Open Source Software

As In his keynote presentation, Mark Shuttleworth, South African entrepreneur and founder of the "Go Open Source" initiative, will explain the impact Open Source Software has on empowering the South African nation.

Through using Open Source, South Africa is not only freed from being dependent on foreign IT providers but is also able to stimulate the growth of the local IT sector and the economy as a whole. Software developers are able to build on existing Open Source projects and create new, better and more appropriate products for the local market.

Open Source Software empowers people. With no license fee overheads and unrestricted access to an enormous array of software applications users can build their own projects and businesses. With the freedom provided by Open Source Software users are no longer constrained by what software they can - or can not - afford.


Biography:
Mark Shuttleworth is an African entrepreneur with a love of technology and innovation.

He funds HBD, a venture-capital company based in South Africa, and The Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to social innovation in Africa with a particular focus on education. He currently lives in London when not "on assignment”, and spends much time travelling in search of new adventures and opportunities.

Mark was born in the dusty gold-mining town of Welkom in South Africa, and grew up in Cape Town. His fascination with technology started at a tender age when he discovered computer games, a vice that continues today. His interest in science covers an eclectic selection of disciplines such as particle physics, software engineering, digital media, space exploration and biotechnology. While studying towards a Business Science (Finance) degree at the University of Cape Town (UCT), he first encountered the Internet, and quickly became fascinated with the changes it would bring in business and society.

In 1995, his final year at UCT, Mark founded Thawte Consulting, as an Internet consulting business. The focus of the company quickly shifted to Internet security for electronic commerce. Thawte (www.thawte.com) became the first company to produce a full-security e-commerce web server that was commercially available outside the United States. This brought Thawte to the world of public key infrastructure, which is the basis for all encrypted and authenticated Internet transactions. Thawte was one of the first companies to be recognized by Netscape and Microsoft as a trusted third party for web site certification, and it quickly established a leadership position helping businesses around the world accept secure transactions over the web. By the time it was acquired in 1999 by VeriSign, Thawte had become the fastest-growing Internet Certificate Authority, and was the leading Certificate Authority outside of the USA. Mark is no longer involved at Thawte, but is very proud of the way it has continued to go from strength to strength under new management.

Since the heady days of 1999, Mark has formed a new project team called HBD (www.hbdvc.com). The name is a reference to the phrase "Here Be Dragons”, which legend has it was a phrase used to describe uncharted territory on early maps. HBD is a venture-capital company seeking to invest in innovative technology companies that are based in South Africa but that have the potential to serve a global marketplace. HBD has invested in several South African companies in a variety of sectors, such as software, pharmaceutical services, electronics and mobile phone services. As well as funding HBD, he also serves as a non-executive director on the board of the company.

He has created a non-profit organisation that supports social innovation in education in Africa. The Shuttleworth Foundation (www.shuttleworthfoundation.org) seeks to fund projects that demonstrate a significantly better approach to some aspect of the education system and hopes to improve both the quality and the reach of education in Africa. The Foundation has worked in all 9 provinces of South Africa, funding initiatives from teachers, small businesses and private individuals. The Foundation is also an advocate of the role of open-source software in education and in developing countries.

Mark believes that developing countries need to find their own voice in the digital era. To this end, he also funds and serves on the board of bridges.org (www.bridges.org) - an international non-profit organisation that seeks to address digital divide issues both through grass-roots work and high-level policy dialogue. Bridges.org has offices in Cape Town, South Africa and Washington, D.C., and is the leading international organization working to bridge the digital divide between Africa and the developed world.

In April 2002 Mark realised a lifelong dream to fly in space. He spent a year working on the project, including seven months of formal training at Star City in Russia, and almost as much time in medical testing and negotiations. He was a member of the crew of Soyuz TM-34, that launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and docked with the International Space Station two days later. Mark was privileged to spend 8 days working on the ISS, conducting a program of South African science experiments and enjoying the extraordinary environment of weightlessness before coming back to earth with a bump. Since then, he has worked on a roadshow to share that experience as well as his excitement about science, mathematics and technology with pupils across South Africa. The Hip2Bsquare roadshow has been seen by more than 100,000 pupils from nearly 2,000 schools. It has spawned a plethora of initiatives under the "Hip2BSquare" brand (www.hip2b2.co.za), which aim to make mathematics and science sexy to pupils who are choosing their subjects for high school.

Article from http://www.linuxworldexpo.de/04_02_01.php?Termin_ID=84&ID=13&lang=en

Go Open Source is a nationwide awareness campaign promoting the adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) in South Africa, and will run for the next two years.

The campaign has a total budget of R18m, with an initial first year budget comprising R3m from The Shuttleworth Foundation, R2m from the CSIR, R2m from HP, and an additional R2m from Mark Shuttleworth on behalf of an as-yet unnamed tech startup. The campaign is set to put South Africa at the forefront of new technology adoption. A world first, the campaign aims to make ordinary computer users and those who aspire to be computer literate aware of the benefits of OSS.

Thomas Black, Open Source program manager at the Shuttleworth Foundation explains: "We would like to ensure that home computer users, small and medium sized businesses, students, school pupils and people who want to become computer literate have heard about and tried OSS for themselves.

This campaign will put OSS within easy reach of every South African, and help South Africans to understand why early adoption of open source gives them an advantage in the global economy."

"We have had tremendous success with OSS in South Africa, especially helping schools create computer training laboratories," continues Black. "The Open Source approach has significant benefits for skills development. When you install OSS on a computer, you get all the tools you need for computer literacy, and also all the tools you need to become a computer specialist. We can teach word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, programming, Internet skills and desktop publishing without paying a cent for software, and our trainees can take that same software home and legally install it on their home computer. They can even give it to their friends."

Adi Attar, of the CSIR Open Source Centre says, "The Go Open Source campaign targets a significant, but often neglected sector of society: current and potential non-specialist ICT users, who are prone to misinformation and lack of information regarding the available ICT solutions. This campaign has the potential to reach out to thousands of people who have never even been in a position to ask 'What is Open Source?'"

Says Bradley Hopkinson, Personal Systems Group country GM, HP South Africa, "The acceptance of Open Source in the government and commercial sectors is not at the level that HP believe it could or should be and we believe this is purely as a result of the lack of awareness. We see this campaign as one vehicle in which HP can increase the acceptance and further promote and develop applications around Open Source."

Mark Shuttleworth, supporting the campaign in his personal capacity says, "I believe that Open Source is the future of the software industry. In just a few years OSS will become the standard for computers around the world. It was open source software that enabled me to build a successful Internet company. Go Open Source is a way for me to bring those benefits to other South African entrepreneurs.

"Our goal is to ensure that in two years time every South African who uses a computer, or who wants to use a computer, knows that they can get all the software tools they need for computer literacy and computer mastery free of charge, together with the right to share those tools and to improve them as they see fit," Shuttleworth concludes.

More information is available on www.go-opensource.org