I’ve just been added as a panelist on the Open Source Opportunities Seminar to be held by int@j on 26-27 July 2005 at the Amman Intercontinental. It’s cool that the subject of open source software is being brought up again in Jordan. There will be a number of international and regional speakers. I hope it will be a good event. For more info: Lara Al-Masou lara.masou intaj.net. Tel: (+962 6) 5152322, fax (+962 6) 5152344.

Here’s the event’s agenda (I couldn’t find on intaj’s site):

Day One

Time Topic
8:30am-9:30am Welcome Coffee & Registration
9:30am – 9:35am Welcome Speech Mr. Ra’ed Bilbessi, Chairman, int@j
9:35am – 9:45am MoICT Speech HE Ms. Nadia Al-Saeed Minister of Information Communications Technology
9:45am – 10:00am Keynote Speech Mr. Tom Adelstein, Partner, Hiser + Adelstein
10:00am – 10:30am “A Business Model for Open Source” Mr. Mohamed Sameer, OS Developer & Co-founder, Egyptian Linux Users’ Group (EGLUG) & Arabeyes Project
10:30am – 11:00am Speaker – TBD
11:00 – 11:30 am Panel Discussion and Q & A Panelists: Mr. Tom Adelstein, Mr. Mohammed Sameer
11:30am – 12:45pm Coffee Break
12:45pm – 1:15pm “How to Make Money Using Open Source Software” Mr. Kefah T. Issa, Founder, FreeSoft (Jordan)
1:15 – 1:45pm “OS Developer’s Perspective: An Open Source Toolkit” Mr. Mohamed Sameer, OS Developer & Co-founder, Egyptian Linux Users’ Group (EGLUG) & Arabeyes Project
1:45pm – 2:15pm Panel Discussion and Q & A Panelists: Mr. Kefah Issa , Mr. Mohammed Sameer, Mr. Ahmad Humeid
2:00pm- 3:30pm Lunch

Day Two

Time Topic
8:30am-9:00am Welcome Coffee & Registration
9:00am – 9:30am “How to Define an Open Source Strategy” Mr. Olivier Bérard, Head of OS Consulting, Devoteam ME (Dubai)
9:30am – 10:00am “Using OSS in education (Learning Management Systems, Repositories, Portals, etc.)” Prof. James Dalziel, Director Macquarie E-Learning Center of Excellence, Sydney
10:00am – 10:30am Open Knowledge (Intellectual property, Digital Rights Management Creative Commons, Wikipedia, etc) Mr. Ethan Zuckerman, Research Fellow Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School
10:30am – 11:00am “World Trends in Open Source”, Mr. Tom Adelstein, Partner, Hiser + Adelstein
11:00am – 11:30am Panel Discussion and Q & A Panelists: Mr. James Dalziel, Mr. Olivier Berard, Mr. Ethan Zuckerman, Mr. Tom Adelstein and Mr. Ahmad Humeid)
11:30am – 12:45pm Coffee Break
12:45pm – 1:15pm “The Status of Localization/Arabization of Linux and Open Source Software” Mr. Mohamed Sameer, EGLUG & Arabeyes Project
1:15pm – 2:00pm Presentation and Demo: Emerging Technology in Open Source: (1) Low Cost Computer Assembly – an IT Niche for Jordan (2) Ubuntu: State of the Art Linux Desktop Mr. Tom Adelstein, Partner, Hiser + Adelstein
2:00pm – 2:15pm Q & A Mr. Mohammed Sameer and Mr. Tom Adestein
2:15pm- 3:30pm Lunch


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One response to “Open Source Opportunities Seminar | 26-27 July 2005”

  1. Jan Gerner Avatar
    Jan Gerner

    this is really interesting. coincidentally my powerbook died on me a week ago and since i have nothing elso to do i started exploring professional desktop publishing capabilities of linux on my second pc. almost everything is there, good scanner software, color calibration software, photo manipulation (gimp), vector illustration (inkscape), type setting (scribus), type design (fontforge), and font support for type1, truetype and opentype fonts. and it’s all free! unfortunately it comes with the caveat that i’ve you’re used to adobe’s and other professional software it doesn’t really turn out to be user-friendly (and opentype fonts are rendered without kerning, arrrrghh). but for a student like me or a newly founded design bureau it might be a good alternative, if you care about software fees. i know that many in the middle east don’t care without having to fear any prosecution.
    in the end good design comes from the skills and knowledge of the designer, not from the software he uses. the result of middle class designers using professional software can be seen in the cheap and color and gradient-loaded illustrator-illustrations all over the world. and amman has its good share of them.