Africa Source drew together over 60 people from nearly 25 countries coming from the commercial, academic and non-profit sectors. Participants ranged from advanced programmers to those with basic skills in the four cornerstones of free and open source software, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). F/OSS developers from across Africa were joined by a handful of select guests from other continents; Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America, enabling exchange with leading F/OSS developers and implementers working outside of Africa. See the list below:

Africa Source
African Free and open Source Software Developers Meeting
Participants List
(Listed by country in alphabetical order)

Jean-Paul Hounkanrin (Benin)
has been working with OS software / technologies for the past 3 years, during the last 7 months as freelance programmer. Prior to that, he was working as the lead programmer of a Web Agency in Accra called SOFT Internet Solutions where he developed customized CMS for web sites and portals. Now as a freelance, he does the same work while enjoying more freedom. Jean-Paul has several years of experience with Linux (Mandrake). Currently he is working on two own software development projects, a small, loalized CMS and a groupware system. See also http://www.jpgeek.net

Fernanda G. Weiden (Brazil)
is a FOSS user since 1998 and has working experience with it since 2000, in shell programing and system architectures. She's the only Red Hat Certified Engineer and Linux Professional Institute Certified woman in Brazil so far. Fernanda is a coordination member of Projeto Software Livre Brasil (Brazilian Free Software Project)[1] and in that, treating gender questions inside the Free Software community, such as "Projeto Software Livre Mulheres"[2] (Women Free Software Project). She also is Debconf's [4] local team member and co- organized FISL[3] (Free Software Internacional Forum), a big event (4thousand people, 236 FS speakers) of Free Software which will take place in Porto Alegre before FISL. Fernanda's NGO also runs some projects like "Free School Network" to computerize schools using free software, and Info Centers to promote free software courses inside lacking communities.
[1] http://www.softwarelivre.org
[2] http://mulheres.softwarelivre.org
[3] http://www.softwarelivre.org/forum2004
[4] http://www.debconf.org/debconf4

Vladimir Petkov aka Kaladan (Bulgaria)
Vladimir Petkov works in InterSpace Media Art Center - based in Sofia, Bulgaria as manager of eRider project called "Open Source Software Solutions for Bulgarian NGOs". He has graduated University for National and World Economics - major Public Administration, and now graduates the Sofia University - major Virtual Culture. He is the engine of Cult.bg - server for art an culture, *bpm - zone for cyber culture and many other independent web projects. His favorite Linux distribution is SlackWare and he uses GNOME as windows manager.
Ngouyamsa Mfondoum Roland Bruno (Cameroon)
24 years, holds a Bachelors degree in Theoretical physics and a Technical University Diploma in Computer Sciences and Automation (equivalent to a Bachelors degree). Crazy of telecommunication and Internet Networking using Wireless access, he's actually working on the VoIP (Voice over IP) and Internet Telephony, a very interesting way of communicating especially for NGO's. He also works as consultant (technician and network administrator) for the Cameroonian NGO F.F.C (Fight For the Children) where he installed a call center using the Voice over IP technology.

Alain Ilunga (Congolese DRC)
is a teacher at the University of Kinshasa. His major interest are system and network administration with Linux and FreeBSD. Aspiring to become a Linux professionnal, he spends part of his time writing shell scripts for small ISP's in Kinshasa to enable them to manage their networks with less manpower. Alain is a coordination member of the Congolese Association for Free Software users. That organization offers training in Linux and network administration and encourages students to develop Free Software for their own needs.

