Sun Global Communities
Bringing Open Technology to 10 Million Indian StudentsIndia is quickly becoming a global technology power, but the country's leaders have acknowledged that the education system has not kept pace the rate of innovation. Working with India's Central Board of Education and the India Institute of Technology, Sun's Global Communities team created a new curriculum that not only will bring open technology to over 9,000 plus secondary schools in India and reach an estimated 10 million students, but also will completely change how computer science is taught. Lesson plans will focus on hands-on experience with the software, including Java and MySQL, that allows students to modify and create with the tools. In a deal signed in 2009, Sun will provide expert training to each educator involved in the curriculum to ensure a consistent program nation-wide for all students who are enrolled in the CBSE's computer science program. Boosting E-Governance Research and Expertise in India
Press Coverage Going for Gold with the ODF Olympiad
Using Open to Save Money and Solve a Big Government ProblemThe global push to convert analog television signals to digital has not been a smooth one. The delays and confusion about the switch in the United States are emblematic of the problems faced by governments making the move. Therefore, it's easy to assume that if rich countries like the U.S. are having trouble, emerging markets must be quite flummoxed in how to handle the spectrum-saving move. Not if you use Brazil as a counterpoint. Today there are roughly a 100 million analog TV sets in Brazil and, by the year 2016, all will need to be converted to digital. To meet this challenge, last year, Forum do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital Terrestre (Forum SBTVD), the public-private organization responsible for digital television (DTV) conversion in Brazil, announced an agreement with Sun's Global Communities team that makes Java the underpinning of an open technology content platform that will provide the countrywide conversion of television applications and services. This open effort will reduce the economic barriers to entry for Brazil's low-income population and minimize the royalty costs. When the agreement was announced, Crawford Beveridge, Global Communities chairman, said, "Sun's efforts to drive open source innovation and open standards are proving to be invaluable in helping emerging economies such as Brazil spur innovation and drive down costs on products that have the potential to improve the lives of their citizens." Making Open an Imperative for both Government Leaders and Students
Teaching the Teachers of Future Chinese Open Leaders
Helping China's Top Students Open Doors for Others
Educating the Next Generation of Engineers in China
The curriculum is already being rolled out at top Chinese universities, with Insight 64's Nathan Brookwood stating that the collaboration will enable China to have "technically trained people who will be well versed in Sun's processor design and programming...They will go off to first jobs, influencing employers' server purchases."
Learn more about the China Ministry of Education Collaborating with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
Leveraging the MIIT_CSIP-Sun Innovation Lab as a platform, Sun will continue its investment in open source promotion in China and bring Sun's open technologies and concepts to the marketplace. Supporting Open Standards in ChinaSun Microsystems has a long history of working with government, industry and academia to create and promote open technology standards that drive genuine innovation. In it's role as trusted advisor, the Global Communities team has shared best practices with entities across China on the issue of open standards policies. With support from Sun, MOFCOM China is leading the debate of Open IPR policy in the frameworks of WTO, China-US JCCT, APEC and WIPO. Additionally, the Beijing Municipal of Science and Technology would like to adopt open standardization and open source preferred policy as the way to encourage the development of local industry in 2010, and Sun was requested to be consultant and technical supporter.
