freedom

Join EU Code Week and organise #codeEU events

Register you event here Download the complete #codeEU Toolkit in PDF #codeEU toolkit What is EU Code Week? EU Code Week is a grass-root movement run by volunteers who promote coding in their countries as Code Week Ambassadors. Anyone – schools, teachers, libraries, code clubs, businesses, public authorities – can organise a #CodeEU event and … Read more

#Open #source goes #space, a two days workshop

Open source software (OSS) is used virtually everywhere and open source hardware (OSHW) is getting more and more popular as well. Then why not apply the philosophy of open source to space? The Open Source Cubesat Workshop (OSCW) was created exactly for that: to promote the open source philosophy for CubeSat missions and further. Its … Read more

A bold open-access push in Germany could change the future of academic publishing

By Gretchen Vogel, Kai Kupferschmidt   In a third-floor conference room here overlooking the famous Potsdamer Platz, once bisected by the Berlin Wall, the future of academic publishing is being negotiated. The backdrop is fitting, because if the librarians and academic leaders at the table get their way, another major divide will soon fall: the … Read more

A beginner’s guide to Open Access

“For the first time, the overwhelming majority of scholarly literature is available gratis to anyone with an Internet connection.” The recent publication of an academic paper, published before peer review, has lasting implications for academic publishing and for the conduct of research. Himmelstein et al reported in Science that 99.3% of valid incoming requests for academic … Read more

First German National Action Plan for more Transparency and Open Government

The German federal government adopted its first Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan (NAP) today. With the NAP, the federal government takes important steps to strengthen citizen participation. The 15 commitments in the NAP  will provide new ways to increase transparency, open innovation and enhance the effectiveness of governments and administrations. The Working Group … Read more

#Coding #workshops: building #robots, self-esteem and new #friendships

Teacher George Kalewis slams his hands on the table, and a little orange robot car nudges forward. We are in Athens, and a group of young people has just coded the robot’s sensors to react to sounds. “Good work! Next, we’re going to code the robot car to detect a black line and to follow … Read more

Mozilla launches new effort to counter fake news

Mozilla, the creators of the popular Firefox web browser, are launching a new program to counter fake news stories. Fabricated news, made to mislead or turn a profit, is a growing problem in online communities. The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia used social media to propagate misinformation campaigns throughout the 2016 presidential race. “Misinformation devalues the open … Read more

GFOSS – Open Technologies Alliance became an Associate Organization in OW2 Consortium

GFOSS – Open Technologies Alliance has become an Associate organization of the OW2 Consortium. OW2 is an independent, global, open-source software community. The mission of OW2 is to a) promote the development of open-source middleware, generic business applications, cloud computing platforms and b) foster a vibrant community and business ecosystem. OW2 developments follow a flexible, … Read more

Six ways for citizens to assert power beyond the ballot box

Elections are key milestones for democratic engagement, and referendums such as the UK’s Brexit poll are innovative ways for citizens to be more directly involved in the decision-making process. But voting provides only a limited taste of the variety of ways citizen can participate in government. The real antidote to citizens’ feeling of disenfranchisement lies … Read more