Tomas Krag (Denmark)
He spends his days working with wire.less.dk, a company that he founded with his friend and colleague Sebastian Buettrich in early 2002. wire.less.dk specialises in community wireless networking solutions, and has a special focus on low-cost wireless networks for the developing world. Before founding wire.less.dk Tomas held 2 volunteer positions for US NGO GeekCorps. First in Accra, in a Ghana based Internet Service Provider set up a wireless network, and some Linux-based servers, and training his local counterparts to build out and maintain the systems. Second in Yerevan, Armenia where he worked with GeekCorps to evaluate possible volunteer projects, and to train local GeekCorps/IESC staff on how to handle geek volunteers. Before that, Tomas spent a few years at university studying Computer Science and Business, followed by 5 years in various jobs, ranging from Open Source web developer and Technical Project Manager, to heading up a small research department in a large web agency, and trying to learn everything he could about mobile Internet, interactive TV and other stranger web channels, before the bubble burst. A big fan of traveling Tomas has played pick-up basketball games in at least 6 countries on 3 continents. He does what he does because it's loads of fun.

Mekuannent Addis Kelemu (Ethiopia)
born in Ethiopia in 1972, holds a degree in Information Science at Addis Ababa University in 1999 and followed a Postgraduate diploma program of Computer Science at HiLCoE School of Computer Science and Technology in 2001 in Addis Ababa. He worked as a librarian at Radio Ethiopia, as Information Systems Officer at APAP, an indigenous NGO, and now as a Database Manager at GOAL Ethiopia, an international NGO.
Francois Kodjo Bonin (Ghana)
has spent the past 19 years in the computing world, first as a hobbyist programmer and then as a professional developer and team leader for the past 7 years. Francois currently helps development teams in West Africa to accelerate the providing of training on various technologies (OO design and programming, development processes), giving a hand with the design or coding phase of their projects. In his spare time, he works on a couple of Open Source projects and coaches a university team in Ghana to prepare them for the ACM-ICPC.

Guido Sohne (Ghana)
Guido is a Free Software hacker in Accra, Ghana. Guido Sohne has fifteen years of development experience, mostly from the self taught perspective of the exploring hacker. He is able to work with Java, Perl, Python, C, C++, PHP, Scheme and shell scripts to varying degrees of effectiveness. Working almost exclusively with free software, he has a broad knowledge of projects techniques and code bases that will aid integration of disparate technologies. http://sohne.net/index.html http://www.ryze.com/go/wgsohne

Hillar Addo (Ghana)
is a Ghanaian by birth currently residing in South Africa. He is Project Officer of SchoolNet Africa, coordinating the research and African Teachers Network (ATN) programmes. A trained teacher, he has also worked in Ghana and Zambia and is involved in National SchoolNet startups (with focus currently on Angola). He was research Assistant at the Centre for Health and Social Studies (CHESS) at the University of Natal Medical School working on Health Informatics and served as an Information Consultant to the Department of Land Affairs in KwaZulu Natal. Hillar is member of the Free and Open Source Software foundation of Africa (FOSSFA). He has trained teachers to operate in the OSS environment and in The District Health Information Database and hopes to contribute with increasing the capacity building among African teachers witin the OSS environment.

Janet Haven (Hungary)
She is based at the Open Society Institute in Budapest. She works in the toolsets area, and follows movements in social software and Open Source. Janet has a background in project management on various software development projects in Central Europe.

Sunil Abraham (India)
is an industrial and production engineer. He founded MAHITI in 1998. MAHITI aims to reduce the cost and complexity of Information and Communication Technology for the Voluntary Sector by using Free Software. He was elected an Ashoka.org fellow in 1999 and a Sarai.net fellow in 2003. Sunil leads a team of 20 software engineers servicing over 75 NGOs directly and over 500 NGOS indirectly. As a technical architect Sunil has helped build several web,intranet, multimedia and kiosk applications for several organizations including United Nations- Development Programme, Ashoka.org, Geo-Post-UK, iMorph-US, Institute of Bio-informatics, Tarahaat.com, Explocity.com Indian Foundation for the Arts, National Law School of India and ChildLine Foundation. Sunil has held trainings or made presentations for the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, One World India, Indev and South Asia Fundraising Group. Sunil is very fond of Python programming language and Zope Application Server.

