(please forward as appropriate.)
Federico Heinz was coming to Europe so IFSO have detoured him to host two talks on Saturday April 29th in the ICS building in Dublin.
Heinz is a veteran and widely-respected free software advocate in Latin America, a long time GNU project spokesperson, and was elected president of FSF Latin America when it launched recently.
Below: 1. The talks 2. About Federico 3. Event details
1. The talks:
One talk will be on free software in government / public administration. Heinz is one of the drafters and advocates behind laws requiring government bodies to use free software in various Latin American countries, particularly Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela. These laws have met mixed results.
The other talk will be on free software in education. This is a topic that IFSO requested he talk about, and it's something that's also important to him. Issues such as access to education are far more acute there than in Ireland.
2. About Federico:
His background is in software development and administration, mostly on the implementation end, getting systems in place using existing free software.
Heinz is also one of the GNU projects nine official speakers, a bio is on this page: http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html
I've spent the last few days with him; I had heard that he is an excellent speaker, and I'm now sure he will be.
3. Event details:
The venue is provided by the Irish Computer Society, which we've been invited to use by ILUG's Niall Walsh (thanks Niall).
The start time will be 14h00. There will be a 30 minute break between the two talks and tea, coffee, and biscuits will be served. The end time will be around 17h00.
For any more details, just ask.
I've made a page for the event: http://ifso.ie/events/2006-04-29/
There's a map to the venue at: http://www.ics.ie/main/contact.htm
I'm collecting information about Federico Heinz on the event page including a previous recording from a panel discussion plus some quotes and key points.
There is no charge for admission, inform and bring your colleagues. Particularly, please inform people who might have an interested in the education sector or the public administration sector.