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Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs >
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Open Technology Initiatives
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There's a quiet revolution taking place in the education and not-for-profit IT sectors. The results are leading to high-quality collaboration tools that rival the best hardware and software commercial tools on the market, and they’re helping organizations realize their full potential
At the heart of this revolution is the Open Source Software (OSS) platform.
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Due to the collaboration of users, open source solutions can equal or exceed the performance of proprietary software. The software quickly and freely evolves because the programming community can read, redistribute and modify source code.
IBM is proud to be playing a key role in this new age of IT freedom for schools and not-for-profits. Through grants, volunteerism and IBM On Demand Community solutions, we’re helping to build a worldwide network of not-for-profit, software innovators.
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In 2006, IBM co-hosted a K-12 Open Technology Summit in Raleigh, North Carolina. The event—held at North Carolina State University—examined issues such as interoperability standards and building a community of K-12 developers to advance open source applications.
IBM is partnering with educators and not-for-profits throughout the world to encourage open source technology applications. (See box.)
Benefits of open source include:
- Sharing of technical expertise across organizations
- Leveraging software development resources
- Avoiding "locking in" to proprietary technology platforms
- Minimizing licensing fees and total cost of ownership (TCO)
IBM's On Demand Community, one of the world's largest philanthropic volunteer efforts with more than 75,000 IBM employee and retiree volunteers, is also helping to advance open source. Through solutions such as Introduce Not-for-profits to Open Source and Introduce Open Computing Skills to Universities, our volunteers are bringing this technology platform to the general public.
Those with physical or cognitive challenges are also benefiting from open source applications. Grants of IBM accessibilityWorks software have been made available to schools and not-for-profit organizations working with special needs children, people with disabilities and seniors.
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Brazil: IBM, the National Institute of Information Technology and the University of Brasilia have established the Center for Technology and Knowledge Dissemination. The initiative is a focal point for using Linux® and Open Source Software to promote economic development and to improve public education.
China: IBM, Xi’an Jiao Tong University (XJTU), and the Peoples Republic of China Ministry of Education have established the XJTU-IBM Linux Network Computer Joint Research Center to focus on K-12 education. A low-cost, networked classroom teaching system is being developed for education reform in rural and remote regions.
India: IBM, the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and the Center for Development of Advanced Computing have developed the Open Source Software Resource Center (OSSRC). OSSRC will develop e-government applications to improve access to services and expand applications customized in indigenous languages.
North America: IBM, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the Stupski Foundation and the William and Ida Friday Institute for Education Innovation hosted the K-12 Open Technologies Summit in September 2006 at North Carolina State University. Goals included furthering interoperability standards, enabling and expanding a community of developers for open source applications and determining "next steps," including establishment of a governance entity to manage community projects.
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