IPR in Standardization policy debate in South Center Open Spurs the Emerging to Become the Emerged
Organizing Indonesia's Open ImperativeThe rise of open technology gives emerging nations a chance to break the cycle of following the lead big, rich nations in technology usage and to become early adopters. This is the goal of the Indonesian government. To meet this opportunity, in November of 2008, the Indonesian State-Ministry of Research and Technology and Sun's Global Communities team founded the Center for Open Source Technology Awakening (COSTA) to enhance the development of open source technology in the country. COSTA is expected to be a center for learning for open technology-based innovations, to assist Indonesia in the adoption and development of open sourced based applications. In the future, COSTA will serve as the primary hub for different government organizations that use and promote open source technology. Providing Access to Opportunity for Vietnam's StudentsThe old way of bringing "opportunity" to those in "poor" countries was to donate goods and then quietly leave or to take the most qualified out of the region and to a wealthier land. Sun breaks the old mold and works to create indigenous opportunity through open technologies in emerging nations by giving students top-flight learning resources and access to experts worldwide. A perfect example is the Company's work in Vietnam through the Java Education and Development Initiative (JEDI) program. Sun Microsystems and Vietnam's ICT Department, Ministry of Education and Training use JEDI to groom Vietnamese IT students into world-class developers, equipped with skill-sets on cutting-edge open-source technologies, including Java and Open Solaris. The program provides industry-endorsed computer science course materials for free to universities and colleges. First introduced in the Philippines in 2005, and now established in several other countries including Indonesia and Brazil, the JEDI program has benefited more than 190,000 students worldwide, who can now also access resources as part of the Sun Developer Network, with 4.4 million members globally. Bringing Open Technology Learning & Skills to 650 European UniversitiesSun's goal is to get as many students as possible involved in, and excited about, open technology through active participation. This effort gained momentum in Europe in 2008 with a Global Communities-led partnership agreement between Sun and a European Union-sponsored organization called EuroPractice to bring hands-on learning of Sun's open source multi-core processer OpenSPARC to 650 universities and research institutions across Europe. EuroPractice is a non-profit microelectronics design stimulation project and, at the time of the time of the announcement, one of its leaders said, "We are excited about the potential for future engineering innovations and educational advances on Sun's OpenSPARC technologies and believe access to this technology will help boost Europe's capabilities in teaching and research in the microprocessor field." Sun and EuroPractice are currently working to jointly foster best practices throughout European education institutions and promote open curriculum adoption. Where it All Began and Where it's Happening NextSun has learnt from experience that one of the best ways to influence and support a government is to point to examples made by other trend setting governments. Nowhere is this more evident than in our work with the European Union on the development of the"European Interoperability Framework" (EIF) in 2004. This policy framework recommended the roll-out of open standards-based and interoperable eGov solutions, including an important definition of "open standards" for governments to use. This has been a reference document for a number of countries around the world - including South Africa, Japan, Brazil and others. And now Global Communities is looking for the EU to lead again. The team is currently involved in helping the European Commission shape its follow-up document "EIF II." This will play an important role in setting the policy framework for eGov software solution interoperability and it strongly recommends governments to use open standards and open source based solutions. An official draft of EIF II is expected late June 2009. Global Communities and the European Commission ICT Task ForceIn 2006 Sun's EVP and Chairman of APAC, Europe and Emerging Markets Crawford Beveridge represented Sun in the "European Commission's High Level ICT Task Force." The task force was established by European Vice President Verheugen and European Commissioner Reading to look into which measures were necessary for the ICT industry specifically to create a more favorable EU business environment under the EU Jobs and Growth initiative (IP/06/731). Sun's successful participation in this exercise was reflected by the fact that the key messages that where adopted echoed a number of Sun's proposals - including our strong request for the promotion of interoperability and open ICT standards through procurement policies. These recommendations were used, among others, to better prioritize EU policy actions and reinforce existing activities under i2010 (see IP/06/654), including the ICT part of the EU's framework programme for research (IP/06/1590). In addition, it also provided input to the ICT policy support programme - which was launched within the "EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme" - to set out stimulus measures for innovation and competitiveness through the wider uptake of ICTs by citizens, governments and SMEs, responsible for most for Europe's innovation. Learn more about European Commission's High Level ICT Task Force Committed to a More Sustainable PlanetSun takes global sustainable computing and eco-responsibility seriously. Over the last several years, the Global Communities team helped lead some of Sun's most critical work across Europe on initiatives involving the EU Energy Using Products (EuP) Directive, WEEE and RoHS. Sun is leading a group within DIGITALEUROPE to work with the European Commission as it develops measures for servers under the EuP Directive, sometimes called the Ecodesign Directive. Like Energy Star, the EuP Directive aims to bring about improvements in energy efficiency, particularly in the design stage of products. Sun has already been working with industry colleagues on other EuP Implementing Measures relating to 'standby' and 'external power supplies' within DIGITALEUROPE and Tech America Europe.The EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive requires that producers of electronic equipment be responsible for the collection, reuse, recycling and treatment of WEEE. As an electronics producer, Sun takes these obligations seriously and endeavors to meet these environmental responsibilities for managing WEEE. The Global Communities team is currently working with industry peers to respond to EU consultations and engage in constructive dialogue with the EU Institutions as the WEEE Directive is being reviewed. Sun is also committed to minimizing the potentially harmful substances used in developing and manufacturing our products. In addition to complying with all applicable substance legislation worldwide, including but not limited to the EU's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, Sun has initiated efforts to remove and/or reduce other potentially hazardous substances from the design and manufacture of our products. RoHS is currently under revision in the EU and Sun is providing technical input and advice to the European Commission, through various trade associations, as the EU Institutions review various elements of the Directive.
