Title: Government project targets exclusive use of OSS for all government agency websites in 2012
Source: Open Source Observatory & Repository Europe
Publisher: European Comission
Date (published): 14/10/2011
Date (accessed): 17/10/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"The government of Paraguay has embarked on an ambitious project with the aim to implement on an exclusive basis open source software (OSS) in all government agencies in 2012.

Nicolás Caballero, IT Coordinator for the Office of the President of the Republic of Paraguay was quoted by a local newspaper as saying: "The first and most evident aim is to save resources." He noted that the saved resources can be allocated to other areas and that assessments performed by the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare foresee savings of about $ 4 million (approx. € 2.9 million) for the ministry alone.

Mr Caballero added that the objective is to achieve full OSS use in 2012 and to attain technological autonomy where the government decides what software is to be used and how. He ensured that with the implementation of OSS, spending will be restricted to the training of civil servants. The Public Administration Secretariat and the National Career Development Service (SNPP) are tasked with carrying out training.

The project is being led by 25 people, excluding experts and all stakeholders involved.

Mr Caballero concluded by stressing that similar initiatives have been spreading in various countries worldwide. He mentioned the case of the French Police, which use 85 000 computers with free software (word processing, spreadsheet processing, etc)."

Title: Open-source cell phone network could cut costs to $2 per month
Author: Michael Riggs
Source: e-Agriculture
Date (published): 05/08/2011
Date (accessed): 11/08/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Think what this could mean in the developing world, in remote areas and in rural locations where the population density is too low for current mobile operators to invest.

According to the team behind OpenBTS, this cellular network can be installed and operated at about 1/10 the cost of current technologies, but is still compatible with most of the handsets that are already in the market. The technology can also be used in private network applications. It has already been tested in the physically challenging environment of the Nevada (USA) desert and on the island of Niue.

Read more on Engineering for Change at http://bit.ly/oNTCvR or NetworkWorld at http://bit.ly/orai2p

For technical information, source code and more, see the Knowledge Base reference or go directly to the source at http://openbts.sourceforge.net/."

Title: Open Source Effort Will Deliver Low-Cost Wi-Fi for All
Author: Katherine Noyes
Source: PCWorld
Date (published): 05/08/2011
Date (accessed): 11/08/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"One of the great things about open source software is that it doesn't just bring a wealth of benefits to businesses. Rather, by making low-cost, high-quality software widely available to everyone, it also has the potential to change lives around the world.

Most of us are familiar with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) effort to put low-cost computer hardware in the hands of the world's poorest people, but a like-minded project that's less well-known aims to do something similar with Internet access.

The goal is to develop low-cost, open source Wi-Fi software, and on Wednesday Geeks Without Frontiers--an initiative of the not for-profit Manna Energy Foundation--announced the final development of just such a solution.

'Millions More People'
Facilitated by a grant from the Tides Foundation, the new open80211s (o11s) technology will enable the development and rollout of large-scale mesh Wi-Fi networks for roughly half the cost of a traditional network, says Geeks Without Frontiers. Designed to use existing hardware to minimize cost and maximize availability, it's expected to be particularly important in areas where legacy broadband models are currently considered to be nonviable economically.

Built primarily by Cozybit, the technology is managed by Geeks Without Frontiers and I-Net Solutions and sponsored by Google, Global Connect, Nortel, OLPC and the Manna Energy Foundation.

“By driving down the cost of metropolitan and village scale Wi-Fi networks, millions more people will be able to reap the economic and social benefits of significantly lower cost Internet access,” explained Michael Potter, one of the founders of the Geeks Without Frontiers initiative."

Title: Pan-African training guide on Linux System Administration
Source: FOSSFA & GIZ
Date (published): July 2011
Date (accessed): 10/08/2011
Type of information: guide
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"Training Guide on Linux System Administration, LPI Certification Level 1, Supporting African IT-enterprises to get Open Source skills and certification on level 1 of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification

INTRODUCTION BY FOSSFA AND GIZ
“How do I know that this IT company from Kampala will be able to maintain my IT server infrastructure?” asks a contract-giving government agency in Uganda. The answer lies in a trust-building certification, a crucial ingredient of any economic development agenda. Therefore, FOSSFA and GIZ are proud to present “ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration - LPI Certification Level 1”. The guide is part of “Linux Certification in Africa - the ict@innovation Training of Trainers Programme”. It aims to help African small and medium IT-enterprises (SMEs) involved in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to improve the quality of their services offered as well as the level of trust of customers through certification of their FOSS skills.
The ict@innovation programme builds capacities in African small and medium ICT enterprises to make a business with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). ict@innovation aims to encourage the growth of African ICT industries, through three main actions: spreading FOSS business models for enterprises, fostering FOSS certification and supporting innovative local FOSS applications for social and economic development. ict@innovation is a partnership of FOSSFA (Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Germany [until 2011: InWEnt, now part of GIZ].
We hope that the “ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration - LPI Certification Level 1” together with the associated training-of-trainers scheme will contribute to remove a major barrier against adoption and deployment of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in sub-Saharan Africa: the lack of human resources with FOSS skills demonstrated by recognized certificates.
In order to support a wide range of capacity needs and training environments in Africa, the training material and the training-of-trainer programme builds on the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) Certification as a world-wide recognized distribution and vendor-neutral standard for evaluating the competency of Linux professionals with the possibility to hold low-cost paper-based examinations.
The “ict@innovation: Training Guide on Linux System Administration - LPI Certification Level 1” has been released under an open licence (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License) allowing for free distribution, remixing and updating of the material. Our goal is thereby to empower local African training institutions to offer low-cost trainings. And we are looking forward to further building and updating of this Training Guide in the spirit of sharing and mutual capacity building."

