The First African Conference on the Digital Commons

The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa
(FOSSFA), the African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources
(AVOIR) project at the University of the Western Cape and
the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
invite you to participate in this seminal event to be held
in Capetown from 12th to 16th January 2004.

The conference will address the challenges and opportunities
of the creation and use of free / open source software and
open content and their development potential for Africa. The
conference has both strategic and practical objectives,
bringing together participants from government, education,
business and civil society together with the developer
community. The purpose of this conference is to:

1. Review progress on implementation of open source and open
content in Africa

2. Create opportunities for peer-to-peer networking and
learning among Africans participating in open source and
open content initiatives

3. Lay the groundwork for collaborative creation of open
source software in Africa

4. Expose Open Source companies and products to a variety of
participants

The conference will operate through a number of plenary
sessions led by world leaders in the area of open source and
open content, parallel sessions with contributed papers and
posters addressing specific themes, breakaway sessions for
for networking, a mini trade fair, and a hackathon that will
run in parallel with the conference beginning two days
before the conference starts.

The conference themes are;

1. Open Source and Open Content in Government

2. Open Source and Open Content in Health

3. Open Source and Open Content in Education

4. Open Source Methodologies and Tools

The hackathon will be run in parallel to the conference, and
will produce a useable piece of open source software as a
demonstration of the power of open source.

For more information please visit the conference website @
http://idlelo.uwc.ac.za

If you are working on any open source project please
register your project @ http://www.fossfa.org/database/

With kind regards,

Bildad Kagai
Coordinator
Free Software and open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA)
P. O. Box 919 Nairobi 00100 Kenya
Suite B2, Tetu Apartments, State House Avenue
Email. [log in to unmask]
URL. www.fossfa.org
Tel. 254 20 272 8332
Fax. 254 20 272 6965
Cell. 254 722 379 409

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