Software Freedom Day in Davao

Davao is once again celebrating Software Freedom Day on September 19.

The SFD is an annual event celebrated worldwide to honor contributors to Free/ Open Source Software.

The event is spearheaded by Holden Hao of DabaweGNU, Inc., a non-profit organization of ICT professionals and enthusiasts promoting the use of Free/ Open Source Software or FOSS.

Hao said the event aims to promote awareness on the advantages of using FOSS compared to proprietary software, which are expensive.

This year’s Software Freedom Day will be celebrated at the University of the Immaculate Conception (UIC) Gym at Bankerohan from 1 – 5 pm. Last year, we held the event at the University of Southeastern Philippines (USP).

The event will feature various presentations on the technical and social issues on using FOSS.

3 Cheers for Davao BPO Sportfest

Here are the people behind the Aux Sports 2009 organized by the BPO Association of Davao in cooperation of ICT Davao after the opening ceremonies this morning at the People’s Park. I am at the center in red sports jacket.

3 Cheers for first, their active participation – more than 600 turned up for the 7:30 a.m. opening; 2nd, for holding the 1st sportfest among BPOs in the country (there was one held in Manila but it was organized by a telecom company not by an association); and 3rd, amazing talents at the first competition – cheer-dance contest. Watch out for youtube posts on this.

Other events lined up are basketball, lawn and table tennis, volleyball, bowling and badminton.

Inbox

From my inbox are two interesting proposals:

Elmer Soriano, my mentor in wikislation, is now at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge. He is attending a course on Leadership for a Networked World. He is cooking up new ways to promote e-governance and e-citizenship and he wants me to collaborate with him. I said OK.

And from La Trobe University in Melbourne, I received a request from Skilty Labastilla, from Agusan del Sur, who plans to do research work in Davao.

He wrote: “I am interested in examining the lives of low-income young men in Davao City, specifically their experiences as they transition to adulthood. What are their aspirations and how do they go about achieving them? As we know, men in the Philippines are expected by society to provide for their families. But with the difficulties that they are facing, how do they manage to do that? These are just some of the important questions that I intend to find out as I will live inside (or near) a low-income community in the city.”

I am writing his university to support his research study here.

6:02 a.m.

Dot davao?

Anyone interested to register the dot davao in the new web domain name era starting in 2009?

Described as the biggest change in the internet since its inception, the new web addresses would allow such names as dot anything like dot davao or dot kadayawan or dot lavina from today’s dot coms dot orgs or dot ph.

Well, it would not come cheap actually.

We need at least 250,000 British Pounds or P22.2 million!

7:24 a.m.

ICT Week

It’s a busy ICT Week in Davao City.

The 6th Mindanao ICT Conference opened yesterday at the NCCC Mall. I’m joining one track today as panelist on new media and information exchange.

The week started last Sunday with the e-lympic internet games at SM Mall hosted by the Internet Cafe Association of Davao. It would end on Saturday with the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit.

The week-long activities also include the 1st BIMP-EAGA ICT Conference which coincides with the Senior Ministers Conference of this ASEAN sub-region comprising Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Also in town are trade delegations from Darwin, Australia and Taiwan, who are likewise participating at the Davao Trade Expo (DATE 2007), the city’s biggest trade exhibit.

Kudos to the organizers led by ICT Davao Inc. and the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Last year, I led the Davao City delegation at the 5th Mindanao ICT Conference at Cagayan de Oro to bid in hosting this year’s event.

Biggest change

The internet will go multilingual in registering domain names from the current English-centric to 11 new languages, mostly Asian like Hindi, Tamil, Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

This is seen as the biggest change in the internet since its creation.

Internet authorities say this is meant not for the current users of dot coms, dot orgs, dot nets, dot govs, but for the “next billion users.”

What’s next?

Very intriguing!

After the Erap conviction, people asked “Who’s next?”

I have little doubt who is on the mind of many.

Well, after yesterday’s Senate probe on the ZTE scandal, the Philippine Star has a roadmap on “What Next?”

And with this accompanying toon:

I have no doubt who is tainted with the letter E!

Ehem!

(4:37 a.m.)

Software freedom day

My hats off to the organizers of the Software Freedom Day in Davao City yesterday.

DabaweGNU, USEP FOSS Club and Kaiban.

The attendance at the whole day FOSS fair at the University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) was beyond their expectations. Students from several schools in the city as well as IT professionals, representatives from government, NGOs and business jampacked the Social Hall of the university to watch demos and listen to presentations.

Online on a big screen were simultaneous events at the University of the Philippines in Manila and in Vietnam.

I spoke briefly in behalf of the city government. The city’s contribution to the worldwide movement for FOSS augurs well to our efforts to position the city as an ICT hub.

Bad news

Bad news for the BPO industry which our city is trying to promote.

The country’s ranking as BPO investment destination has slipped to 8th place from 3rd after India and China.

Now, it is outranked by Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. If we wont shape up, Bulgaria, Mexico, Singapore and Vietnam are closely at our tail.

The 6th Mindanao ICT Summit should take this matter seriously in its October meeting here.

The reasons for the downgrade – political instability, infrastructure weaknesses and low IT maturity.

(5:22 a.m.)