BALUG Tu 2012-01-17: Grant Bowman[1] on Spreading Open Source in Nairobi, Kenya
Bay Area Linux User Group (BALUG) meeting Tuesday 6:30 P.M. 2012-01-17
Please RSVP if you're planning to come (see further below).
For our 2012-01-17 BALUG meeting, we're pleased to present:
Grant Bowman[1] on Spreading Open Source in Nairobi, Kenya
Mr. Bowman spent September, October and November 2011 working with young adult graduates of a technology school (Nairobits)[2] hosted by Dreamfish[3] CEO Dr. Tiffany von Emmel in Nairobi, Kenya thanks to the generous support of Dreamfish members and donors. Nairobi is one degree below the equator eleven time zones away just inland from the Eastern coast of Africa. Dreamfish is a global peer development network connecting entrepreneurs and individuals working together to realize their dreams. Dreamfish is co-owned by hundreds of women entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs and professionals in 26 countries. The Community Tech project's goal is to use open source to connect people working all over the world, from the Rift Valley to the Silicon Valley using web and mobile technologies. Primary PHP software packages being customized are status.net[4], wordpress.org[5] and more.
Working five days a week the graduates were exposed to many ideas and topics including ica.coop[6], English language classes, revolution-os.com[7], laptop.org[8] (OLPC) / olpcsf.org[9] / give one get one, toms.com shoes one for one[10], ARRL[11], Wi-Fi and Ubuntu[12], Fedora Project[13], Android. Mr. Bowman used the ground breaking Safaricom M-PESA branchless banking system popular in Kenya, Tanzania & Afghanistan - M stands for mobile and pesa is Swahili for money. During his stay he, Tiffany and the graduates presented at Nairobits, introducing 47 students to open source software, user focused design (UX), web development infrastructure and the command line. Ubuntu Hour[14]s were held every other week at *iHub_Nairobi[15] helping the Ubuntu Kenya Local Community Team[16] become more active again with the support of Ubuntu California[17].
Mr. Bowman has been a consultant and Internet professional for over twenty years including a former Director of Silicon Valley Public Access Link (SV-PAL)[18] ISP serving Santa Clara County and a present Director of Partimus[19] serving San Francisco and Alameda County middle schools with recycled computers, open source software, training and support. He is an OLPC Developer, Ubuntu Member, Fedora Ambassador, Debian Developer and former employee of SUSE[20]. Active Habits[21] is a forthcoming Android app. He is also active with Berkely Linux Users Group[22], Berkeley Unix User Group (BUUG)[23], Noisebridge[24], San Francisco Linux Users' Group (SF-LUG)[25] and also Diablo Valley Linux Users Group (DVLUG)[26] (every Friday in Walnut Creek). His website is: http://www.grantbow.com/%5B27]
1. http://www.grantbow.com/ 2. http://nairobits.com/ 3. http://dreamfish.com/ 4. http://status.net/ 5. http://wordpress.org/ 6. http://www.ica.coop/ 7. http://www.revolution-os.com/ 8. http://one.laptop.org/ 9. http://olpcsf.org/ 10. http://www.toms.com/our-movement/movement-one-for-one 11. http://www.arrl.org/ 12. http://www.ubuntu.com/ 13. http://fedoraproject.org/ 14. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hour 15. http://ihub.co.ke/ 16. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KenyanTeam 17. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam 18. http://www.svpal.org/ 19. http://partimus.org/ 20. http://www.suse.com/ 21. http://www.activehabits.com/ 22. http://www.berkeleylug.com/ 23. http://www.buug.org/ 24. http://www.noisebridge.net/ 25. http://www.sf-lug.com/ 26. http://www.dvlug.org/ 27. http://www.grantbow.com/
So, if you'd like to join us please RSVP to:
rsvp@balug.org
**Why RSVP??**
Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help BALUG and the Four Seas Restaurant plan the meal and meeting, and with sufficient attendance, they also help ensure that we'll be able to eat upstairs in the private banquet room.
Meeting Details...
6:30pm Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 2012-01-17
Four Seas Restaurant http://www.fourseasr.com/ 731 Grant Ave. San Francisco, CA 94108 Easy PARKING: Portsmouth Square Garage at 733 Kearny: http://www.sfpsg.com/
Cost: The meetings are always free, but for dinner, for your gift of $13 cash, we give you a gift of dinner - joining us for a yummy family-style Chinese dinner - tax and tip included (your gift also helps in our patronizing the restaurant venue and helping to defray BALUG costs such treating our speakers to dinner).
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CDs, etc.:
Additional goodies we'll have at the meeting (at least the following):
CDs, etc. - have a peek here: http://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc We do also have some additional give-away items, and may have "door prizes".
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Want to volunteer to help out BALUG? (quite a variety of opportunities exist) Drop us a note at: balug-contact@balug.org Or come talk to us at a BALUG meeting.
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