FOSSFA and InWEnt launching first regional course on Business and Open Source in Johannesburg, South Africa

Johannesburg, 14.07.2009 - "How can Southern African IT-businesses make money with Free and Open Source Software?“ - this one of the questions being discussed at the regional course on "Advanced African Business Models with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)“. The two-week event started on July 13 at University of Witwatersrand, (Wits) in Johannesburg and is the first in a series of training-of-trainer (ToT) events in Southern and East Afria. The course is organized by the pan-African Open Source federation FOSSFA as well as the German non-for-profit, "InWEnt – Capacity Building International“. Main training and facilitator partners are the Advanced Information Technology Institute of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center for Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE) and the United Nations University, UNU-MERIT of The Netherlands.

This advanced course brings together over 17 experts from universities, training institutions and private sector in South Africa, Malawi and Zambia. Its main goal is to form a corps of trainers and advocates who are equipped to spread the word on Free and Open Source and its potential for IT-companies in Africa. The course inter alia builds on more than eight practical case studies of African IT companies, who use FOSS to generate income drive innovation, add local value and provide legal, low-cost and high quality software solutions to businesses and administrations in their countries.

The first regional Advanced African FOSS Business Models is part of the multi-year ict@innovation programme, which 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 and private sector development, particularly in Southern and East Africa, through three main actions: spreading FOSS business models for enterprises in Africa, 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 InWEnt - Capacity Building International (Germany). Funding partners are the German Ministry Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).

The programme focuses on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as a key technology to drive innovation, add local value and create sustainable and affordable ICT-solutions. ict@innovation aims to enhance regional networking and to strengthen consulting capacities of regional and national ICT associations and training institutions as well as of other relevant change agents.

For more information see: http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net/

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