IP3 at UNESCO WSIS+10 update event, February 2013, Paris

Programme https://www.unesco-ci.org/cmscore/events

Attended by Brenda Aynsley IP3) Chair and Stephen Ibaraki (IP3 V-P & GIC Chair)

Brenda and Stephen met and engaged with a number of individuals including the panellists in the IP3 session: Ms Dorothy Gordon, Director General of KACE (Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence), Accra, Ghana; Mr Ivaylo Ganchev, Université Paris 8, Professor Roberto di Cosmo,  Université Paris Diderot; Mr Simon Phipps, President of the Open Source Initiative; Professor Asha Kanwar, President and CEO of COL; Professor Mihaela Ullieru of Impact;  John Cowley, UNESCO;  Bruno Lanvin, UNESCO.  Several of these people will be interviewed by Stephen Ibaraki over the coming months

In attendance at this session were the CEO and President of the Commonwealth of Learning, Her Excellency Governor of Warrap State, Republic of South Sudan, His Excellency the Ambassador, Republic of South Sudan, J Archibald, regulator of professionals in the Government of Canada.

Outcomes of the UNESCO/WSIS+10  Session 18 “Adoption and teaching of Open/Libre technologies in Higher Education curricula and Professional recognition for FOSS engineers and practitioners” .

1. UNESCO/WSIS should encourage changes to Computer Science/Software Engineering curricula to include both Open Source tools and Open Source Methodology to recognise the innovative and transformative power of these and their consequent impact on economies.  Approaches to ACM and other CS curriculum should now be taking into account Free and Open Source software explicitly to ensure its inclusion.
2. UNESCO/WSIS should encourage universities and other educational institutions in the provision of knowledge and skills for industry, government and practitioners that will better their understanding of the innovative and transformative power of Free and Open Source software in the economy.
3. UNESCO/WSIS should take a leadership role in promoting education in the collaborative skills required to excel in open source.  Further, they should seek the development of education techniques and resources that lead to such skills development as an adjunct to and context of Computer Science education.
4. UNESCO/WSIS should support the development of education modules about risk management in the selection of FOSS and proprietary software for IT projects.
5. UNESCO/WSIS should support the development of education modules about the benefits of Open Source adoption and the best practices in doing so.
6. UNESCO/WSIS should promote the development of arguments and tools helping business and governments better understand their quality requirements on the IT projects they use and develop.
7. UNESCO/WSIS should actively promote the development and application of rigorous auditing of IT projects by properly qualified IT Project Management Specialists to ensure standards of practice can emerge to guide future decision-making and operation.
8. UNESCO/WSIS should take a leadership role in promoting the encouragement of granular certification carried out by communities’ experts to facilitate external trust in both experts and communities.  National, regional or international certification must ensure that the benefits of certification recognise the high level of innovation that is provided by the application of good ICT practice.
9. UNESCO/WSIS should actively support those accreditation schemes which recognise those granular certification programs that build on innovation in the professional practice of ICT.