KNCHS’ ICT program gets boost through Asia Source 3

Koronadal National Comprehensive High School’s (KNCHS) fast-growing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) program received a major boost with the recent participation of one of the programme’s movers to international open source camp Asia Source 3.

Latreia Estabillo, newly-designated ICT coordinator of KNCHS and adviser of the KNFOSSociety, was selected as one of the more than 140 fellows that were selected by camp organizers International Open Source Network (IOSN) and InWEnt of Germany to become a part of the third edition of the Asia Source camp, which was held in Silang, Cavite last November 7-12.

This year’s Asia Source, which is so far considered as one of the biggest gathering on the free and open source software or FOSS in Asia, was joined by leading open source advocates, technologists, academics, software developers, networking experts and other ICT experts coming from corporate, government and non-government sectors across the region.        

Ms. Estabillo said Asia Source 3 primarily gave her the opportunity to get updated with various emerging open source technologies and systems in Asia and other parts of the world as well as the latest initiatives on the continuing promotion of FOSS advocacy and use within the region.    

During the six-day ICT camp, which was held at the International Rural Reconstruction Movement (IRRM) center in Cavite, she got acquainted with participants from different parts of Asia who shared their skills and expertise on FOSS advocacy, software development, design and technology.

“It was a great learning for me. I was able to both gain new knowledge on ICT and open source technologies and share what we have been doing here in KNCHS,” she said.

“In the camp, we learned new skills, shared them with other participants and at the same time experienced a different kind of fun through the interactions and innovative sessions,” added Ms. Estabillo, who was also a fellow of the Asia Source 2 held in Sukabumi, Indonesia in January 2007.

At Asia Source 3, Ms. Estabillo joined its Track Four, which focused on “building FOSS communities.”

She said the sessions were handled by Johan Janssens, who is the lead developer of popular web content management system Joomla and Mifan Careem, who was part of the award-winning Sahana project (disaster management system).

Asia Source, which is held every two years, is mainly a camp-style gathering that aims to increase the awareness, integration and adoption of FOSS tools in Asia.

It also focuses on the promotion of practical elements of the deployment of FOSS within an economic and social structure and aims to build capacities to connect, cooperate, and collaborate and empower humanity with the use of FOSS.

Asia Source 3 was jointly organized by IOSN through its ASEAN+3 Centre of Excellence (Philippines), InWEnt-Capacity Building International (Germany), Tactical Technology Collective (Netherlands), Aspiration (USA) and The Centre for Internet and Society (India).

The event was supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), the ASEAN Foundation and the Open Society Institute.###