Biegon Kipkoech Patrick (Kenya)
is finishing his studies (final year) in computer science at the University of Nairobi(Kenya). He's also an intern at the UN Somalia offices based in Nairobi since six months and a freelance software developer for diverse platforms (preference on Java and .net). His major interest now is on GRID Computing-Poor's man supercomputer and a couple of new technologies like web services, remoting, multi agent, p2p and abit of A.I.

Eric Kotonya (Kenya)
owns a private commercial software company, Ifox Software. He holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. Eric is a software developer, consultant and developer of business and Internet systems. Currently he is implementing Oracle Financials for Safaricom Limited (Kenya's largest mobile operator) under IBM consulting. He also provides Foreign Exchange and Stock Exchange data for SMS to Safaricom Limited.

Jason M. Githeko (Kenya)
is in charge of the ICT department at the Egerton University in Kenya, the oldest tertiary institution in Kenya with its main campus in Njoro. Jason teaches at the university and set up internet access and Linux servers for the campus.
In addition to being the director of the Nakuru Town Campus, Jason is chairman of the Nakuru branch of the Kenya Red Cross Society. One of their priority projects for this year is setting up a Youth Centre (70% of the members are youth) to provide a resource, cybercafe, and training centre (& recreation) for young people. The Kenya Red Cross considers the HIV/AIDs pandemic as an ongoing disaster and hopes to use ICTs to provide information on HIV/AIDs together with disaster prevention and management and community health in general. Expectation is to use Open Source tools both for the planned cafe` and training centre.

Laban Mwangi (Kenya)
is studying computer science at the University Of Nairobi (3rd year). A big fan of Linux/GNU, he loaded Mandrake on a Compaq Deskpro 4 years ago as complete newbie. His interests are varied at the moment: Hacking xmms, hacking postfix, playing around with PHP (Open-Reality project), hunting for research funding (security extensions to the wireless Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol).

Martin S. Njuguna Githuthu (Kenya)
is a third year computer science student at the University Of Nairobi (www.uonbi.ac.ke/acad_depts/ics). He also works for 'Circuits and Packets Communications Ltd' who are hosting the FOSSFA Secretariat (www.fossfa.org ). Martin has a big interest in developing F/OSS based web based applications. he believes that given the right platform, great contributions can be made not just to the developer's community but to other target groups as well: "As with the many facets of life itself, I also have many other interests such as poetry writing, socializing and of course trying to scale up against what would otherwise become some lofty dreams".

Nicholas Kimolo (Kenya)
works also for 'Circuits & Packets Communications Ltd'(www.circuitspackets.com) and has spent some time as IT consultant for the Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA).He is using Open Source solutions for six years meanwhile. During that time, his interests have evolved from purely technical to business oriented and he strives to develop or deploy Open Source solutions to meet specific market demands. His special interest is in business information systems and networks and his current projects are: Ngoma Linux, a Linux distro (live CD) bundled with africanised content for Government health and education sectors, to install on hard disk www.ngomalinux.com, and FOSSMed, an Open Source Health Management system. Adding to this, Nicholas is contributing to the localization (African context) and customization of care2x: www.fossfa.org/demo/care2x .

Philip Mbogo (Kenya)
works with various Open Source technologies, using Linux (Redhat/Fedora) for the platform, MySQL (extensively) as database and recently exploring FreeBSD. He also developes websites (using PHP and hosting them with Apache on Linux) and developes Linux applications with Java, C and C++. The latter with Kylix environment and he is looking for a purely Open Source environmet similar to Kylix on which to work on. Philip has customized various Open Source (PHP) web mail clients as academic projects (using sendmail and qmail) and assisted in configuring Linux servers at his university for Internet proxy (squid) and file servers (SMB and NFS).