Title: Announcing Ushahidi v2.1 (Tunis)
Author Editor: Emmanuel Kala
Source: blog.ushahidi.com
Date (published): 09/08/2011
Date (accessed): 10/08/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Ushahidi, Inc. is a non-profit software company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping.
Ushahidi (Swahili for "testimony" or "witness") created a website in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election (see 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis) that collected eyewitness reports of violence sent in by email and text-message and placed them on a Google map.[2]
The organization uses the concept of crowdsourcing for social activism and public accountability, serving as an initial model for what has been coined as 'activist mapping' - the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geospatial information. Ushahidi offers products that enable local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the internet, while simultaneously creating a temporal and geospatial archive of events. See Wikipedia

"After months of hard work and the hard work of the community we are pleased to announce the release of version 2.1 (Tunis) of the Ushahidi platform
...
New Release Features:

Powerful Reports Filter
This is perhaps the most salient feature in this release and also one of the biggest asks that the community has been persistent about for quite sometime. The new faceted reports page allows a user to filter reports using one or a combination of the following parameters:
* Report Categories
* Date when reports were submitted
* Location radius e.g. x kilometers from a given point
* Channel via which the reports have been submitted (Web Form, SMS, Twitter or Email)
* Media contained in the reports e.g. photos, video or news source links
* Verification status (i.e. Verified and/or Unverified)
* Also bundled with the new reports page is an option to toggle between list view and map view..."

Title: Gender Equality in Free and Open Source Software
Source: Wikigender
Date (published): 22/07/2011
Date (accessed): 01/08/2011
Type of information: wiki post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Gender Equality is one of UNESCO’s global priorities, together with Africa. Within this framework, UNESCO seeks to promote women empowerment and to mainstream gender in all UNESCO policies, strategies and programs.
UNESCO’s believes that the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) model provides interesting tools and processes with which women and men can create, exchange, share and exploit software and knowledge efficiently and effectively. FOSS can play an important role as a practical instrument for development as its free and open aspirations make it a natural component of development efforts in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Community “Gender equality in free and Open Source Software” aims at creating a network of different institutions, networks and actors that deal with the Gender Gap in FOSS."

via http://www.ictdev.org/

Title: Building Your Own GSM Network: A Demonstration of the Village Base Station Project
Source: MobileActive.org
Date (published): 15/07/2011
Date (accessed): 18/06/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"MoblleActive.org recently had the opportunity to test an off-the-grid GSM base station. Kurtis Heimerl presented The Village Base Station (VBTS), (link is a PDF) a low-power means of providing mobile network service without grid power or network infrastructure.

Below, Heimerl demonstrates the basic workings of a GSM networks and OpenBTS, an open-source platform that allows one to set up a cellular network at a fraction of the cost of a GSM network. Heimerl shows how phones find their base towers and settle on a frequency, and how OpenBTS condenses that process into a lower-powered, cheaper network."

Title: Free UNDP-APDIP Books
Source: Wikibooks
Date (accessed): 14/07/2011
Type of information: books
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"These books were donated to Wikibooks by the Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
These books have been released under the GFDL, and it is hoped that the Wikibooks community will help to make them better. The books in this section are broken down into two sub-categories: FOSS books and ICT4D books.
FOSS books serve as an introduction to various aspects and dimensions of free/open source software (FOSS) issues, including FOSS in education, FOSS and government policy, localization, open standards and licensing.
ICT4D books detail the concepts, issues and trends surrounding different aspects of information and communications technology for development (ICT4D), including, e-government, e-commerce, ICT for education, ICT for poverty alleviation, Internet governance, biotechnology, etc.
For more information about UNDP-APDIP, please visit http://www.apdip.net

FOSS Books

FOSS A General Introduction
FOSS Education
FOSS Government Policy
FOSS Licensing
FOSS Localization
FOSS Open Standards
FOSS Network Infrastructure and Security
FOSS Open Content

ICT4D Books

E-Commerce and E-Business
E-government
Gender and ICT
Genes, Technology and Policy
ICT in Education
Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Alleviation
Internet Governance
Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Information Economy
Nets, Webs and the Information Infrastructure
The Information Age
Small and Medium Enterprises and ICT
ICT for Disaster Management"

Title: Africa Analysis: The benefits of open source software
Author:Linda Nordling
Source:SciDev.net
Date (published):05/11/2010
Date (accessed):07/11/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Africa should embrace open source scientific software, cutting costs and boosting IT skills across the continent...In science, open source software users are still a minority, but such programmes are no longer the exclusive preserve of those who love to tinker with computers...Cash-strapped African universities could be fertile ground for such open source packages, yet few academics know they exist.
...
Many African governments and intergovernmental organisations, including the African Union, want to promote open source programming and software. But the political support rarely filters down to institutional level.
...
What is needed is an awareness campaign, perhaps driven by researchers themselves, to raise the visibility of open source software at the coalface of African science. Research funders should also come onboard, so that they can encourage applicants to use open source packages where suitable."

Title: It’s Different. African Open Source Technology and ICT4D
Author: Nana Kwabena Owusu
Source: www.233tech.com
Publisher: Ignite
Date (published): 16/04/2010
Date (accessed): 07/05/2010
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
An interesting conversation sparked by a blog post on the Ushahdi blog is the main reason for this post. The post by Erik Hersman raises issues about open source software and tools created in Africa and ICT for Development (ICT4D). In the post Erik contends that although it is great that these tools are being used for development oriented Non Profit work, the technology (tools and software) themselves should be separated and not classified as ICT4D tools.

via http://twitter.com/ICT_Works