Report on: FLOSSWorld Africa regional workshop

Abstract

The FLOSSWorld Regional Workshop for Africa was held in conjunction with Idlelo 2, the foremost conference on FLOSS in Africa which brought together people from across the continent (and the world) to assess current status and plot a way forward for FLOSS in Africa. The Idlelo 2 conference was convened by FOSSFA1. FOSSFA aims to develop local capacity and create jobs in Africa by developing a FLOSS market initially targeting the public sector in government, health and education, through: Encouraging change of policies in African governments to adopt its use; Research and Development; Product Development uniformly across Africa; Local Capacity Building which will translate into jobs creation. Clearly there is a strong overlap of interests, and the idea was to combine our efforts and gain the advantages of a wider pool of participants (via Idlelo), and develop an international perspective on FLOSS Research and Development (via FLOSSWorld). FLOSSWorld is a worldwide impact study of free/libre and open source software. At Idlelo 2 the aim was to extend its reach across the continent. The Africa Regional FLOSSWorld workshop was blended into Idlelo 2 as indicated in Appendix 1: FLOSSWorld Africa Regional Workshop Agenda. Idlelo 2 participants were invited to volunteer in assisting FLOSSWorld in meeting certain objectives, by attending FLOSSWorld specific sessions, sharing insights, and starting to build a network of researchers for future collaboration.