Learn more about Eco-design of Energy-Using Products Sun Supports United Nations to Improve Digital Inclusion Worldwide
Sun and UNESCO will create a Center of Excellence for Adoption of Open Technologies and promote the use of open source technologies, including OpenOffice.org and OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard, as a low-cost way to improve education through universal access to information and knowledge. They will also support the development of open and inclusive knowledge societies in developing and emerging economies. In announcing the collaboration, Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, said, "UNESCO values the possibilities offered by all software models and advocates a diversity of choice to ensure that all can benefit from information and knowledge. We are glad to work with Sun to harness the power of free and open source software for extending and disseminating knowledge and to foster community approaches to software development." Helping South Africa's Leaders Become Open LeadersAs documents and services are increasingly transformed from paper to electronic form, there is a growing problem that governments and their constituents may not be able to access, retrieve and use critical records, information and documents in the future. To enable the public sector to have greater control over, and direct management of their own records, information and documents, the Global Communities team has promoted Open Document Format (ODF) as the primary document format for governments. What has happened in South Africa in recent years is an excellent example of this work's success. In 2007, ODF became an official standard for South African government communications. As part of this, the government created "Minimum Interoperability Standards" (MIOS) that called for a migration to new systems and major upgrades to meet the standards; making IS systems Internet-centered, with access to public services and documents preferably via web browser; and that open source based solutions are considered before proprietary ones. A year after ODF was made the government standard, South Africa made the format the country's official national standard. With Sun's leadership, 17 national and eight provincial governments around the world have now officially endorsed ODF for document exchange. Additionally, Sun EVP and Chairman of APAC, Europe and Emerging Markets Crawford Beveridge is involved in the Presidential International Advisory Council, the forum that at the highest political level supports the development of an open source and open standards policy for the government of South Africa, as well as an Information Society Plan that has establishes open source and open standards as key standards. Taking the First Big Open Steps
Making ODF Big in BelgiumThe Begian government was the first in Europe to adopt ODF as a government standard. For five years, the Global Communities team played a helpful role in assisting them to make the switch and in ensuring a smooth transition. Sun's technical experts worked with the government on the Sun ODF plug-in and to ensure that it could meet its deadlines for the precedent setting rollout. By September 2007 all civil servants were able to open and read ODF documents and by March 2008 they were able to create and save documents in ODF. Open Curriculum to Benefit Thousands of Elite IC Design and Computer Science Students in TaiwanFollowing a successful engagement in mainland China, Sun, with the support of the Embedded Software Consortium, has formed a curriculum partnership with the Ministry of Education in Taiwan and three top schools: National Taiwan University, National Chiao-Tung University, and National Tsing Hua University. Starting in the fall semester of 2008, these universities began using OpenSPARC in their curriculum in up to five courses that cover different aspects of hardware and software. Sun is the only major processor vendor to offer its designs free to the open source community, which is part of its broader commitment to fostering new users and developers and revenue opportunities through open source. This partnership will allow the universities to teach courses relevant with OpenSPARC technology and lecture on the latest processor innovations, which includes Chip Multi-threading (CMT)and software coding that fully leverage the advantage of CMT. The universities are also encouraged to develop their own education materials and conduct research and experimental projects. In addition, Sun Microsystems also aims at building a model of industry-academic cooperation to help turn the academic research results into industrial products to indirectly promote the IC industry development in Taiwan. Meanwhile, Sun Microsystems will also engage in IC-related education and R&D programs in campuses. Mr. Jenq-Kuen Lee Director of MOE Embedded Software Consortium, said, "With the launch of multiple projects, this partnership is expected to benefit more than 3,000 elite Taiwanese students and help turn them into technology experts with global competitiveness in three years."
