FLOSS in the developing countries (a study)

OneWorld Finland and KEPA
organise an International Seminar on
Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in Developing Countries

Thursday, May 22nd , 2003

At The Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration – Hanken

Auditorium Maximum, II floor
Arkadiank. 22, Helsinki.

Free/Libre and Open Source Software in Developing Countries – advantages and
obstacles

PROGRAMME

09.30 Opening of the Seminar

09.45 *Niranjan Rajani *(Researcher, Finland): Presentation of the report /
Free as in Education: Significance of Free/Open-Source Software for
Developing Countries/

10.15 *Edgar Villanueva Nunez* (Congressman, Peru): /
Legal and Other Experiences in Promoting FLOSS in Peru/

11.15 *Sinikka Sassi,* (Professor of network communication, Helsinki
University) &* Seppo Koskela *(Analyst, Helsinki University):
/Presentation of the Applied Linux Institute Project/

11.30/ Floor open for discussion/

*12.30. – 13.30 Lunch* (Available in Hanken Lunch Room, or surrounding
restaurants)

13.30 *Nico Coetzee* (Open Source Developer, South Africa):/
Sustainable ICT Development in Africa ^… How FLOSS can help NEPAD/

13.50 *Fredrick Noronha* (Journalist, India):/
LIBERATION TECHNOLOGY: What Free Software could do for Asia…/

14.20 *Cesar Brod *(/ /IT Manager, Brazil): /
Free Software and regional development/

14.40 *Claudio Cesar Carvalho de Almeida* (Brasilian Bank for Social and
Economic Development) /
Free Software as a Policy/

15.00 /Floor open for discussion/

/The Seminar is Free and Open for Public/

The Report

/Free as in Education: //Significance of Free/Open-Source Software for
Developing Countries /

/*More information */

About the research project and the seminar itself:/
/ juha dot rekola at kepa dot fi/
/ timo dot mielonen at maailma dot net/
A/bout the Applied Linux Institute Project:
seppo dot koskela at helsinki dot fi/

The Speakers

The Peruvian Congressman,* *

*Dr. Edgar Villanueva Nuuez*

has recently become somewhat of a celebrity in the Free Software and Open
Source communities as a result of his legislative efforts
favouring free software and his highly
publicized , well
informed and eloquent response
to a Peruvian
Microsoft executive's letter

.

*Niranjan Rajani *

is the main author of the research “Significance of Free/Libre Open-Source
Software for Developing Countries”.

*Cesar Brod*

is presently the IT Manager in Univates University
, and one of the coordinators of the Free Software
Project of the State of Rio Grande do Sul and a member of the Linux Around
the World initiative. Cesar Brod got first involved with GNU/Linux in 1993
when he needed a “Unix” that he could use in his computer in order to
emulate problems he was having in a System V based machine.

*Fredrick Noronha*

Goa (India)-based journalist, who is co-founder of Bytes For All
– a collaborative venture studying the use of
IT and Internet for development in South Asia, and also founder member of
India-Linux Users Group-Goa.

*Nico Coetzee*

a full time Open Source developer in South Africa, is always tinkering with
some obscure Open Source code, trying to make life a bit easier. It all
started in 1995, just shortly after the official launch of Windows 95. Since
then he has started to focus on Perl development, because “it's simply the
most flexible and easy to learn language out there…”. In his research
capacity, he looked at the Open Source movement in Africa, as well as what
needs to change (from his perspective) in order for Africa to become a IT
world player.

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