The Open Source Initiative® (OSI), the premiere organization working globally to champion open source in society through education, infrastructure and collaboration; announced today that Powering Potential has joined the OSI as an Affiliate Member.
Powering Potential provides access to educational resources on solar-powered computers running open source software at schools in rural Tanzania. The technology initiative works to enhance education and stimulate imagination of students in Tanzania while respecting and incorporating values of the local culture.
In December 2015, the OSI was invited by The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to participate in one of a series of round-tables seeking expertise in drafting the “Federal Source Code Policy – Achieving Efficiency, Transparency, and Innovation through Reusable and Open Source Software." This government-wide policy originated from prior work included in the Second Open Government National Action Plan for the US, requiring U.S.
Recently the Sun published an article by Ryan Sabey (@ryansabey), “UNION HACK Jeremy Corbyn’s digital democracy manifesto ‘would let foreign spooks rob UK'”. The post included several criticisms from government officials and pundits challenging the quality and security of open source software, cautioning readers, “sensitive data could be at risk under Labour leader's plans.”
While many agree on the importance of extending resources to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) curricula within K12 education, there isn't always alignment on the best tools or techniques to, as the US Department of Education explains, equip students with the “knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence, and make sense of information,” or schools and districts with the resources and expertise to “improve the delivery
If you're out and about at conferences this month, we hope that you'll have a chance to attend one of these talks by OSI Board Members. If you're an OSI member and you'll be giving at talk about open source topics, please get in touch. We'd love to let folks know about your talk!
Openness has become the new standard for content and software across a variety of initiatives in higher education. The success of open source software on campuses, and the same ethos which fosters its development, is also found in open education, open educational resources, open access publishing, open analytics, open data, open science, and open humanities. These open initiatives have matured to challenge, even dominate, the global educational landscape.
OSI Board alumnus Simon Phipps recently provided some clarification to FastCo.Design around common misunderstandings related to "sourcing". We've seen more and more of these, although most often--like this example--innocent enough. However, these do provide great opportunities to remind the public about what open source actually is, and why it is so valuable.
The Open Source Initiative welcomes unique community of heath care professionals and open source developers collaborating to transform breathing therapy into games.
New affiliate membership highlights diverse communities of interest supporting open source software beyond programmers.
The Open Source Initiative (OSI), the steward of the Open Source Definition (or OSD), is announcing the affiliate membership of SysArmy. SysArmy, a community of system administrators and IT professionals from Argentina, was founded to provide, "support for those who give support."
