Africa Source 2 - Planned Agenda

Africa Source II agenda will be developed for the following primary target audiences:

• NGO IT practitioners working with educational institutions, resource and community centres, rights based NGOs and health information organisations
• IT developers, advocates and implementors
• people interested in the localization of software

Source events agenda and approach to learning:

The final agenda of each Source event is always prepared with the participants and facilitators. We are currently in the process of reviewing and selecting amongst nearly 400 applications for participation in the event. Before we have finished this process of selecting participants and of working with the facilitators on laying out the sessions, we can only really present here the overview agenda that shows the general themes of the workshop. The day by day, session by session agenda will be ready in four weeks after the final selection of participants, after we have run a series of dialogues with them by email and through the wiki (planned for 15th of December). It is worth underlining that our method of learning and training has a very dynamic and participatory character.

The style of the workshops is based on the concept of facilitation; facilitate as in "to make it easier" and of skill share (that everybody attending has something to offer and teach others - that is why the selection process is so rigorous). We are trying to avoid traditional conference presentation or lecture-heavy sessions, and instead invite facilitators to lead practical learning and encourage discussion and exchange. We make sure that all participants will enjoy opportunities to speak and listen to their peers, contributing their ideas and expertise, speaking up when they have problems, working with others, learning in small groups and getting hands-on experience. Many participants during the time of the workshop are encouraged to play a facilitators role. Sessions are focused on results and collaboration; participants hopefully leave each workshop with both new knowledge and new acquaintances with whom they can continue the dialogue. Please see a sample agenda from the recent event in Tajikistan: http://wiki.fosstj.tacticaltech.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Agenda

Agenda for Africa Source II

As described above the content of Africa Source II will be developed around the needs of the primary target audiences; educational institutions, resource and community centres, rights based NGOs and health information organisations. The agenda will borrow from the successes of previous Source events whilst addressing the specific needs of the Africa Source II participants. It will be shaped in consultation with the advisory group and the events main partners. The four main themes covered in the event tracks will be:

• migration and adoption
• alternative access, education and resource centres;
• information handling and advocacy;
• localisation

Participants of the migration and adoption track will leave Africa Source II with the practical skills to set up a small NGO office entirely using free and open source solutions. They will learn techniques for migrating an organisation to open source, from installation, through to troubleshooting and servicing and maintenance.

Participants of the alternative access track will focus primarily on options and techniques for setting up and managing FOSS labs (community centres and schools), they will cover subjects such as wireless, voice over IP, thin-clients and dedicated distributions.

Participants of the information handling and advocacy track will look at a variety of open publishing and communicationstools as well as the creative use of other hardware such as mobile phones and PDAs. The localisation track will be focused primarily on internationalisation/ localisation and interaction with society and its benefits. Furthermore, these sessions will cover open standards and their implementation for local needs, taking into account the peculiarities of the local languages. Localisation project management along with a technical understanding of this process are also some of the most significant issues in promoting effective localization, and will also be discussed during the track.

Other topics, to be covered during the afternoon sessions, will present participants with a variety of choices. These will include a wide variety of introductory practical sessions such as the use of GIS as well as more conceptual sessions on 'FLOSSophy' topics, such as the role of IPRand the Creative Commons Project.

Draft overview of the agenda:

Leading Tracks (mornings)

Aim: To expose participants to a concrete set of inter-related skills and ideas. To enable them to see a wide variety of tools, techniques and solutions, get a sense of what the options are and how to go about implementation (or at least find more information) in a particular thematic area. Participants are asked to follow tracks throughout the workshop.

Form: Each track works towards the goal of producing an end-result, such as a working 'fake' NGO- office or school room, that can be presented and tried out by others. The format of the week follows a basic flow. Starting with a thematic and contextual discussion, moving in to practical implementation and learning in small groups, looking at real-life issues of maintenance and upkeep, and then finally ending with the presentation to others. Please note, that whilst these tracks have been implemented at different regional source events, their presence in the final agenda will depend on participant demand and need. Each of these areas described below will be designed and tweaked according to the local needs of the participants and expertise of the facilitators.

Migration and adoption (non-profits)

This is a scenario based approach to teaching migration based on a a small to medium sized non-profit office set-up. The end result is the set up a 'fake' NGO office that other participants can visit and be 'walked' through. This track begins with techniques for introducing and getting started with FOSS, moves in to total cost of ownership (cost matrix) and then looks at needs assessment and how to make a migration plan, before focusing on managing the change. As the days move on participants begin to work in smaller groups looking at practical issues. Participants are taught how to choose a distribution and utilise one (Debian NP or Slackware and Ubuntu linux). They are exposed to a range of practical experiences such as installation, peripheries, limitations, LANs, small-scale server set-up and finally maintenance and user support.

Information handling and advocacy (health information and rights based organisations)

The types of NGOs targeted in this workshop often have much more challenging needs than basic office set-up and access. They also have a real need for content and information related tools with more advanced functions and that can run over any platform. In this track participants get first hand experience of a range of FOSS tools available for use in monitoring projects, data collection, storage and exchange, campaign coordination and outreach as well as local language content development and distribution. The main emphasis of this track is to try out FOSS solutions that have the potential to meet the project needs of NGOs. Attention is paid to the techniques for utilising such tools (for what type of projects and how) as well as looking at models for utilising a range of off-screen hardware (PDAs, mobile phones, video cameras, audio recording equipment).

The focus of this track is decided depending on the interests of the participating NGOs. Alternative Access, Resource Centres and Schools A typical resource centre or computer lab in the African context consists of a hybrid setting of equipment, connection and software. In many cases refurbished computers or non typical software are in use. This track addresses these challenges. Participants learn about implementing linux thin clients, running multiple operating systems and accessing the internet. They learn how to set up a medium sized resource centre from scratch, using available FOSS solutions. The track moves on to look at maintenance of and support to FOSS Access Labs. The second phase splits in to two areas; one focusing on alternative access solutions such as wireless and the other focusing on bespoke distributions and tools.

Localisation (practitioners and advocates) This track brings together those experienced and interested in localising free and open source software. Participants learn how to localise an application during the week, and discuss related challenges such as fonts, compatibility and software updates. participants learn:

• Basic understanding of internationalisation/localisation, how it interacts with society and what are its benefits.
• Identify standards and learn to use them
• Pinpoint any work needed on standards for their respective languages.
• Get a clear idea of what is happening in other countries and the huge diversity of issues related to language and culture
• Look at available FOSS software for Translation - Priorities
• A technical understanding of Localisation
• Localisation project management
• Localisation in their existing IT setup

Additional Sessions (afternoons)

Aim: To expose participants to a variety of areas that may fit their interests and needs, giving them a taste of different approaches and solutions. The aim is to make the afternoon sessions independent of each other, providing introductions to a number of different subjects over the course of the week.

Form: Sessions are run in parallel each afternoon. These are a good mix of group discussions, hands-on workshops and more formal training sessions. At least one afternoon is devoted to participant skillshares, where partticipants offer one hour sessions for each other (approx. 20 small group sessions during one afternoon). Sessions are taken from the track that is not covered in that particular event, other sessions are of direct relevance to the target group but do not necessarily fit within the main tracks. Some examples of these sessions are:

• Using GIS for relief, service and advocacy work
• Tips and techniques for remote and rugged computing
• Solutions for using refurbished computers; when to and when not to
• FLOSSophy; discussion based sessions on issues such as IPR and FOSS policy