Open Source Resource Center (OSRC) - A Profile

Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) is a Government agency mandated to promote Pakistan's Information Technology (IT) industry. The Open Source Resource Center (OSRC) is a PSEB-executed project. It is South Asia's first government-owned initiative. Its objective is to provide expert advice and support to the government, private sector, non-profit organizations and the academia. It raises awareness by presenting open source software as a security-rich and a more economic alternative to expensive proprietary software. Its team of experts helps organizations develop an indigenous pool of open source professionals. It combats piracy by raising awareness about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues at various seminars, workshops and forums, and migrating computer networks from pirated proprietary software to open source.

Its achievements since 2003 include training over 8900 participants during 124 training workshops and awareness-raising seminars in Pakistan's four provincial capitals, and in the federal capital, Islamabad. The OSRC estimates that its 23 computer network migrations have saved Pakistan Rs. 36 million, which would otherwise have been lost to expensive proprietary software.

The OSRC also networks with open source organizations worldwide in general, and in the Asia region in particular. This includes the National Competency Centre for the Application of Open Source technologies (CENATIC),Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization's (CICC) Asia OSS, Bellanet, MySQL AB, O'Reilly Media, Inc., OSS Watch, South Asia Partnership International (SAPI), SAP Nepal, and the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) International Open Source Network (IOSN). The OSRC has proudly represented Pakistan at 34 international conferences, and has formed linkages between Pakistan and newly emerging open source markets in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, UK and USA.

A member of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) Alliance, the OSRC's efforts from PSEB's platform have brought together Pakistan's IT industry and the open source community, the academia and various government agencies, to debate and develop an informed national consensus on the future of open standards.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation is a US-based, non-profit organization created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab's faculty members. The OLPC project aims to provide a Linux-based laptop computer worth US $ 100 to every student in the developing world, including Pakistan, as a means of bridging the digital divide. The OSRC's proactive contributions to OLPC include Urdu language support (font and keyboard courtesy of the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing-National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences) and running Zekr, an open source Holy Quran desktop application. The OSRC is also helping OLPC establish working relationships with various stakeholders in the Asian region.

Pakistan has produced a total of 36 Red Hat certified professionals since 2007. The OSRC's Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) and Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) training program aimed to increase that number.

Six students passed the RHCE exam, and seven students passed OSRC's RHCT exam held at Techno Ed (Pvt.) Limited, a Red Hat International-recommended local partner.

In another pioneering achievement, the OSRC has developed three freely downloadable training toolkits available at its website at http://www.osrc.org.pk/:

• The open source software training toolkit is used as the basis for OSRC's training workshops. It contains step-by-step manuals related to Linux, open source databases, application servers, desktop applications, office productivity suites, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and open source desktop applications for the Microsoft Windows platform. A set of CDs, including a Linux distribution for Fedora and other open source software, forms an integral part of this training toolkit. This training toolkit has been released under open source licenses. It is intended for individuals and organizations interested in deploying or migrating from proprietary to open source networks.

• The OSRC has also fulfilled the IT industry's growing demand and pioneered Pakistan's first-ever Asterisk training program in four cities for free. Asterisk is an open source PBX, telephony engine, and telephony applications toolkit. Anyone is welcome to download OSRC's Asterisk training toolkit and presentation from its website for free.

• The OSRC’s free-of-cost Open Source Security Program aims to develop awareness regarding the basic concepts in IT security, with a focus on using open source security tools.

OSRC's Open Source Database "PostgresSQL" Training Program - A Partnership with EnterpriseDB International

As part of its new roster of initiatives to promote open source software in Pakistan, the OSRC intends to launch Pakistan’s first-ever, free-of-cost, 2-day open source database "PostgresSQL" training program in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore in June 2009, in collaboration with trainers from EnterpriseDB International.

Objectives:

• Raising public awareness about open source solutions
• Decreasing dependency on proprietary software
• Effectively addressing issues regarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)
• Decreasing software deployment costs in the public, private and non-profit sector

Plan of Action:

Seminars/Trainings/Migration

• Conducting open source awareness-raising seminars
• Conducting basic and advanced level training in major open source applications
• Providing technical and financial assistance to organizations planning to migrate to open source software
• Developing training material for major open source applications
• Participating in activities which promote open source in Pakistan

Contact Information:

Khurram Islam Khan
Project Manager
Pakistan Software Export Board (G) Limited
2nd Floor, Evacuee Trust Complex, F-5 Aga Khan Road,
Islamabad
Ph:  051-921 5099 & 920 4074
Fax: 051-920 4075
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.