FOSSFA to send Expert to MEAFOSS

The First middle East and Africa Open Source Conference held in Cairo/Egypt on 15-16th June 2010. FOSSFA sent Evan Ikua,FOSS Certification Manager to ensure discussing and raising awareness on FOSS in Business using ICT@innovation as a show case
Evans Ikua

Report as sent by Evans :

REPORT ON THE FIRST MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA OPEN SOURCE CONFERENCE HELD IN CAIRO EGYPT 0N 15th -16th JUNE 2010

The first Afro Arab Open Source Conference was held in Cairo, Egypt between 15th and 16th June 2010. Representing FOSSFA and inWent at the conference was Evans Ikua, the FOSS Certification Manager for the ict@innovation project.

The conference was attended mainly by representatives from companies in North Africa and the Middle East, who are mainly Arabic speakers. Some of the companies and organizations represented include the Apache Software Foundation, Mandriva, Microsoft, Etisalat Egypt, several media houses and other companies based mainly in Egypt offering open source solutions.

The conference presented a good opportunity to network and promote the ict@innovation project, as well as the project partners, FOSSFA and inWent, to the North African Open source community. It was apparent that there was awareness about FOSSFA in this region abut people were not very sure about what FOSSFA does or its activities.

The conference was largely held in Arabic, with just a few presentations being in English. There were no interpreters, and the conference organizers promised that they will arrange to have interpreters in the next conference, which they plan to hold in a year´s time. This was therefore a major handicap for my participation as I was not able to follow all the presentations adequately.

I was given two slots to present. The conference organizers had allocated me to speak on the following topics:

Government Open Source adoption in Kenya
Total cost of ownership for OSS

In my first presentation, I used the opportunity to present about our project, ict@innovation, and gave a full introduction about it. I also talked about FOSSFA, what it does and how the North African community can participate in its affairs so that we can all build a strong pan-African open source movement. Then I talked about the partnership between FOSSFA and inWent, and the successes of the ict@innovation project so far, touching on the capacity building that was being achieved by the success stories of the FOSS Business Models pillar, and the networking initiatives in Pillar D. I also talked about the ongoing implementation of FOSS Certification under Pillar B and invited the participants to participate in this project so that they can also take advantage of the trainings especially when the project roles out to the rest of Africa.

I also hinted to them that we will also be talking to them in our quest for a long term strategy for FOSSFA especially regarding training and Certification. Then I wrapped up by giving examples of our successes in Kenya engaging the Government and having some of our members winning contracts to supply open source solutions to the Government.

My presentations were received warmly, and I believe that with a good follow up and the presence of Samer, the FOSSFA Secretary, in Egypt, then we can count on having more members joining FOSSFA and taking part in its activities in North Africa. I will therefore be collaborating with Samer to spearhead this initiative going into the future.

Further information about the conference and the participants can be downloaded at the conference website: www.meaossforum.org. Attached to this report please see also my presentation and the organizers report.

I take this opportunity to thank FOSSFA and inWent for giving me the opportunity to represent them in this important conference, and all the individuals who went out of their way to ensure that everything went on smoothly in my travel and stay in Cairo, especially Samer, Nnenna and George.

Evan Ikua,

FOSS Certification Manager,

ICT@Innovation,

FOSSFA/inWent