Press coverage ODF Adoption in TurkeyGlobal Communities worked closely with partners both in the local Sun office and with Government officials on the promotion of ODF and Open Source within the Turkish Parliament - as well as on the establishment of the Turkish ODF Alliance association. Portugal Sees Benefits of Going OpenGlobal Communities and local Sun teams worked with the Portuguese Parliament and Government broadly to promote ODF and the use of Open Source solutions by public administrations. Sun has also been involved in the establishment of the Portuguese ODF Alliance organisation. Outside the education sector, the Institute of Technology is migrating to OpenOffice, the Ministry of Justice has used an open source system based on JBoss, PostgreSQL and Linux for the dissemination of information on referendum results and the Ministry of Internal Affairs used JBoss to create a new traffic fines management system. Open Source Software in the Public SectorGlobal Communities has worked closely with the Danish Government on their Open Standards and Open Source policy issues over the last 4 years and are very pleased to see that they decided to publish a strategy for the use of open source by public administrations. Open Source as an Economic StimulantGlobal Communities has worked with the French Government since 2004 to promote open standards/ODF/OpenOffice adoption by public administrations. Recently an economic commission set up by France's president Nicolas Sarkozy recommended that France should increase its use of open source software and consider tax benefits to stimulate open source development. The French Ministry of Finance, Agriculture and the Gendarmerie have recently switched over to OpenOffice. Massachusetts: The First Opening in the Open Document RevolutionIn 2005, the state of Massachusetts in the United States became the first government in the country to publicly connect open formats to a public policy purpose -- ensuring that government information, records and documents are accessible across platforms and applications, even as technologies change today and in the future. Sun was proud to help lead a multi-year effort to educate state officials and other leaders of the power of open formats and the in particular, the open document format (ODF) which the state also adopted as a standard in 2005. At the time, the Massachusetts Secretary of Administration said that, "It is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system that we cannot have our public documents locked up in some kind of proprietary format, perhaps unreadable in the future, or subject to a proprietary system license that restricts access." Since Massachusetts became the spark that started the ODF revolution, adoption of the file format worldwide has continued to grow. To date, seventeen national and eight provincial governments around the world have now officially endorsed ODF for document exchange. This included NATO, which uses ODF as a mandatory standard for all its 26 member nations. Sun was also instrumental in getting ODF adopted as an international standard through ISO as well as starting the ODF Alliance, a diverse group of companies, NGOs and others that works globally to educate policymakers, IT administrators and the public on the benefits and opportunities of ODF. Open and Energy Efficient GovernmentGlobal Communities worked closely with the Obama Transition Team during the winter of 2008-2009 on ideas for moving forward on making the US government more open. These discussions included strong recommendations for leveraging both open source software and more energy efficient IT systems. Global Communities has been pleased by the Obama Administration's commitment to the power of technology innovation to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations with the appointments of Aneesh Chopra as the White House CTO and Vivek Kundra as the White House CIO, who both have the responsibilities and duties normally incumbent to those jobs in a high tech company. The Sun team has also been working with the Obama Administration, the U.S. Congress, and others on to further initiatives for open government and energy efficiency. This has included recent amendments by Senator Mark Udall and Representative Anna Eshoo on making federal government CIOs more accountable for the energy efficiency of their IT systems. Sun hopes to also help the Obama Administration take further significant strides in recognizing and leveraging the advantages of open source software. Uniting Digital Explorers Around the WorldAs a company that was founded over 26 years ago by four young developers at Stanford University, Sun Microsystems knows first hand what young technologists can create and the change they can drive. That's why Global Communities worked with the Institute for the Future to conceive and create the The Digital Open: An Innovation Expo for Global Youth. All over the world, change is happening. And young people, so called digital natives, in every corner of the planet are leading this change by taking advantage of technologies that have never been available before. Today there are technologies that are being created, refined, pulled apart and then reshaped by a key ingredient called openness. Open technologies are allowing 19-year-olds in Buenos Aires, Budapest, Beijing and beyond gain access to unprecedented opportunity as they shape their own future. Global Communities believes that students are the pipeline for tomorrow's policy makers, developers, customers and employees. They are innovators, next generation leaders and change agents, all of which drive and influence current and future markets. As a leading contributor of open source code and longtime supporter of open technologies, Sun encourages global youth to take part in this new open movement and join the Digital Open competition and community to create, connect and collaborate with digital explorers from around the world. Sun and US Energy Star Spec for ServersSun has been closely involved with the US EPA in the development of the Energy Star for Servers specification since the first workshop on the topic was held in 2007. Sun submitted extensive data during the EPA's pre-specification data analysis phase and provided regular advice and guidance to the EPA on the development of its specification. Given the fact that Energy Star for servers will focus customers' attention on energy issues in the data centre, Sun is hopeful that customers will make better decisions to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint. Sun is also a member of the EU Energy Star Board, representing DIGITALEUROPE. |
