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A key change at iCommons
If you're not part of the iCommons mailing list, take a look at the letter that Heather Ford, Executive Director of iCommons, sent to the list yesterday:
Dear friends,
At the 2 August iCommons Board Meeting, the board decided to make some difficult but necessary changes at iCommons. It has become clear over the past months that our vision for iCommons is different from the... more
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Tactical Technology's newest NGO-in-a-box launched
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 The Tactical Technology Collective is a European based non-profit that aims to advance the use of new technologies as a tool for civil society. One of the core projects of Tactical Tech is NGO-in-a-box, a series of Free and Open Source Software toolkits covering areas such as Audio and Video, Security, Mobile devices and now, Open Publishing.
The editions are distributed quite literally as a box-set of three CDs. The first disc is the compilation put together by the edition editorial team, the second is the GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu and the third is the OpenCD, a collection of basic FOSS programmes for Windows. One of the project's core aims is to overcome the problems of bandwidth in many developing countries by providing physical access to the software. Additionally the kits aim to provide an edited selection of tools to minimise the often confusing and labourious process of finding open source software that really works and is user friendly.
NGO-in-a-box also helps solve the problem of distribution and access. By utilising FOSS the toolkits may be freely copied and shared without worry. For non-profits with often-limited budgets this is a great advantage, and also allows those teaching the tools to give out copies as part of a workshop.
Open Publishing
Last June, at the iCommons summit in Rio, Tactical Tech began a collaboration with iCommons and a range of activists, FOSS advocates and free culture makers to put together the latest version of NGO-in-a-box - the Open Publishing Edition.
The Open Publishing Edition of NGO-in-a-box is a toolkit of free and open source software, tutorials and guides for producing, publishing and distributing content. The Box is aimed at small to medium sized non-profits, independent media organisations, free culture creators and grassroots journalists, with a particular emphasis on those in developing and transition countries.
With iCommons' Heather Ford as editor we collaborated to organise a two day 'sprint' in Rio involving a dozen or more people from across the world to brainstorm what tools should and shouldn't be included in the Box. During the two-day sprint the box took shape on both the iCommons wiki and through a range of discussions exploring the audience and approach of developing such a toolkit. Workshop attendees broke into small groups to discuss, find and document the relevant tools based on a range of criteria such as usability, feature set and documentation.
Post-sprint we began a process of clarifying and building upon the work done in Rio via a mailing list and the iCommons wiki before putting the Box into production. The edition covers topics such as desktop publishing, image manipulation, web publishing and content management systems, wikis, HTML editing and much more. All the programmes come with a range of documentation and the Box also includes a series of practical guides to tasks such as creating posters, open content licensing, podcasting and blogging.
The Open Publishing Edition of NGO-in-a-box has now been launched and will be distributed globally to a range of non-profits and free culture organisations and employed at Tactical Tech's Source Camps. Source Camps are week long gatherings of 100-130 people, chiefly NGO workers and activists, designed to create hands-on opportunities for practical learning and to exchange ideas about technology and free and open source software. Previous Source Camps have been held in Uganda, Namibia, India, Tajikistan and Croatia.
Typically, Source Camps are divided into a series of tracks. According to the interests of attendees, these have included such areas as: FOSS implementation and migration, audio and video, information management and hardware hacking 'screw driver' sessions. Asia Source II will be held this coming January in Indonesia where the Open Publishing edition will be used as part of teaching the Open Publishing and Broadcasting track.
At present we have a limited number of copies of the Box available but those with good broadband can enjoy the box online at openpublishing.ngoinabox.org.
Photograph: The team take a break from the OPIAB brainstorming session by tarkowski, CC BY-SA 2.0
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