open source

Open-AE multiplier event in Italy

The multiplier event held in October 2020 in Foligno (Italy) was the opportunity to share the results of the Open-AE project and create meaningful connections with relevant stakeholders in the field of digital skills, adult education and FLOSS culture.

The event was held on the first of October 2020 at the DigiPass hub in Foligno which is based next to CSF premises. During the extraordinary circumstances caused by Covid-19, the event was held in a blended and spread format: the main event was organized in presence in Foligno and streamed online. At the same time, other DigiPass hubs organized the simultaneous events in their centers and streamed the main events. This allowed to have smaller events in presence with the facilitation of DigiPass staff.

At the main event organized in Foligno, several stakeholders participated and took part in the discussion both online and in presence. Among the external speakers the following people took part in the discussion:

Representatives from the Umbria Region
Responsible for the Digital Agenda at regional level
Coordinator of DigiPass initiative
Representative of the Ministry for Innovation and responsible for the initiative Repubblica Digitale
Stakeholders
E-facilitators and adult education trainers

After an initial presentation of the DigiPass and Repubblica Digitale initiatives, Luca Pagliaricci introduced the Open-AE project’s results to the audience. The synergies between the Open-AE projects and the FLOSS approach were deeply highlighted during the event especially with regards to public and open initiative that would very much benefit from it.

Despite the limitations due to the Covid-19 emergency, no major deviations were reported in the organization and implementation of the event. To cope with the limitations, different and simultaneous events, online and in presence, were organized in the region thanks to the DigiPass network and its hubs thus avoiding great gathering of people and increasing the impact reaching a wider remote public.

INVITATION TO THE OPEN-AE FINAL CONFERENCE

Digital skills and competences are increasingly pegged to proprietary software solutions. While Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) technologies are meant to be open and are freely accessible, most FLOSS users already have some competences in licensing and ownership when making the decision to use FLOSS. New users with low skills are often intimidated or insecure with their own capacities to use open source technologies, and thus may choose to use proprietary options because some brands are more associated with skills.

The OPEN-AE project aims to bridge this gap and promote practices and tools to make open culture and free software more accessible for new users. OPEN-AE wants to support European digital competence centres in becoming innovative trainings hubs, capable of catching up with the latest developments in digital economy and teaching digital skills in an accessible way to their specific target groups.

The OPEN-AE project project developed and tested:

A curriculum training scheme on open source technologies addressed to educators working in non-formal adult education, mapped on the DigCompEdu Framework.
An online toolkit for educators in five languages (EN, NL, FR, IT, ES) by adapting open educational resources already available. It serves as guidance for adult education strategies, tools and approaches for developing digital skills training.
A modular blended course of 60 hours in open source technologies and pilot it with 40 educators from four countries to improve their knowledge of open digital learning technology, tools, platforms and using them.
Additionally, project partners produced guidelines for transferability and upscaling of project results and recommendations for non-formal education providers and policy makers.

The project and experiences of partners, trainers and learners will be presented at an online conference on Tuesday 20 October 2020 from 15:00 – 18:00 by the Consortium. In addition, invited guest speakers will address the project’s themes from different angles.

Registration for the event is mandatory. REGISTER HERE!

PROGRAMME

Renato Sabbadini, CEO, ALL DIGITAL

15:00-15:10 | Welcome

15:10-16:30 | Panel debate: The use of free and libre (FLOSS) technologies in non-formal adult education

Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) technologies are becoming increasingly integrated in various sectors and operations. While OPEN-AE project focused on developing tools to integrate FLOSS technology and culture in the non-formal adult education sector, there are many other areas where it is being utilized. The panel debate will offer an insight to transferability and good practice examples of FLOSS utilisation and present latest policy developments in the field.

Speakers:

Véronique Guisen, CABAN DIBAC, Digital Public Space, Director of the “Saint-Gilles Web Workshops”,
Francesc Rambla, Centre de Telecomunicacions i Tecnologies de la Informació (CTTI), Consultant
Frédéric Colignon, Popular Digital University, Brussels Linux User Group (BxLUG) and member of ABELLI
Luca Pagliaricci, OPEN AE project, Centro Studi Citta de Foligno, Project Manager and Consultant

Moderator: Leonor Afonso (Ynternet.org)

16:30-16:45 | Coffee Break

16:45-17:40 | Presentation of the OPEN-AE project results, partners’ experiences and future perspective

Trainees who participated in the OPEN-AE piloting will, together with representatives of the project’s partner organisations (Florian Ruymen – MAKS vzw, Esther Subias – Colectic, Borut Cink – ALL DIGITAL and Thanasis Priftis – Foundation Ynternet.org present project results (OPEN-AE Toolkit and Online platform), piloting experiences from Belgium, Italy, Spain and Switzerland and future perspectives for the developed methodology and tools.

17:40 – 17:45 | Closing of the event

Registration for the event is mandatory. REGISTER HERE!

4 innovations we owe to open source

Matt Asay wrote an interesting commentary about the open source innovations. Most common answers to the question about which innovation has been contributed by the open source range from Linux to Kubernets and some other projects.

Matt took a different approach and listed:

Legal innovation
Process innovation
Tool innovation
Business model innovation

Learn more about them here.

Image: Image: uriz, Getty Images/iStockphoto

United Nations goes open source

United Nations Technology Innovation Labs (UNTIL) has started developing new open source strategy and policy. Last month (October 2019), a new advisory board had their first in-person meeting in Helsinki in the UNTIL offices. Frank Karlitschek found this initiative remarkable for several reasons:

Sharing: The United Nations wants to have a positive impact on everyone on this planet. For that goal, it is important that software, data, and services are available for everyone independent of their language, budget, education, or other factors. Open source is perfect to guarantee that result.
Contributing: It should be possible that everyone can contribute to the software, data, and services of the United Nations. The goal is to not depend on a single software vendor alone, but instead, build a bigger ecosystem that drives innovation together.
Empowering: Open source makes it possible for underdeveloped countries and regions to foster local companies and expertise by building on top of existing open source software—standing on the shoulders of giants.
Sustainability: Open source guarantees more sustainable software, data, and services by not relying on a single entity to support, maintain, and develop it. Open source helps to avoid a single point of failure by creating an equal playing field for everyone.
Security: Open source software is more secure than proprietary software because the code can be constantly reviewed and audited. This fact is especially important for security-sensitive applications that require transparency and openness.
Decentralization: An open source strategy enables decentralized hosting of software and data. This fact makes it possible to be compliant with all data protection and privacy regulations and enables a more free and open internet.

Read more about it in Frank’s article here.

Image credits: Jason Baker. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Cloud, Globe. Both CC0.

Open Source Codes and the Challenge of the SDGs: An UNTIL Interview with Amanda Brock

United Nations Technology Innovation Labs (UNTIL) published an interview with Amanda Brock, head of the Advisory Group UNTIL established to address question of how least developed countries can access expensive computer software.

Amanda Brock has a deep experience in this area. Along with her role with UNTIL she is the European Representative of the world’s biggest defensive patent pool, the Open Invention Network and CEO of the Trustable open source project. Furthermore she is a Fellow of the OpenForum Academy, a member of OASIS Standards Open Advisory Board, a founding editor of the Journal of Open Law, Technology and Society.

Previously she was General Counsel of Canonical, one of the world’s biggest open source companies and commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, setting up its global legal team in 2008 and running this for 5 years. She has worked as a tech lawyer for over 20 years, specializing in open source for over a decade.

You can read the interview here.

Image credit and source: United Nations Technology Innovation Labs