OpenSesame Initiative @ RootSpace

June 24, 2009 by RootSpaceOnline

"Openness" provides many benefits in education, society and social development, technology, innovation, government, the business world, civil society, arts and creativity, intellectual development, and much much more. "Closed systems", "closed minds", obsessive protection, and hording of information and knowledge all slow down innovation, ideas, and development.

As part of RootSpace efforts to build a more sustainable, collaborative, open, knowledge-based, and technology-driven Lebanon, RootSpace is launching the OpenSesame Consultancy (OSC) to provide low-cost, open source web and tech services to non-profit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and small/medium companies (SMEs). NGOs and SMEs will receive not just technical services, but also training in how to maximize the use of such technologies, plus how to do basic administration and management tasks. The OSC will also train NGOs and SMEs in how to use collaboration and social media tools, with an emphasis on free and open source tools.

We will also organize workshops for developers and power users to improve their skills, and we also look to organize workshops for developers to use, create, and contribute to open source tools and other applications (for such things as Drupal themes, Facebook and Google apps, or mobile phone apps built on open source tools).

The first event we organized was the OpenSesame BarCamp-Lebanon (organized in collaboration with Sami Tueni/Naharnet and at AUB).

Open source. Power to the people.