The participants of the first "Training of Trainers on African FOSS Business Models" in West Africa (Abuja/Nigeria) have passed their final exam. They are now implementing "national roll-out plans" for follow-up trainings in Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo and Senegal.

Which local needs have to be addressed? Which market niches are there? How can the follow-up trainings be financed? These are the questions the 24 new trainers are now addressing.
 

I was invited to present a 30 minutes talk on African FOSS Business models from Librarians from over 15 African Universities and several other institutions (see attached presentation)

An interesting finding to this group was the level of awareness to Open Source Solutions available in the area of Integrated Library System. ( Do not tell them) I had to change the presentation several time to try avoiding abusing them by teaching what FLOSS is :-) after attending several pre-sessions prior to my presentation.

The Collaborative Creativity Group CCG at UNU-MERIT has just released an updated version v1.5 of their book on ‘The Why and How of Open Education’(http://www.scribd.com/doc/71348644). This updated version includes – inter alia – a new chapter focusing on the Key Challenges of Open Education (Chapter 5).

EIFL FOSS Training Conference, 4-5 November 2011 COSTECH, Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania

Sponsored by UNESCO
Theme : Working together -  FOSS in African libraries

On 24th October 2011, the first West African FOSS Business Model took off. About 20 enthusiastic participants registered for the training. The venue for the training is the resource centre in the Ministry of Education Office. After a highly engaging e-learning session it was great for participants to finally meet face-face. Participants are drawn from several west African countries.

The first ict@innovation West African FOSS Business Models Training of Trainers course will take place in Abuja, Nigeria from 24th October to 4th November 2011.

For details on the training, please see:

http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net/call-nigeria

and the programme brochure.

As ict@innovation successfully implemented Trainings of Trainers (ToT) on African FOSS Business Models in different Eastern and Southern Africa countries, we are now going to implement such trainings in the Region of West Africa.

The first West African ToT will consist of a full-time face-to-face phase of two weeks in Nigeria from 24th October to 4th November 2011, and be accompanied by 4 weeks of part-time online training (10th to 21st October and 7th to 18th November 2011).

After a number of year of FOSS advocacy,governments in Africa are beginning to warm to the idea of FOSS. Last week from Sept. 14-16th 2011 representatives from member states of The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) met in Nairobi to discuss the status of FOSS implementations in their countries.

It was wonderful to hear that governments in Africa are using FOSS in various projects. From simple websites using Joomla to setting up parliamentary record management systems.

1. Introduction
The College of Informatics and Virtual Education at the UDOM is participating in rolling out the national trainings on Advanced African Business Models with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that were developed by ICT@ Innovation. Thesecond seasonal training is scheduled for 3rd to 7th Oct. 2011. It is being organized by Mr Hector Mongi in collaboration with Jabhera Matogoro.

2. Training Objectives

23rd August 2011, Kimberely,SOUTH AFRICA