[Chapter-delegates] Checking status for project "Khmer OS Software Initiative"

[CW Mail]

> I write from memory ...

Eh bien, quelle mémoire!

CW


On 01 Oct 2013, at 05:18, Norbert Klein <nhklein at gmx.net> wrote:

> On 9/18/2013 4:00 AM, Ilda Simao wrote:
>> Dear Norbert,
>> 
>> As I am cleaning up the Community Grants data base, I noticed that the project "Khmer OS Software Initiative", for which the Cambodia Chapter received a grant in 2005 has an incomplete status. I believe from previous discussions that this project was completed, however the final reports are missing and that may explain this status. Would you mind checking if you still have the project final report and send it to me, so that I can change this status.
>> 
>> We have recently changed the Community Grants Rules, and anyone (Chapter or Individual member) with an incomplete project status, is not eligible to receive a new Community grant. I would like to prevent this situation in case the Cambodia Chapter decides to apply for a new grant.
>> 
>> I look forward to hearing from you.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> 
>> Ilda Simao
>> Community Grants Coordinator
>> 
> Dear Ilda,
> thanks for your mail – it is interesting that this question comes up just now – in 2013 relating to a grant towards the Khmer OS Software Initiative in 2005, for which I had asked in the name of the ISOC Cambodia Chapter in the early stages of its formation: not for an ISOC program, but to support something important for the whole country.
> I take note of your information that no chapter and no individual member (?can these also receive ISOC grants?) is eligible to receive a new grant that has an incomplete project status - “ in case the Cambodia Chapter decides to apply for a new grant” as you informed me.
> Had ISOC HQ informed me sooner after 2005 that you have incomplete records, we surely would have tried to clarify this earlier.
> As the records at your office surely show, our Chapter had our Inaugural Assembly only in 2010.
> 
> 
> Let me give a detailed report, including the context and subsequent developments, as the original seems to be missing.
> I write from memory (while traveling to a place where I have Internet access – where I live now there is none, because all “line of sight” signals are prevented to come in by the surrounding mountains).
> At that time I was working in the Open Forum of Cambodia, where we had achieved already in 1994 to create the first access to the Internet in Cambodia – only via UUCP with slow and expensive international phone line connections to San Francisco, then in 1996 I created the ccTLD .kh and administered it for three years before handing it to the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. Then in 1998 or so, I took the initiative and was for a long time the only person in Cambodia trying to get the Unicode consortium to work with native Cambodian speakers, and in Cambodia, and not only with outside experts, in codifying the Khmer script. After Khmer was codified (in a way which disregarded the - by then created - Cambodian government commission's opinion), a new competent colleague – Javier Solá formerly active in the Spanish Internet Users Association - joined the Open Forum of Cambodia as a volunteer, and early in 2004 we started to create Unicode based, localized, Khmer Open Source software, which could run both on the Microsoft Windows and on the SuSE Linux platforms. By now, also Ubuntu Linux software has been localized in Khmer. A wide variety of localized applications in the Khmer language for office use and for communication is available since several years.
> The grant you refer to now was helpful in addition to the personal and institutional resources with which this care for the use of the Khmer script and language had begun earlier on, and continues until today.
> In 2008 the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports of Cambodia was happy to accept what we had done over the years, and it is now the official software for the Ministry, the teacher training colleges, and of course for the schools under the Ministry that have computers, and the same software basis is used widely in government, industry, commerce, and NGOs.
> Have a look here at the Ministry's website:
> http://moeys.gov.kh/
> The site for the English version of the Master Plan for Information and Communication Technology in Education, 2009 to 2013 ( downloadable) says:
> http://moeys.gov.kh/en/policies-and-strategies/73-policies/92-master-plan-on-ict-in-education.html
> In alignment with its Education Strategic Plan 2009-2013, MoEYS is introducing various initiatives to make better use of information and communication technologies (ICT)... to produce a workforce for the country both technologically productive and able to think critically.
> 
> The software in this Master Plan is based on the software development by the Open Institute (the Open Forum had come to an end in 2006 – I doubt that any documents of this defunct organization are left), but the relevant staff moved on into the newly created Open Institute, and we continued the work there.
> I point to some sections of the English translation of the Master Plan for Information and Communication Technology in Education of the Ministry of Education which may be of interest also to others, where there are concerns, shared by Civil Society in many countries, which are important to make information and communication technology tools easily available where economic resources are scarce. So I share this report also with the Chapter-delegates list. The detailed Maser Plan says among others:
> - Students will learn to recognize which software they can use freely and share (as in the case of Free and Open Source Software), and which software is proprietary, requires payment for the use of a license, and cannot be shared with others...
> - Only applications that have been legally procured will be taught in the education system, and manufacturers must show that their software cannot be easily attacked by viruses or malware.
> - Software will be licensed either through the GNU General Public License (GPL) or the GNU Lesser Public License (LGPL). Content will be licensed through a Creative Common Attribution License, allowing commercial use of the materials (to encourage private development of better materials...)
> - The use of standards is the key to scaling the use of ICT. National and international standards will be used in the deployment of this Master Plan. These include the Unicode character encoding standard (ISO 10646). The NiDA Standard Unicode Keyboard V1 defined by the National ICT Development Authority in 2005, or later standards, but only if they are fully compatible with the prior one. The Open Document international (ODF) standard (ISO 26300:2006) will be used for office documents
> - The Ministry will tend to use Open Source Software whenever possible for its own databases and back-office.
> 
> Let me say in closing that the Khmer OS Initiative became operational before it received support from ISOC for it expansion, and, as it had during several years about 20 full time staff, the ISOC support was important during an early stage, but it covered only a small portion of the finances applied over the years.
> If there are any further questions, please let me know.
> 
> Norbert Klein
> at present a member of the ISOC-KH Chapter Executive Committee
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