mfioretti.com

The OpenDocument Format (ODF) Plugfest gathers together the most important international experts in terms of digital office documents interoperability. At the March 2010 edition in Granada I gave a talk about the proprietary traps that can be hidden inside ODF documents, preventing interoperability. I also reported in detail what happened at the Plugfest in two separate articles:

• Notes from ODF Plugfest in Granada, Day One
• Final Notes from the ODF Plugfest in Granada

This is the talk I gave at the First international assembly of the Open Learning Exchange (OLE) in Kathmandu. Due to server space constraints, only a PDF version is available here. If you want the original version in OpenDocument format, please download it from the OLE website

The Open Learning Exchange (OLE) is an international organization to whose goal is to make Quality Universal Basic Education accessible by 2015 to hundred millions of children worldwide. I have been invited to participate and speak to the first OLE international assembly in Kathmandu. I have already reported about what I learned at the assembly in these articles:

• E-Learning for Kids... and everybody else
• One hour with the XO laptop in a Nepali school
• Plan for Universal Basic Education discussed in Kathmandu
• TeacherMate, the great educational minicomputer that didn't want to exist

The subject of my own talk was "Quality Education in a Digital World".

The Italian Linux Day, which takes place every year in October, is a series of events organized by all the Linux User Groups of Italy to promote Linux and Free Software in General. This year I participated to the event in Rome to explain why Linux and Free Software aren't just about software. You can read a very short report of the 2009 Linux Day in Rome at Stop!/Zona-m.

This is the talk (in Italian) which I gave at the 2009 Linux Day in Roma about "Free Software and Linux aren't just about software", to try to explain in a few minutes why and how civil rights and quality of life depend on how computers are used around us. The same concepts are explained in more detail in my Family Guide to Digital Freedom and in the talk (still in Italian) given in June 2009 about "Cultures and civil rights in the information society", which is also the subject of an online course with M. Fioretti and Paolo Brunello as teachers.

The talk is released under a Creative Commons license, but due to server space constraints only the PDF version is available here. If you need the original, editable OpenDocument file, please email marco, at digifreedom punto net.

This is the talk given at the Kosova Software Freedom Conference 2009 about "E-government, digital rights, equal opportunities: how can Free Software help developing countries?". Only the PDF version is available here, due to web server space constraint. If you need the original, editable OpenDocument version just request it by email to marco . at . digifreedom dot net

This is the talk I gave at the Congress on Free Education, Software and Knowledge in Santo Domingo. Here you can download the whole talk in PDF format (see below for the original format) . During the talk, I discussed the following topics:

• What is software anyway?
• Do computers and Internet unite or divide?
• Do they help educate and empower, or do they divide and estrange?
• What is the contribution of Universities to the effects of these technologies? What could it be?

and gives some general guidelines on how to deal with the related problems.

Note: The original, editable slides in OpenDocument format are not online simply to save bandwidth, because that file is much bigger than the PDF version. If you need the other file, just contact me at marco - at - digifreedom - dot - net.

The goal of the first conference about Free Software and Knowledge in Santo Domingo was to "promote and spread the philosophy of Free software, education and knowledge in the Dominican Republic, among all who are concerned about the social, economic and scientific development of Santo Domingo". In this context, I gave a talk about "Computers and Internet: sources of social exclusion or engines of education and human development?".

Besides its official website, general coverage of the event is available (in Spanish) on Hoy Digital and El Nuevo Diario.

The Software Freedom Conference Kosova is to be a yearly event to bring together local developers and the international community. In the 2009 edition I gave a talk about how Free SW can help developing countries.

Interviews and other coverage of the conference is available at:

1. the interviews page on the official website
2. F. Marzano's report

Description of the actions taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India to become, using Free Software as an essential tool, one of the most high-tech political parties in India by 2010.