December 2005: InWent Supports Idlelo2 - Second Conference on the Digital Commons 23 - 25 February 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya

“InWEnt is very pleased to collaborate with FOSSFA on this most timely initiative. The World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis has shown again that innovative approaches to technologies can have an impact on poverty reduction and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In this context, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) plays an important role. InWEnt therefore supports a number of initiatives in this field in Asia (it@foss) and in Africa, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Notably, since 2001we have trained IT specialists of seven SADC countries, inter alia on the use of FOSS. They are part of the Southern African Knowledge Network on “Information Technology in African Business” (it@ab) supported by InWEnt.

Now, we have committed ourselves to bring the expertise of this network it@ab to Idlelo2 and to support the conference, because we believe that only by connecting the African private sector and policy makers we will be able to make progress in stimulating a local FOSS software industry in Africa. InWEnt is also looking forward to exploring further synergies and cooperation with the other key players of Idlelo2.

Mr Derek Lakudzala, vice chairman of the it@ab network explains: “it@ab would like to associate itself with Idlelo2 partly to expose the expertise already available in the region and to the regions’ user community through the it@ab network and partly to exchange knowledge and information on possible collaboration to use innovations such as FOSS as a tool to fight poverty in Africa. The time to move from mere talk to concrete results, products and services using FOSS is now. Idlelo2 affords stakeholders that rare opportunity to meet some of the regions own experts on the one hand and key decision and policy makers on the other hand. The it@ab network expects that the conference will also offer opportunities for business contacts. With the investment already put into development of Africa’s own human resource expertise in the area of FOSS, we expect to establish new synergies and win-win relationships with other key players in the it-field.”

Dezember 2005 InWEnt@WSIS / 15 to 19 November 2005 in Tunis InWEnt presented innovative ICT networks from the South at UN World Summit
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October 2005: it@inwent - Brochure as pdf "Supporting ICT Networks in the South" published

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Newsticker: Hanoi, 01 October 2005: COSGov Vietnam International Conference and Expo - Open source software can boost economy, battle pirated software in Vietnam, concludes International Conference COSGov -

More than 300 IT-Experts, governmental representatives and entrepreneurs gathered in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi from 28-30 September 2005 for the international conference “COSGov Vietnam - Building cooperation via open-source for eGovernance”. COSGov is the first ever event in Vietnam to extensively cover the topic of free and open-source software (FOSS) for e-governance.

The conference was opened on Wednesday by the Vietnamese Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology Mr Bui Manh Hai, EC’s Ambassador Mr Markus Cornaro, the Vice Ambassador of the German Embassy to Vietnam, Mr Oliver Schnakenberg and the Vice President of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, Mr Nguyen Khoa Son.

For detailed information about the Conference visit the Webpage

September 2005: CD-Rom - IT Knowledge Edition 1 "Knowledge for Sustainable Business Development" published

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September 2005: CD-Rom - IT Knowledge Edition 2 "Compendium of Open Source Software" published

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September 2005: it@ab Graduates to Prove the Effectiveness of the One Year Training Programme “Business related IT Consultancy"

After one year of continuous training in Germany, the 21 participants of the recently finished twelve-month advanced training programme on "Business related IT Consultancy” return to their African home countries.

August 2005: InWEnt it@ab International Conference on Free and Open Source Software, Zambia 18-19 October 2005

Find more information on the International Conference on Free and Open Source Software “Smooth integration of Free and Open Source Software into existing software environments” here

August 2005: "Introducing Open Source using the Collaborative Learning Environment-Plattform" InWEnt - it@ab Mozambique Training & Workshops 2005 Maputo, Mozambique August 2005

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Newsticker: April 2005: InWEnt - it@ab Conference “Interregional Cooperation I“ 11th – 16th of April 2005 for Senior Manager of the it@ab Network, Lake Malawi / Malawi

For detailed information about it@ab Conference click here