BALUG Tu 2012-01-17: Grant Bowman[1] on Spreading Open Source in Nairobi, Kenya

[Michael Paoli]

BALUG Tu 2012-01-17: Grant Bowman[1] on Spreading Open Source in  
Nairobi, Kenya

Bay Area Linux User Group (BALUG) meeting
Tuesday 6:30 P.M. 2012-01-17

Please RSVP if you're planning to come (see further below).

For our 2012-01-17 BALUG meeting, we're pleased to present:

Grant Bowman[1] on Spreading Open Source in Nairobi, Kenya

Mr. Bowman spent September, October and November 2011 working with
young adult graduates of a technology school (Nairobits)[2] hosted
by Dreamfish[3] CEO Dr. Tiffany von Emmel in Nairobi, Kenya thanks
to the generous support of Dreamfish members and donors.  Nairobi is
one degree below the equator eleven time zones away just inland
from the Eastern coast of Africa.  Dreamfish is a global peer
development network connecting entrepreneurs and individuals
working together to realize their dreams.  Dreamfish is co-owned by
hundreds of women entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs and
professionals in 26 countries.  The Community Tech project's goal is
to use open source to connect people working all over the world,
from the Rift Valley to the Silicon Valley using web and mobile
technologies.  Primary PHP software packages being customized are
status.net[4], wordpress.org[5] and more.

Working five days a week the graduates were exposed to many ideas
and topics including ica.coop[6], English language classes,
revolution-os.com[7], laptop.org[8] (OLPC) / olpcsf.org[9] /
give one get one, toms.com shoes one for one[10], ARRL[11], Wi-Fi
and Ubuntu[12], Fedora Project[13], Android.  Mr. Bowman used the
ground breaking Safaricom M-PESA branchless banking system popular
in Kenya, Tanzania & Afghanistan - M stands for mobile and pesa is
Swahili for money.  During his stay he, Tiffany and the graduates
presented at Nairobits, introducing 47 students to open source
software, user focused design (UX), web development infrastructure
and the command line.  Ubuntu Hour[14]s were held every other week
at *iHub_Nairobi[15] helping the Ubuntu Kenya Local Community Team[16]
become more active again with the support of Ubuntu California[17].

Mr. Bowman has been a consultant and Internet professional for over
twenty years including a former Director of Silicon Valley
Public Access Link (SV-PAL)[18] ISP serving Santa Clara County and a
present Director of Partimus[19] serving San Francisco and Alameda
County middle schools with recycled computers, open source
software, training and support.  He is an OLPC Developer, Ubuntu
Member, Fedora Ambassador, Debian Developer and former employee of
SUSE[20].  Active Habits[21] is a forthcoming Android app.  He is
also active with Berkely Linux Users Group[22], Berkeley Unix
User Group (BUUG)[23], Noisebridge[24], San Francisco Linux Users'
Group (SF-LUG)[25] and also Diablo Valley Linux Users Group (DVLUG)[26]
(every Friday in Walnut Creek).  His website is:
http://www.grantbow.com/[27]

  1. http://www.grantbow.com/
  2. http://nairobits.com/
  3. http://dreamfish.com/
  4. http://status.net/
  5. http://wordpress.org/
  6. http://www.ica.coop/
  7. http://www.revolution-os.com/
  8. http://one.laptop.org/
  9. http://olpcsf.org/
10. http://www.toms.com/our-movement/movement-one-for-one
11. http://www.arrl.org/
12. http://www.ubuntu.com/
13. http://fedoraproject.org/
14. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hour
15. http://ihub.co.ke/
16. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KenyanTeam
17. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam
18. http://www.svpal.org/
19. http://partimus.org/
20. http://www.suse.com/
21. http://www.activehabits.com/
22. http://www.berkeleylug.com/
23. http://www.buug.org/
24. http://www.noisebridge.net/
25. http://www.sf-lug.com/
26. http://www.dvlug.org/
27. http://www.grantbow.com/

So, if you'd like to join us please RSVP to:

                       rsvp at balug.org

**Why RSVP??**

Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help
BALUG and the Four Seas Restaurant plan the meal and meeting, and with
sufficient attendance, they also help ensure that we'll be able to eat
upstairs in the private banquet room.

Meeting Details...

                       6:30pm
                       Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 2012-01-17

                       Four Seas Restaurant http://www.fourseasr.com/
                       731 Grant Ave.
                       San Francisco, CA 94108
                       Easy PARKING:
                         Portsmouth Square Garage at 733 Kearny:
                         http://www.sfpsg.com/

Cost: The meetings are always free, but for dinner, for your gift of $13
             cash, we give you a gift of dinner - joining us for a yummy
             family-style Chinese dinner - tax and tip included (your gift
             also helps in our patronizing the restaurant venue and helping
             to defray BALUG costs such treating our speakers to dinner).

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CDs, etc.:

Additional goodies we'll have at the meeting (at least the following):

CDs, etc. - have a peek here:
http://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
We do also have some additional give-away items, and may have
"door prizes".

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Want to volunteer to help out BALUG?  (quite a variety of opportunities
exist) Drop us a note at:
balug-contact at balug.org
Or come talk to us at a BALUG meeting.

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Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we
should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or
things we should do differently): publicity-feedback at balug.org

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http://www.balug.org/