FOSS Bridge

FOSS Bridge Presentation at the 24c3 – Video and Slideshow

Mario Behling — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:14:45 +0000

The presentation on FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam went well. Difficult to talk about a project only very shortly. But I think I could put it rather concisely and people got the idea behind the project.

The video with the talk is available here: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Conference_Recordings

I also uploaded the Video with the presentation at Google Video: http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-7839890482423926602#58m59s

The slides are here.

FOSS Bridge Presentation at the 24c3 (pdf, 126 KB)

FOSS Bridge at the 24c3 Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin

Mario Behling — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:07:05 +0000

The 24th Chaos Communication Congress (24c3) starts tomorrow in the Berliner Congress Center at the Alexanderplatz. I (Mario Behling) will have a lightning talk on the FOSS Bridge project under the somewhat controversial title “Towards a ‘free (software) world’ – Experiences of FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam”.

My time slot is not confirmed yet, but I suppose I will be speaking on Sunday 30th december some time between 17:15–19:30 in Room#3. Please join me!

Promising joint collaboration plans after first face-to-face meetings in Hanoi

Mario Behling — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:48:34 +0000

The first face-to-face meetings of FOSS companies from Europe and Vietnam have passed over a month ago. We have received some very promising proposals of joint collaboration projects and another article on heise.de.

“Open Source schlägt Brücke zwischen Europa und Vietnam – Bei einem ersten Kontaktanbahnungstreffen der staatlich geförderten Initiative “FOSS Bridge” haben vietnamesische und europäische Geschäftspartner in Hanoi insgesamt 42 Kooperationsvereinbarungen abgeschlossen. Dies meldet die Plattform, die eine Brücke der Zusammenarbeit zwischen den beiden Regionen im Bereich “Freie und Open-Source-Software” (FOSS) schlagen will. Vor allem kleine und mittlere Unternehmen aus dem IT-Sektor nutzten demnach die Chance, sich gegenseitig nach dreimonatiger Online-Zusammenarbeit bei einem einwöchigen Arbeitstreffen Mitte November persönlich zu beschnuppern. Unter den Teilnehmern waren Firmen aus Vietnam, Belgien, Deutschland, Frankreich, Schweden und Spanien…” (26.11.2007 18:47, Stefan Krempl, heise.de)

We are looking forward to supporting companies in their projects. .. and I personally hope everyone will keep up the energy and commitment even though of the “catching-a-cold-period” and upcoming Christmas.

Interview with FOSS Bridge project manager Balthas Seibold in Telemedicus

Mario Behling — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:01:42 +0000

An interview with Balthas was published in Telemedicus a few days ago, where he also explains the idea behind the FOSS Bridge project. In the talk he especially stresses the importance of joint collaboration rather than passive development aid.

Konkret geht es darum, kleine und mittlere Unternehmen in den Ländern aufzubauen. Zum Beispiel machen wir in Vietnam gerade ein Projekt, in dem wir Unternehmen Geschäftsmodelle von freier Software vorstellen, um dort die IT-Industrie zu fördern. Durch technologische Entwicklung können so ganz neue Märkte geschaffen werden. Sehr oft hilft da die „Lokalisierung“, also die Übersetzung von Software in die entsprechende Landessprache. In Entwicklungsländern wird Software in lokalen Sprachen von den Unternehmen oft zunächst nicht als rentabel angesehen. Aber nachdem Free- und Open Source-Software, wie zum Beispiel Open Office, dazu übergegangen ist, etwa die Software in Kisuaheli zu übersetzen, sind dann auch andere kommerzielle Anbieter aufgewacht und haben nachgezogen, um in dem Markt keine Anteile zu verlieren – auch wenn er noch nicht als „Geldmarkt“ vorhanden ist. (Adrian Schneider, Internetökonomie und Ethik: Freie Inhalte und Entwicklungshilfe, 11.12.2007, Telemedicus)

Slides of FOSS Bridge Meetings online

Mario Behling — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:00:45 +0000

Slides of the last FOSS Bridge events are now available as .pdf on our website. Some involved participants also host presentations tagged with fossbridge2007 at slideshare.com.

The most popular fossbridge2007 slide with over 1000 views currently is provided by Yerbabuena Software from Spain.

Over 40 IT-companies cross FOSS Bridge between Europe and Vietnam

Mario Behling — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:39:34 +0000

A total of 42 agreements of cooperation were reached between Vietnamese and European business partners at the end of the first matchmaking event of the project “FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam” for small and medium-sized IT enterprises in Hanoi, Vietnam. The one-week event attracted over 40 IT companies from Vietnam and Germany, France, Spain, Belgium and Sweden, who all share an interest in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). In over 60 matchmaking encounters, they successfully discussed cooperation plans for joint business in Hanoi from 12 to 16 November – after three months of online interaction and matchmaking through a web platform on www.foss-bridge.org.

FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam is implemented by three key partners – InWEnt (Germany), INRIA (France) and the Institute of Information Technology (Vietnam) and supported by associate partner CENATIC from Spain. Financial support comes from the Asia-Invest programme of the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ),

After the end of the “first matchmaking, twinning and training workshop of FOSS-Bridge”, Project manager Vu The Binh of IOIT concluded: “When the project started in March of this year, we did not expect such a large number of Vietnamese companies would join. This shows the huge interest of the Vietnamese IT communities in capturing the potential opportunities which FOSS can bring.”

The success of the twinning agreements for joint projects and business were due to the large interest of European and Vietnamese businesses, who are keen on working together to further develop their network and enhance their competitiveness through free and open software. Mr. Leo Barrientos from OpenSistemas, one of the Spanish companies taking part in the workshop says: “We achieved the maximum of what we expected for the week. We developed a collaboration plan with three Vietnamese partners with whom we will open a customer information centre in Hanoi.”

Vietnamese companies were particularly interested in technology exchange, capacity-building and know-how transfer, which is easy due to the availability of software code in the open source world. Concerning the business side, Mr. Vu Le Phuong from NCS Corporation says: “We originally thought of FOSS as a non-commercial software, but this week we actually met many European companies, partly very big ones, that are generating impressive business through FOSS. Our plans are to adapt FOSS for the needs of the Vietnamese market and increase the competitiveness of our company.”

Satisfied by the proven success of the very first twinning event in the field of open source, the consortium is committed to bringing FOSS partners from Europe and Vietnam further together. Mr. Balthas Seibold, Senior Project Manager of InWEnt Capacity Building International, Germany comments: “I am amazed by the results of this workshop. Many companies actually signed multiple agreements, and large companies like Bull, MySQL, OTRS of Europe and CMC Soft, Vietsoftware of Vietnam are on board of FOSS Bridge.” Ms Catherine Nuel representing INRIA added: “The organization of this event is an outstanding example of Inter-European as well as Vietnam-EU business cooperation. Until 2009, we will organize numerous training and capacity building programs aiming at local companies, business intermediaries and IT associations”.

The main goal of “FOSS-Bridge EU-Vietnam” is to develop business partnerships between software players in Vietnam and Europe. Cooperation is based on the innovative model of “Free and Open Source Software” (FOSS), which fosters open cooperation and joint building of software code worldwide. For that, each company from Vietnam is twinned with a counterpart from Europe for joint projects – increasing knowledge base and cooperation of the partners.

The goal behind FOSS Bridge – Boosting Cooperation through Free and Open Source Software FOSS

Mario Behling — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:39:01 +0000

The main goal of FOSS Bridge “EU-Vietnam” – Joint Business through Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)” is to strengthen Southeast Asian software industries and to boost co-operation with Europe through innovative collaboration on FOSS and business development.

Building the FOSS Bridge between Europe and Vietnam

What FOSS Bridge “EU-Vietnam” offers:

to European and Vietnamese IT-companies — twinning between Europe and Asia FOSS Bridge “EU-Vietnam” organizes dedicated matchmaking and twinning for your FOSS-company, which brings you together with selected small to medium IT-enterprises (SMEs) from the other country/region. Your developers/FOSS experts have the opportunity to collaborate on joint software projects, thereby boosting the sharing of technological know-how, the exchange of best practices and development of joint business. You are twinned through several face-to-face meetings and training sessions in Vietnam and online collaboration.
to FOSS- intermediary in Vietnam — expert knowledge on innovative business models and EU-regulations FOSS Bridge “EU-Vietnam” offers training and information on technical regulations to intermediary and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the field of FOSS in Vietnam. The focus lies on establishing innovative business models for potential use in Vietnam, providing crucial knowledge on regulations and requirements to access the European marketplace.
to Network Partners — access to a new FOSS-network and ecosystem FOSS Bridge “EU-Vietnam” fosters collaboration on FOSS between Vietnamese and European companies through the use of virtual networks. This system contributes to a sustainable FOSS ecosystem involving multiple stakeholders and networks from Europe and Asia. The project gives network partners the opportunity to involve their members in exclusive twinning and networking activities. Thereby the networks have the opportunity to expand their community and gain access to a larger number of developers.

Furthermore, the initiative is actively looking for media and networking partners to promote the idea of FOSS Bridge “EU-Vietnam”. The project offers interesting advantages for networking partners, such as promotion, exclusive media relationships and more.

Hello world!

Mario Behling — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:14:01 +0000

Welcome to the FOSS Bridge blog – the inofficial project blog of FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam found at www.fossbridge.org.