Open Technologies and the Power of StudentsSun Campus Ambassadors Talk about OSUM Clubs and student communities. Next Generation Communities |
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Sun strongly believes that the role of technology in enabling E-governance is paramount. As part of its work around the world to support that belief, the Global Communities team has seen first-hand how technology can uniquely connect the three primary actors in an E-governance structure - government, corporations and citizens. In 2006 Sun and the Indian Institute of Technology forged a partnership to bring those actors together and support the advancement of technology use in India's government and education sectors. A strategic outcome of that partnership was the creation in 2008 of the Sun-IIT Delhi Centre of Excellence in E-governance (CoE) at the IIT Delhi campus. The Centre gives government officials and top E-governance leaders access to research, technology expertise and tailored workshops on the latest open innovations and policies that can help streamline and reduce costs associated with running government, while enhancing the security and quality of vital government delivered services for the citizens of India. According to Professor M.P.Gupta from IIT Delhi, "There is a lot of research in the area of technology required to implement E-governance effectively and also in the socio-economic area to analyze the requirements of different government organizations and citizens. This calls for a collaborative effort between the government, academia and a technology provider. Our collaboration with Sun Microsystems leverages their industry leading technology in order to create a sound technology platform for E-governance projects. This Center is also an apt platform to further the cause of open source and open standards, both of which are extremely relevant for the government and Sun's expertise and propagation of these two areas is well known." Sun's worldwide Centers of Excellence program promotes public-private collaboration to encourage the development of new technologies and build communities. Globally, Sun CoEs are focused on high-performance computing, bioinformatics, geosciences, computational fluid dynamics, e-learning, digital libraries, business incubation, and administrative computing.
One of Sun's missions is to bring the benefits of open source to education and encourage students to participate and contribute to the worldwide technology revolution. The ODF Olympiad is a step in that direction. The purpose of the Olympiad is to increase awareness regarding open source among the education community and give students a forum to create and collaborate on innovative projects. The competition, supported by Sun Microsystems along with various ODF Alliance members, was rolled out in September 2008 to great response with more than 1,500 schools registering for the contest and over 5,000 unique visitors to the competition's the website. The contest was conducted in schools across India, Malaysia and Indonesia and allowed winners from each of the countries to compete with each other for the chance to win the prestigious Software Freedom Trophy for their individual school. Participants were required to submit presentations using the ODF format on specific topics, which were evaluated by an eminent jury based on specific parameters such as relevance of the topic, creativity and visual appeal, organization of the content and use of embedded tools. Winners were announced as part of the Sun Tech Days 2009 events in Hyderabad and each of the winners took home laptops sponsored by Institute for Open Technology & Application (IOTA), a society formed under Department of Information Technology, Government of West Bengal.
The Sun collaboration on an initiative called EnterTECH in Argentina is a great example of Sun's leadership in influencing policy at the top of governments and providing true education value to students via open technology provides a virtuous circle. Approval of the program's third iteration was signed in an October 2008 ceremony by no less than Argentinean President Ms Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The collaboration with the Ministry of Labor trains students on leading open technologies. This provides both well-paid jobs to thousands and helps the Argentina IT Software Industry secure the talented employees they need. The first two phases of EnterTECH trained 2200 people on the Java platform between 80 and 160 hours. Statistics available on the first iteration show that at least 60 percent of trained students secured programming or developer jobs in the IT sector. Built on the success of the first two programs and expanded, the third phase is now training more than 3500 students in both Java and Open Solaris.
A thirst to learn is helpful. A skilled and knowledgeable teacher ready to help those with that thirst is the formula for success. Knowing this and understanding how fast technology changes in the competitive global marketplace, Chinese leaders have looked to the Sun Global Communities team to create precedent setting training programs Chinese technical teachers. Specifically, Sun and SAFEA -- the Chinese government's department responsible for coordinating talent for foreign and local technical and managerial training - signed a pioneering agreement in 2009 to bring open source software and technology into Chinese universities. Sun-SAFEA partnership is based on SAFEA's good recognition of Sun's world leading position in IT innovation and the open source area, and it's SAFEA's first and only formal cooperation with a multi-national company. The MOU commits Sun and SAFEA to a partnership on multiple projects including training, workshops, and internship programs. The agreement is expected to significantly improve the qualifications and capabilities of China's university administrators, teachers, and future IT professionals. As a follow-up to the agreement Sun recently hosted a visit from the Elite University Administrators Delegation from China.