Isaiah Makwakwa (Malawi)
is a system administrator/software developer working for Malawi SDNP. He does all his system administration on Linux (mainly Red Hat Distro- most recently on Fedora too) and FreeBSD. He also is involved in developing systems in C, C++ as well as doing lots of system administration scripts and web apps in PHP, PERL and MySQL. Isaiah's most recent interest is developing GUI applications using GTK+ v2.0 and he is very much involved in the management of .mw ccTLD.
Uwe Thiem (Namibia)
working in Namibia as a consultant for computer networking and software development. Usually, all the networks he works with are based on OSS solutions (though Solaris is used in some cases). Amoung other clients, SchoolNet Namibia is one of his customers for their network administration. Uwe is also the representative of KDE for Africa.

Joris Komen (Namibia)
won the Hafkin Prize last year, and is doing really nifty things wiring and creating computing centers in schools across the country. They are working on building an extensive wireless network, with plans to connect some huge numbers of schools by 2005. Born in Kisangani, (Democratic Republic of) Congo, raised and variously educated in Burundi, Holland, Nigeria and South Africa, Joris Komen was a curator of birds and IT manager at the National Museum of Namibia, and has spent many years working on endemic avifauna of southern Africa, focusing on bio-energetics, behavior, bio-acoustics and systematics research. Much of this work has been published in local and international journals. Currently Joris is the Executive Director of Namibia SchoolNet. SchoolNet is heavily oriented towards Linux, and Joris wrote an open letter to Microsoft last year describing the problems with lock-in and hardware upgrades that using Microsoft-"donated" software would cause for Namibian schools. The letter got a lot of attention in the African press, and some in the international development and international geek communities. http://www.schoolnet.na/projects and http://www.schoolnet.na/news/stories/msft20021111.html .

Stephanie Hankey (the Netherlands)
She is the co-founder and partner of Tactical Tech. Stephanie spent nearly 5 years working for the Open Society Institute (OSI). Initially working on the Electronic Publishing Program, she then helped establish and develop the Information Communication Technologies for Civil Society project for OSI. Stephanie has a background in information design and has worked as creative director and producer at various multimedia companies. She was an editor-in-chief of Pulp magazine, Manchester and has a masters in Computer Related Design from the Royal College of Art, London, England.

Ayeni Samuel Olaoluwa (Nigeria)
is a graduate of Computer Science from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Nigeria. He left the University in 1995 to work as programmer/analyst with 'Delphi Computers & Communications Ltd.' in Lagos, Nigeria. Presently he is working as developer for a Web Design & development firm in Lagos. His interest are in Apache, PHP, MySQL, Visual Basic. For some time he has been on the front campaign on Open Source Initiative in Nigeria. He is married to Folakemi and blessed with a beautiful daughter.

Bello Aderonke Abosede (Nigeria)
is as programme officer of SchoolNet Nigeria coordinating the Teacher Professional Development Unit and also coordinating the African Teachers Network (ATN) programmes in Nigeria. She worked as software developer for many years before moving over to be an IT trainer. A member of Computer Professionals Of Nigeria and National Computer Society, she is currently involved in a training project for teachers using OSS. Bello is looking forward to get much OSS stuff that can be used to develop local and curriculum content.

Edwin Okugbo (Nigeria)
works for Perfectsoft Systems, a software development firm in Lagos, Nigeria and for Free and Open Source development project, an NGO dedicated to FOSS. "Lets just say Iam a happy guy!" He programs in anything and has been in FOSS stuff for quite some time. He enjoys crawling through the NET finding Bulletin boards and chipping comments and codes here and there. Edwin loves PHP and PASCAL ("old school you might think!") and follows the motto "you cannot help others except you first help yourself". So he has become very interested in the business side of OSS and he believes: The best way to sponsor OSS is not to beg for money but to generate enough funds to build more stuff. "An irony you might think.".

Gyang Paul Davou (Nigeria)
has worked briefly with Linux (Mandrake) and MikroTik and is presently the network administrator of Fantsuam Foundation, an NGO that promotes the deployment of ICTs in rural Nigeria. Gyang's responsibilities at Fantsuam Foundation include: Network design and implementation, teaching Cisco Students following the Cisco Curriculum Lab Journal, installations of servers, computer maintenance and general computer support.

