The e-Rider Comes to Manila!

Among the notable personalities in the FOSS community who have visited the country recently was Bulgarian e-Rider, Vladimir Ognyanov Petkov aka Kaladan. He is the FOSS projects manager of InterSpace Media Art Center in Bulgaria.

He was invited to Manila to speak on "Using FOSS on Governance: Experiences Abroad" during the 1st Philippine Conference on Free and Open Source Software in eGovernance held last 7-8 March 2007 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel in Pasig City, Philippines. The event was organized by the Institute of Popular Democracy.

The highlight of Kaladan's visit was the presentation of the 2006 Dirk Award. I remember Bobby bringing the Oscar-like trophy all the way from AS2 when its inaugural recipient, Dirk Slater handed it to him for the awarding ceremonies. And it's a heavy piece of solid metal. Bobby, did it trigger the airport security alarms?

The Dirk Award is given annually to Circuit Riders or eRiders who have shown extraordinary contributions to the nonprofit and international NGO technology communities while paying tribute to the principles of social justice and the role technology can play in empowering other communities and individuals.

The site also states that "in person, Kaladan is warm, friendly and always has a smile. He is also entirely humble and always ready to help where he can." In fact, it was more of an understatement about Kaladan. He is more than that! You should hear him make his voice squeak when he emphasizes a point. Really funny!

I may have spent a brief time with his company during his booth visits, our group beer drinking sessions and during his Ubuntu+FOSS migration lecture, yet I do find Kaladan a person of passion and a lover of freedom - like a true FOSS advocate he is.

Congratulations Kaladan for all your tireless and selfless contributions! I wish you all the best! See you again in the future. Thank you for visiting our country.

AS2-Pilipinas Celebrates in FOSS Fiesta

Photos courtesy of Yolynne Medina and Dom Cimafranca

Shown above are AS2-Pilipinas Francis, Bobby, Yolynne, Myra, Joanna, Jerome, Dianne, and Alvin with Ubuntu-PH, IPD, Joomla and a lot more of FOSS people! Ela, Magie, Bangge, Nelia, Latreia, Pretchie, Joyce, Cheekay, Trixie and Marvin were with us in spirit. Thanks to Dom Cimafranca and Yolynne for the pics. You saved the day, my Friends!

Last March 7 and 8 was FOSS Fiesta during the 1st Philippine Conference on Free and Open Source Software in eGovernance organized by the Institute of Popular Democracy (IPD). Yolynne flew in from hometown Zamboanga City as an invited speaker on FOSS 101 and IOSN ASEAN+3 Regional Manager Alvin who spoke on "Building Sustainable Constituencies for using FOSS in e-Governance."

It was a fun-filled event wherein one of the highlights was the FOSS Fiesta, which included a number of FOSS groups - IOSN ASEAN+3, UP Manila-National Telehealth Center, AsiaSource II-Pilipinas, Joomla, Google, Sahana and of course, Ubuntu-PH and UbuntuWomen among others. We also met AS1 Philippine participants. The organizers through the courtesy of AS2 Track 4 facilitator Bobby Soriano and IPD's Pi Villanueva, provided the group a booth to showcase our stuff.

Yolynne, Joanna, Dianne and Jerome manned the Ubuntu booth with the active members of Ubuntu-PH and UbuntuWomen. We had T-shirts, pens, watches, mugs, water jugs, and stickers with Ubuntu logos on them. Ubuntu 6.10 CDs brought in from abroad were also a big hit!The group prepared a simple multimedia AS2 booth, which featured Camp "Muse" Myra's video production of the event's memorable faces and moments. Indeed, it was a labor of pure love and it did bring back smiles and laughs. We displayed some of the camp souvenirs we got and also my BumBum "The Volcanic Penguin."

We wore our official AS2 shirts on the 1st day. Too bad no pictures to show the first day activities were recovered from my digicam that got lost in the midst of the frenzy. Nonetheless, the show must go on. By the way, the video will undergo fine-tuning and Myra promised to post it soon for everybody to download. Yipee!!!

The event did bring people together. Eventhough I lost my camera, I did find a lot of new friends and more FOSS knowledge. Oh yes, I do love my job! Time to get a new camera. :) Hmmm... an SLR digicam is still out of reach, though.

Note: We have named our group "AS2-Pilipinas" referring to the Philippine participants in Asia Source II. And yes, we had new Ubuntu shirts made. Really a must have!