ZOSS - Zimbabwe Open Software Society

ZOSS is a registered youth organisation under the Zimbabwe Youth Council. Our mission is to help youths in the country appreciate, understand, and enjoy the benefits of free and open source software. A highly computer literate youth will actively participate in the global digital village thereby improving their skills through information and knowledge sharing. This has a long term effect of building a better Zimbabwe by molding tomorrow's leaders through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

Software Freedom Day 2008 - 20 September

This year's Software Freedom Day will be celebrated in Harare by ZOSS. We intent to line up very intriguing events for the day. A preliminary list of events follows:

• Morning- Presentations and Demos

  • Bazaar Style Presentations: Presentations will start in a large hall (exact hall to be advised) with at least 15 computers and 15 presenters doing parallel presentations to small groups of people. Participants will be walking around open source "booths". Each booth will be covering a specific area of open source software.

  • Open Source Games for Kids: We intend to capture the imaginations of kinds by demonstrating and giving kids the chance to interact with Linux and open source games. For this category, at least 5 computers will be set up for the kids section to play games and interact with open source software, particularly Linux.

• Afternoon - Competitions and Fun!

  • Geeky Bazaar: The afternoon becomes time for fun in a geeky style! The booths used in the morning for presentations and demos will be turned into geeky booths where participants show their mettle in the field of technology and software - particularly free and open source software. At least 15 booths will be available and each booths will have a theme running and geeks interest in a particular theme will go to a relevant booth and fight it out with other geeks. The idea will be for participants to carry out particular tasks and pick out who does the best job inside the fastest time. Prizes will be won. The type and magnitude of prizes will depend of quantity and quality of sponsorship. Examples of competitions will include doing crazy stuff with GIMP, Linux, Open Office, etc. The Grand finale will involve completely messing a Linux system and ask contestants to figure it out and restore. This will be done when all the other booths have been closed down and everyone's attention focused on the final. The biggest prize will be won here.

• The idea of the Geeky Bazaar is to target people already involved in the I.T. industry. These are the individuals who make crucial decisions.

Call for prize sponsorship

A good number of companies in Zimbabwe heavily rely on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). ZOSS is passionately asking for kind sponsorship in the form of prizes to be won on Software Freedom Day. We have already received support in the form of cameras to be used for the event. Companies who support the event will be fully credited. However, we are kindly requesting that such support be limited to free and open source software. Sponsorship of proprietary software as prizes will be kindly turned down. The majority of ISPs in Zimbabwe heavily rely on a backborne that is powered by Free and Open Source Software. We all know the internet heavily relies on the efficiency and sheer power of FOSS!