Okechukwu Gibson Ikejiaku (Nigeria)
is the Linux specialist/developer/support for www.direqlearn.org Nigeria which has an openlab solution. His experience is LTSP (linux terminal server project).

Olaposi Olakunmi Isaiah Abiola (Nigeria)
is from the South/West of Nigeria. He is the country director of oneVillage foundation-Nigeria, an organisation that uses the power of Information and Communication Technology for sustainable development focussing on African youths. He also is a member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) computer society and Association for Computing Machinery(ACM). He has been working with Open Source software for quite some time. The recent project he is engaged with is the onevillage foundation(OVF), a storytelling portal that needs to be constructed using Open Source technology. He is looking forward to Africa Source to meet with intellectuals.

Edward Bjarte Fjellskal (Norway)
26 years old, holds a Master in ICT and a Bachelor in Telecommunication. He works for the Agder University College, Grimstad, Norway as a Linux server administrator. He also work for a company called TeleMagicGroup, where he does some LAMP stuff at the moment. Besides that, he contributes as freelance for skolelinux (www.skolelinux.no - a debian EDU linux package) and for a local cable company, administrating their servers. And he's working for GUADEC, the Gnome User And Developer European Conference (http://2004.guadec.org ) which is hosted by Agder University College. Edward is 100% for Open Source.

Marek Tuszynski (Poland)
He is the co-founder and partner of Tactical Tech. Marek worked for 9 years as director of the Internet Program for the Stefan Batory Foundation, a civil-society NGO based in Warsaw, Poland. He is also a board member of Klon/ Jawor (a research and infrastructure NGO) and the International Contemporary Art Network. He has previously worked extensively as an international consultant for civil-society and art-based projects including the King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium on the "Improvement of Inter Ethnic Relations" program, and The Second Hand Bank (a refurbished & redistributed secondhand electronic equipment NGO).

Wojtek Bogusz (Poland)
He is an associate of Tactical Tech. Wojtek worked for 4 years as a coordinator of the Medical Internet and eRiders project for the Internet Program of the Stefan Batory Foundation. He has also been involved as a manager, organiser and programmer in numerous varied social, NGO, environmental and commercial internet related projects - including CEENet Technology workshops. He has a background in particle physics and has worked for various laboratories in Europe. In the 1990s, while working in a team for the Physics Department of Warsaw University, he helped create Poland's first internet connection and web server.

A. J. Venter (South Africa)
works as a full time Free Software programmer for DireqLearn, specialising in technology solutions for education. In this regard he is lead coder, designer and technical manager on a number of projects, not the least of which is OpenLab, a distribution specifically designed for use in educational institutions with thin-clienting
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Alastair Otter (South Africa)
is a journalist and a developer. For more than ten years he has worked as a journalist for a range of technical and business publications in South Africa. When he decided to start his own publication three years ago, he used the opportunity to learn more about Open Source software and gradually over time built up a range of tools that make publishing on Web both easy as well as professional. Alastair's primary skills are in PHP, MySQL and Linux with a heavy dose of understanding about using the Internet as an effective communications tool. Current projects include ONE (the online news editor www.tectonic.co.za/cms) , Tectonic (African Open Source News Site www.tectonic.co.za ) and Simpletraq (a research-oriented project management/collaboration tool - still in development). he is also a founding member of Open Research(www.openresearch.co.za), an ICT-focused research partnership currently researching low-cost computers and refurbished PCs as well as establishing an OSISA-backe Open Source portal among other work.

Dwayne Bailey (South Africa)
Interestingly, he was born in Windhoek and this is his first trip back. His wife Heather and he have two kids (2 and 3 months). Dwayne's journey into Open Source was influenced by a Unix based nuclear simulator, university studies and working at a Linux company. In 2001 he started the Translate.org.za project. Meanwhile he is working fulltime on this and he is also a director of the project foundation and of Obsidian Systems, a South African Linux company. Dwayne is passionate about multilingualism, localization, Open Source, Open Source in education, Wifi, and open content - among others. So he also writes articles (philosophical, technical)at any opportunity.

