DUSHANBE, March 26, 2013, Asia-Plus – The Second Central Asian Regional Conference on Free and Open Technologies kicked off in Dushanbe on March 26.
Organized by the Information and Communication Technology Center in cooperation with a number of public associations dealing with ICT issues under financial support of the Tajik Branch of Open Society Institute/Assistance Foundation (OSI/AF-Tajikistan), this two-day event is being held at the Ismaili Center Dushanbe.
A number of events dedicated to the usage of free software, open resources, systems and knowledge for development are being held on the sidelines of the conference. Besides, a series of master-classes and presentations on usage of open technologies for finding solutions to socioeconomic problems will be conducted by international and local experts.
On March 27, an international conference will take place and local and international experts will present their research works, training aids and reports on the free-software-oriented projects.
The conference will be held in three sessions and specialists open and free technologies from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan will participate in the conference.
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that respects the freedom of computer users (private individuals, as well as organizations and companies), by putting the users first and granting them freedom and control in running and adapting their computing and data-processing to their needs; as well as allowing them the freedom to be able to actively cooperate with any users and developers of their choice. Users of free software are free in these activities (in the sense of freedom), since they do not need to ask for any permission and are not restricted in the activities (compare e.g. copy-restriction of proprietary software licenses).
