich hatte die Möglichkeit in der Zeitschrift “Internationale Politik” (dem Politologen-Olymp) ein Artikel über web2.0 und EZ zu schreiben. Hier ein kleiner Auszug und der Rest im Artikel anbei. Über Feedback, Kritik und Anregungen würde ich mich freuen. Bedaure der Artikel ist leider nicht in Englisch.

Wie das kollaborative Web 2.0 die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit herausfordert – und warum das eine Chance für Entwicklungsorganisationen ist

Mit seiner mittlerweile mehr als einer Milliarde Nutzern ist das Internet auch zur globalen Plattform für radikal neue Formen der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit geworden: Wer Hilfe braucht, sucht sich seine Geber selber im Netz. Traditionelle Entwicklungsorganisationen können von dieser neuen Dynamik, die von ganz alleine wächst, viel lernen.

Adyaka, ein Dorf im Herzen Ugandas, braucht eine neue Berufsschule. Doch keiner der 4000 Einwohner weiß, wie man einen Business Plan dafür entwickelt; bisher wurde ihnen auch nicht vom Staat geholfen. Also haben sich die
Bewohner von Adyaka ihren eigenen Weg gesucht. Sie wandten sich per Internet an die ganze Welt und baten um Unterstützung für ihr Dorf. Über das globale Nachbarschaftsnetzwerk Nabuur.com erarbeiten jetzt Freiwillige mit den
Dörflern zusammen den Business Plan. Und Adyaka ist nicht allein. Den zurzeit 150 auf Nabuur.com Unterstützung suchenden Gemeinden stehen 10 000 Ehrenamtliche gegenüber, die je nach Bedarf ihre Expertise anbieten. In dieser
webbasierten Nachbarschaftshilfe diskutieren Menschen aus aller Welt über Entwicklungsansätze, erarbeiten Konzepte und bekommen unmittelbares Feedback über die Erfolge und Schwierigkeiten bei der Umsetzung. Nabuur ist nur eine von vielen Plattformen und neuen Web-Akteuren, die in den letzten Jahren entstanden sind. Ihren Ansätzen ist eines gemeinsam: Sie nutzen das Potenzial der Vernetzung durch das Internet, um neue Ideen für Entwicklung voranzutreiben. Entwicklungsorganisationen sehen sich hier mit einer neuen Dynamik konfrontiert. Im Konzept der Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe wird die Rolle der Betroffenen neu definiert: Sie suchen sich die Geber selber aus.

Gesamter Artikel: original_ip_12_kreutz.pdf

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of working at the Water Resources Management Authority in Embu, Kenya, as a short term consultant on behalf of the GTZ Water Sector Reform Program (WSRP). My main job was to install and maintain a hydrological database software which provides the modeling of the water discharge in Tana River – Kenya’s longest river. [Read more →]

In his keynote during the Open Source Summit in Las Vegas this autum, Mark Driver, Vice President of GartnerGroup, strongly worded: “You can try to avoid Open Source, but it’s probably easier to get out of the IT business altogether. By 2011, at least 80% of commercial software will contain significant amounts of open source code”. Read more at networkworld