Fatima M Bhyat (South Africa)
has been working in the NGO and specifically in the "ICTs for NGOs" area for the past 13 years. She wouldn't describe herself as an "ultra techie" but rather as someone who is relatively comfortable in the technical world. She thinks that her strongest points are being able to understand the end users needs with what is technically possible and creating a bridge between these two worlds which can sometimes be very foreign to the two sides. Fatima has worked with Linux as a system administrator for about 6 years but the last 2 years she'd sort of taken time off to spend with her baby and her older child. She has however in this time been working with the APC, providing advice and co-ordinating their technical needs. So she's still involved just not as technically hands on as she used to be. Furthemore she used to serve on the board of the South African Internet Service Providers Association, working for the better part of 12 years for a Non-Profit ISP, SANGONeT. And she was elected to serve on the board of the ZA Namespace. She resigned from both of the above named organisations when she took some time off.

Goodwill Skhosana (South Africa)
was following open source developments for a few years now. His interests include Human Language Technology (HLT) solutions using open tools and platforms. He believe that the open source sofware development approach is crucial in overcoming some of the short comings in HLT. He have drafted a few solutions along these lines, one of which he presented at a recent conference.

Karl Fischer (South Africa)
is chairman of the Pretoria Linux User Group. He works mainly in a FS/OS environment for educational purposes, actually for a company that employed him for his system administration skills and technical abilities. Karl is still considered as a junior developer and is currently restarting the translation of GNOME into Afrikaans. He is also a volunteer for the GNOME mailing list administration and his core focus is to customize the GNU\Linux Distribution.

Kim Tucker (South Africa)
has worked as Java developer using Open Source framworks such as those listed under http://jakarta.apache.org and http://xml.apache.org. He also has been technical manager of a project written in Python on Zope http://www.zope.org . Tim works for the CSIR which is 40% government funded. Projects are generally for the good of the country/region and sustainable development.

Lynette van Zijl (South Africa)
Academic at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She is working on technology assistance projects for the Deaf. This includes: A corpus of South African Sign Language (SASL), electronic web-accessible word lists for SASL, a signing avatar, and a machine-translation assistance tool for English to SASL.

Neil Blakey-Milner (South Africa)
is lead developer at South Africa's largest media site (depending on which web auditors you ask), where his team works exclusively with Open Source software on the server side (and mostly on desktops too). He's been using FreeBSD and Linux exclusively since 1996, and he is a FreeBSD developer. Neil's programming passion is Python, and when he has time he works on the Twisted network application development framework.

Nico Coetzee (South Africa)
is full time OSS developer at the First National Bank, South Africa. Current Projects: MySQL Load Balancing Proxy, various SNMP based projects. Sites: Maintaining http://www.itfirms.co.za/html/index.php and http://za.pm.org OSS Interests: Clustering technology and Cryptography
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Thobile Pamela Mhlo (South Africa)
has been involved in the software translations into Zulu and as a lead translator for the software translations project-Translate.org.za. That is where she first encountered Open Source and started using it regularly. Personally she enjoys getting involved with the Zulu software translations as it has been her all time dream to contribute back into his community. Translating software into Zulu is her priviledged way of doing so and Thobile considers herself priviledged to acess computers both in English and Zulu. She also is a full-time co-ordinator for Obsidian Systems which is a Linux company. And she is honoured to be attending the conference and sharing ideas with everyone. If you have ever wondered what Open Source can do for an individual-ask him, cause she still can't believe it when she access his computer in Zulu!

