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Two Public Software workshops organised in Bangalore and Jaipur have provided new resources on public software and its imperative for the public sector.

The Report on the South India Regional Workshop on 'Software Principles for the Public Sector, with Focus on Public Education, held in Bangalore, on 1-2 Feb, 2010, highlights public sector principles of universal access to public goods, social justice and equity and their implications for software architecture and design. The key document from the workshop is Guiding Principles for Public Software. Other resources related to the workshop are Concept Note on Public Software, Case Studies on Public Software,  Presentations and Notes of Resource Persons. The Concept Note is also available in Kannada. The event was co-organized by UNESCO, e-Governance Department, Department of Public Instruction and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Government of Karnataka), Karnataka Jnana Aayoga (Karnataka Knowledge Commission) and IT for Change (ITfC).

The second workshop organised as part of a series of events throughout India on public software and its imperative for the public sector - Workshop on “Public Software for Social Sector – Principles and Practice”, held in Jaipur on 25 Feb, 2010.

The following documents are available: the workshop Concept Note, the Session Plan, IT@Schools Presentation and Internet Awareness Programme for Grassroots Organisations Presentation. The Concept Note is also available in Hindi.
Representatives from NGOs, academic institutions, government, schools and colleges attended the conference, which promoted awareness about the advantages of Public Software amongst those who have not heard about FOSS or have inhibitions adopting it; addressed the perceptions of people who are aware of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to appreciate the benefits of public software over proprietary software; and helped people/institutions who are convinced about the imperative for public institutions to adopt public software to adopt it.  The concept note and session plan are available at the Public Software Website. The workshop was co-organised by Digantar with UNESCO, Knowledge Commons, Digital Empowerment Foundation and IT for Change.

 

A innovative way to learn and teach free software involved 169 students from public schools in Kerala, who participated in a festival organised by IT@School Project, government of Kerala and the Technopark, in January 2010. The students were assessed on their IT skills through a series of  competitions based on the free software platform. They presented their projects using various IT tools like movies, graphics and web applications.

Education Minister M.A. Baby, Unesco Education Programme Specialist for South Asia Cecilia Barbieri, M.A. Vahid, MLA, Director of Public Instruction Mohammed Hanish, United Nations ICT for Development Community resource person Rajen Varada and IT for Change director Gurumurthy Kasinathan were present at the function in which IT awards for schools were distributed. The Hindu covered the event.

“Namma Debian” is the name of the Kannada version of GNU/Linux Operating System released during a cultural event on 14 March, 2010 in Bangalore at the Ambedkar Community Computing Centre or AC3, based in a community of slum dwellers. The launch of the operating system was organized by the local members in partnership with FSMK. There were a variety of activities including a demonstration of Namma Debian (with games, image manipulation tools etc), speeches of local kids, journalists and people who experienced accessibility Softwares, local dance and music presentations. Read More at Ideas are Immortal Blog.

Delegates of the National Free Software Conference, hosted by the Free Software Movement of Karnataka(FSMK) on 20-21 March 2010, in Bangalore, announced the formation of the National Free Software Movement of India. The event brought together 1,500 participants (IT professionals, students, Lecturers, and representatives of Public Sector institutions, Free and Open Source Companies) from 10 States across the country to raise awareness on the technical and social aspects of Free Software in the country showcasing the opportunities in the Free Software arena. The National Coalition lauched at the conference began with 16 movements in its fold. It aims at taking Free Software and its ideological implications to computer users “across the digital divide” and to different flows of science and research. The group also intend to work on policy domains. Read More in The Hindu.

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