Public Software Workshops: new resources available
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 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.