Mlenge Fanuel Mgendi (Tanzania)
Mlenge's favourite Open Source applications are on the Internet, particularly PHP-MySQL combo. He is not doing serious coding :( but rather utilizes free scripts and customizes templates generously made by the Open Source community. On other environments, he is interested in audiovisual software, particularly for video editing. He also has an elevated interest on GRASS now, the free GIS software that could help out the African continent so much. Mlenge works with the Centre for ICT (CICT) of University College of Lands and Architectural Studies (UCLAS), a constituent college of the University of Dar es Salaam, and was recently appointed to be the college Webmaster. The college also assigned also the duties of Manager of Tanzania's Disaster Management Training Centre (DMTC)housed at UCLAS. In his free time, Mlenge also engages in digital multimedia processing.

Rafiy Saleh (Tanzania)
has a Bachelor degree in Computer Science. He has broad experience in web development, system analysis, design including three years experience on MySQL, MS SQL Server, PHP, VBScripts, JavaScripts, ASP pages and XML. Rafiy also developed a number of interactive web site applications. Currently he is working as coordinator of technology and content for the Tanzania Development Gateway portal (www.tanzaniagateway.org ). The portal has been implemented using Development Gateway Community System (dgCS), a Content Management System of the Development Gateway Foundation. Rafiy is also implementing IPAworks (www.ipaworks.org) at National Investment Promotion Agencies. IPA Works is an Open Source Content Management System offered by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (www.miga.org). He has been working with IPA works software application to implement web sites of the Ministry of Natural Resources & Tourism (www.tourismtanzania.go.tz), Zanzibar Investment Promotion Agency (www.investzanzibar.org) and Tanzania Investment Center (www.tic.co.tz).

Lawrence Ssenkubuge (Uganda)
is a graduate teacher of physics and mathematics by training but has now shifted to the use of IT in teaching and learning. He does most of his teaching using computers which completely has changed his attitude and interest in the job. Same goes for his students who have experessed to like his lessons more and results have continued to show. Lawrence also trained them in developing virtual reality simulations with teaching situations as content which has made teaching a lot easier. Besides this, he is a school administrator and serves as a deputy principal of a secondary school which has greatly helped him to influence positively the IT policy of that school. Lawrence has much experience in developing computer based instructional solutions. He is married to a teacher of french (Solome) and I has 3 children aged 9, 6 and 4.

Ndaula Ahmed (Uganda)
is a full time employee of SchoolNet Uganda, responsible for both software and hardware maintenance at the Secretariat. He is involved in the development of Telecenter Software (first release in 2002) named "Telecenter Manager Software". It's used locally and internationally by the Telecenters. Copies of this software were also distributed internationally, i.e. to the Sengerema Telecenter in Tanzania and to Unesco Kenya and Unesco Paris. Ndaula is also responsible for the development, monitoring and maintenance of UgaBYTES, Initiative and Rotary Club of Kampala websites (http://www.kampalarotary.org).

Wire Lunghabo James (Uganda)
is a FOSS enthusiast based in Uganda, running a business called Linux Solutions that offers solutions and services based on FOSS. He has been using FOSS since 1997 when he first got introduced to Slackware Linux. he is looking forward to the interaction we shall have.

Allen Gunn (United States)
He is an associate of Tactical Tech and an internet-focused activist based in San Francisco, California USA. In addition to assisting progressive non-profits on technology strategy and best practices, he runs a free ISP for activists and artists, as well as serving as webworker for several environmental groups, including Greenaction, The Mercury Policy Project, and The Ruckus Society. He co-organized The Ruckus Society Tech Toolbox Action Camp in June 2002, and is on the faculty at Foothill College in Los Altos, California, where he teaches Java programming and Web development. In a former life, he was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Pensare, an eLearning dotgone, and served as a senior software engineer for several Silicon Valley firms.

Douglas Hunter (United States)
is a programmer with 10 years of experience building high performance networked applications. Specializing in Free and Open Source software solutions, Douglas especially enjoys using Perl and C to solve problems. Having worn many hats throughout his professional career (including Programmer, Systems Administrator, QA Analyst, and Project Manager), Douglas understands that software should just work, and should make peoples lives easier. He tries to write software that does just that.

