Dear Open Sourcian, I am applolgizing as I know that this e-mail should have been sent from last week but honestly I am so so busy and overloaded.
We meet with Dr. Salem, Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology, on Wednesday the 21st of December, 2011 and sorry to say that
it wasn't a good :(
The objective of that meeting was to follow up what was requested from us
in the previous meeting; which was the following:
1. As Dr. Salem knows that we already have meetings to write a strategy for
Egypt toward open source, he was expecting at least a draft version of such
strategy.
2. A plan to migrate all entities in Mansoura to open source.
and Unfortunately after 4 months we failed to do both :(
I can't blame anyone for that but it is truth, we failed :(
After the first meeting with Dr. Salem:
1. We (the group who were in the meeting with Eng. Sally from TIEC) had an
'on-line voice' meeting and we divided the work such that Eng. Sally
representing TIEC will takeover the strategy issue and ITI represented by
me handle the Mansoura initiative.
Regarding the Mansoura initiative the following steps were taken:
A meeting with Eslam el Zayat with open source companies to discuss such
initiative and their desire and capabilities to co-operate.
Then I had another meeting with Eslam at ITI Mansoura where we discuss the
following:
A. Culture awareness is needed
B. Open Source Training
C. The migration issue
A. Regarding the Culture awareness the following the steps were made:
1. Nozom held in mansoura 2 'One day workshop'; One for Linux and the
other for java
2. ITI HQ hosted the Second Middle East and Africa Open Source Software
Forum which was sponsored by RedHat and Mandriva. By the way attending the
forum was for free.
3. In Helwan University, 'Software freedom day ' was held and sponsored
by wikimedia.
B. Regarding the training
1. ITI 9-month program opened Open source track in Mansoura aside with
Cairo and Alexandria tracks.
2. ITI Train of the trainers program will held an open source track in
Mansoura aside with Fayoom, Kafr el Sha7', el 3areesh and south Sinai
C. Regarding Mansoura Initiative (which is the main problem):
1. We decided to start with governmental entities related to ministry of
communications as we *thought* it will be easy to penetrate.
So
An inspection visit was made by Eslam el Zayat and Moataz from ITI to
'central shark' in Mansoura
Another inspection visit was made by Tamer Zaki and me to a post
office
A letter was sent from ITI to Telcom Egypt company to allow us to migrate
the central to open source but the respond came that they are already in
the process of migration and when we need you we will tell you :(
and due to the unstable circumstances of the post we suspend their letter.
*Regarding the strategy*
Due to location constrains Eng. Sally asked me to call for a meeting in
TIEC for 10-12 persons representing open source community:
So I asked the team who represented us with Dr. Salem in addition to Dr.
Ahmed Hefnawey, Dr. Sherif El Kasas, Eng. Ali Shaath, Eng. Ahmed Hussien,
Eng. Samir el Khayal and Dr. Naglaa Rizek who apologised for not attending.
The meeting objective was to define a frame work that need to develop in
order to increase the adoption of open source in the public sector. The
output of the meeting that TIEC need to hire a group of 5 persons who will
be fully dedicated to write a strategy for Egypt toward open source and
Dr. Ahmed, Dr. Sherif, Eng. Ali and Eng. Ahmed will be the consultants to
this group.
All the above were mentioned to Dr. Salem where he became very disappointed
as he though that after 4 month we should have at least a draft for the
Egyptian strategy and a proof of concept model made in Mansoura city.
So he mentioned explicitly that all what he need from us now a plan to
migrate Mansoura city to open source, a real plan include millstones,
manpower and costs, and he will give you all my support, and when we
*only*have this plan we are most welcomed to come and discuss it with
him and
have all the support we will need.'
In addition this office set an appointment with Dr. Mohamed abd el Rehim,
Telecom Egypt manager. last Thursday and next Sunday at 11 am we will have
another meeting with Eng. Antar Kandil, technical deputy in Telecom Egypt.
Feel free if anyone would like to attend this meeting, just give me a call.
So I need to know who would be interested to cooperate in this Initiative
as it sounds really as our last chance at least till next June.
Thanks to Eng. Tamir Zaki who wrote the attached file including the steps
that should be taken in the coming few days. Plz feel free to modify in
this document and to call me or send me an e-mail if you are interested to
cooperate.
Best Regards,
Sherine
01008845748
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Eng. Sherine Bahader, MBA
Head of OpenSource Technologies Department
Information Technology Institute (ITI)
Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT)
Smart Village, 28 Km. Cairo-Alexandria Desert Rd.
Building B148
Tel: +202-35355605
URL: www.iti.gov.eg
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mansoura(2).odt
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