The largest Public University in the Country, Eduardo Mondlane University through its Computing Centre (CIUEM) and Matrix Group Lda, (a Limited Private Company specializing in ICT Training, Consultancy and Service), jointly carried out a Training Program on Open Source Software (OSS). The training was conducted in the framework of it@ab, the Information Technology in African Business Network under Pilot Projects initiative. The sponsor of the Project was the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development through InWEnt gGmbH, following a successful response to the respective call for proposals launched by the latter during the 4th quarter of 2005. The program was structured in a project-based format and was implemented in the period of December 2004 to April 2005.

Capacity Building International, Germany, InWEnt, stands for the development of human resources and organizations within the framework of international cooperation. InWEnt’s services cater for skilled and management staff as well as to decision makers from business, politics, administration and civil societies worldwide. InWEnt cooperates equally with partners from developing, transition and industrialized countries and gets through to approximately 55,000 persons yearly. www.inwent.org

it@ab, Information Technology in African Business, is a Network that provides state of the art know-how in the field of ICT and promotes local business development as well as regional business cooperation in the Southern African region covered by the SADC. Mozambique with its four members: University Eduardo Mondlane (through its Computing Centre) Matrix Group Lda, IIG (a private ICT training Institute and Mozambique Export Promotion Institute (IMPEX) jointly endeavor to providing Open Source Software solutions to needy institutions.

According to the Terms of Reference of the project, the ultimate objective of the program was to build technical capacity and awareness on Open Source Software (OSS) in Mozambique, through deployment of the knowledge and experience gained by the it@ab IT specialists trained in Germany. Messias Mandua and Nelson Chamba conducted the courses; the task of transforming the contents into the open source Plattform CLE (Collaborative Learning Environment) was executed by Patrick Chamba of the Malawi Polytechnic. André Massaite and Francisco Mabila were the Project coordinators and supervisors.

The project was conducted in form of formal training, based on classrooms sessions in Maputo City from 23/03/05 to 08/04/05 and the OSS workshop in the central city of Beira from 07/03/05 to 12/03/05. The classrooms sessions were consolidated by the provision of the learning materials online, using the open source Plattform CLE (Collaborative Learning Environment). Twelve women and twenty eight men attended the Maputo training while the Beira workshop was participated by four women and six men.

With a view to creating a wide spectrum of awareness about OSS in Mozambique, the training and workshop targeted university lecturers in ICT subjects, secondary school computer literacy teachers, ICT database administrators and managers of internet service providers. Thus, participants came from 21 institutions which included Universities, Ministries, Government Departments, Private ICT companies and Banking sector. The impact of this project is significant because some of the selected institutions are now actually using OSS in their teaching curricula and OSS is becoming the preferred operating system in government schools and in some private companies. The Government of Mozambique has declared OSS as a platform for the e-Government Network, that is currently being installed for the country.

The joint-venture Matrix-CIUEM considers the OSS-Training as a great business opportunity in Mozambique, specially because of the high demand in the market and the non existence of OSS specialised training centres..

Please contact the following coordinators for any further details that you may need about the project:

1. Francisco Mabila
Deputy Director
Informatics Centre
Eduardo Mondlane University CIUEM
Av. Julius Nyerere, Campus Universitario
P.o.Box 257
Maputo - MOZAMBIQUE
mabila@uem.mz

2. André D. Massaite
Matrix Group, Lda
Av. Ho Chi Min Nº 840
Tel +258 1 310298
Fax +258 1 310137
www.matrix.co.mz
andre.md@matrix.co.mz