Kwindla Hultman Kramer (United States)
He is chief technical officer of www.allafrica.com . Before helping to found AllAfrica, he spent three years as a research associate at the MIT Media Laboratory, where he was a Motorola Fellow. While there, he developed new methods of distributing network functionality and control. He has served as a technology consultant for such companies as Motorola, LEGO, Mattel, Kraft and Intel, and has been building Web-based systems since 1994. Proficient in a number of programming languages, he has extensive experience managing Unix systems, Web servers, and production networks. He developed the programming language for the Lego MindStorms robotic toy lines and wrote the first embedded virtual machine for the Java programming language. He is the author of the Open Source XML::Comma web operating system. After living and traveling in Africa, he graduated Cum Laude from Harvard University with a degree in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and speaks French and Arabic. He has a Masters degree in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.

Micah Anderson (United States)
Micah is a free software, media activist system administrator working to create grassroots democratic technology alternatives to the existing corporate structures. In order to meet the computer needs of those working for radical social change he has worked to create The Red Cursor Collective (http://riseup.net ) which provides email, mailing lists and website hosting for activists. While organizing the WTO protests in Seattle, Micah helped create the Independent Media Center (http://www.indymedia.org) and has played a significant role in architecting and supporting the extensive technical infrastructure needed to support it over the years. Micah has participated in a project to ship containers of computers to indymedia centers and social movements in the global south to build popular communications capacity. Recently he has begun work on developing a distribution of the Debian operating system which will provide a stable, free desktop environment that will fulfill the needs that non-profits would need, called Debian-NP (http://np.debian.net ) Micah is interested in finding ways to use technology to democratize communication.

Mweene Chijikwa (Zambia)
is working for Africa-Insites (www.africa-insites.com ) in Lusaka, Zambia, a website designing and hosting company. He has been using Free/Open Source software such as Linux Redhat, Mandrake operating sytems and MySQL, PHP in developing websites and databases for more than one year. He also participated in developing online databases and news forums. Apart from that, he has been used and administered the following operating systems: Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows Professional, Windows Server, Linux Redhat8. Mweene is the webmaster of many websites, such as www.zambiz.co.zm, a Zambian Business online directory and www.zambiamining.co.zm which is about Zambia mining - and many more.

Teddy L. Nyambe (Zambia)
27 years, is from Zambia and works for Zamnet Communication Systems, Zambia's first Internet Service Provider. He is the Senior Web Developer and works with various Open Source projects, the main one being GNU Linux. Over the past 2 years he has been working with Apache, PHP and MySQL database. At Zamnet he works with various organizations providing web applications solutions. Currently he is developing a system which shall help the Zambia Police to set up a reporting system of Child Abuse cases across the country. This project is being funded by UNICEF.

Libert Kanojerera (Zimbabwe)
works in Zimbabwe for an NGO called SEATINI that focuses on capacity building in the area of international trade. Libert maintains the organisation's website (www.seatini.org ), besides administering the LAN and doing in-house database development. His favourite environment is PHP/MySQL/Apache on Linux. Currently, he is working on an internal information system for the organisation.

Muroro Dziruni (Zimbabwe)
is the director of an organisation called Connecting Africa which focusses on exploiting the unprecedented opportunities from ICTs in the area of sustainable human development. One of their strategic areas of work is in application of OSS solutions within CSO's (Civil Society Organisations). Muroro has experience with end to end networking, systems administration (Linux Redhat platform), Intranets, content and knowledge management applications. His key interest is the application of ICTs in sustainable human development and the solutions which F/LOSS networks can offer to CSO's.

Matanga Cecilia Rudo (Zimbabwe)
works for the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service SAfAIDS, an HIV /AIDS NGO for disseminating HIV and AIDS information. There she is responsible for ICT which includes developing and administering IT programs that would enhance and disseminate information. She is also the webmaster and database administrator. SAfAIDS uses a Linux box for storing and forwarding emails. Matanga is a single mother and very independent.