In a nation as huge as China, innovative lessons learned in one corner of the nation might never make out of a region, let alone across the country. Fortunately, the Chinese government knows that the power of open source not only makes it easier for more students to learn more about technology but also to share their newfound wisdom with other students. In recognition of this, the Chinese Ministry of Education has teamed with Sun Global Communities to create the China Innovation Program for Students (CHIPS). This groundbreaking effort signed in 2009 brings together elite students at 10 different top universities and, in a competition, has them utilizing Sun open technologies to build online virtual education sites that students can use to learn in online communities. Sun is also providing top engineers and researchers to assist the educators and students through the development process. The agreement was announced at the 12th Annual China Education Conference, a key education event co-hosted by Sun and the Ministry of Education (MOE) of P.R.China. The event provided an ideal platform for attendees to learn about the latest technology trends, share best practices, stimulate new ways of thinking, and make new friends. Also featured at C-ERC was the Global Communities sponsored, "Open Technology and Innovation Forum." The forum featured professors from China, India and Russia and participants called on universities in their countries to strengthen their relationships, and collaborate together to encourage the adoption of Open Source and Open Standard in universities. Attendees discussed how Open Source education should be encouraged in global universities as a core curriculum to better help students fully understand this critical development in information technology. By emphasizing Open Source education and developing compelling case studies as teaching techniques, universities will improve the capability, competitiveness and innovation skills of students.
Over one million engineering students graduate every year from Chinese Universities. Three million more are behind them mastering technical skills and concepts faster then their professors can develop weekly lectures. Keeping pace with technology advancements and encouraging learning innovations to better equip those students for future employment is a priority and area of investment for many governments around the world. To address the close tie between government and education, Sun has entered into formal agreements with Ministries of Education, universities and non-government organizations throughout the world to infuse curriculum with open source training and education for young technologists. The Global Communities team has been more than pleased to support the Ministry of Education (MOE) in China in their national drive to improve education quality and better enable students, teachers and university administrators through the development of a landmark collaboration to promote the adoption of the OpenSPARC platform in university curricula. Designed to meet China's growing demand for cultivating integrated circuit (IC) engineering talent and industry development, the agreement enables the China's MOE and top Universities to educate students on the latest processor innovations, including chip multi-threading (CMT) and software coding that takes advantage of multi-threading. The collaboration gives The People's Republic of China access to the tools and the freedom to develop the intellectual property framework it needs to cultivate native microprocessors and microprocessor engineers. "We appreciate Sun's open source strategy, especially Sun's outstanding contribution in the open-sourced IC area, and we encourage the active cooperation effort between China's universities and Sun in the teaching and research area," said Prof. Zhao Qinping, vice minister of Ministry of Education"
On Feb 10th 2009, Sun Microsystems and the National Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center (CSIP) of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced officially the opening of MIIT_CSIP-Sun Open Technology Innovation Lab.
Under the collaboration agreement, Sun and MIIT will enter into cooperation in the following areas: green IT, China's open source community operation system, training of open source talents, open source application and software interoperation. Both sides agree that the Lab will foster a more dynamic OSS environment, build up the current open source industry ecosystem, promote open source, and help Chinese industry, especially the IT industry, to enhance innovation capabilities, thus making a significant contribution to the economic development of China. The Lab is designed to help Chinese enterprises and users learn the latest open source concepts and technologies, further promote OS software application and development in China, which should enable China to become one of the main contributors to open source in the near future.
Without the benefits of open source technology, it's difficult to imagine Malaysia taking such big strides forward in its competitiveness on the global economic stage. Malaysian leaders have become leading advocates for the technology and proudly own an open source policy that was endorsed by the UN as one of the best in the world. Part of this policy is a deep belief that students need to have hands on learning with open technologies. A key element of this vision come via a Malaysian government - working through a government-owned corporation established to promote the country's ICT initiatives called the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDEC) - collaboration with the Sun Global Communities team to train university students on Sun open technologies, including Java, MySQL and Open Solaris.
In recognition of rapid technological and economic changes, the United Nations recently made it an imperative to improve digital inclusion worldwide through active and substantial partnerships with the private sector. At the 2009 World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, Sun Global Communities signed a Collaboration Agreement with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) that recognises open source technologies as key ito increased ICT skills training in under-served communities. The broad-based, multi-faceted agreement has Sun providing expertise, know-how and technology for UNESCO activities relating to open source software, open educational resources, OSS education solutions as well as digital dissemination, preservation and archiving.
The Sun Global Communities team began making a concerted, focused effort to collaborate with the Russian government in the Summer of 2008 when it became increasingly clear that leaders were looking to emphasize open technology. Since then, the Russian government has moved at a rapid pace to embrace 'open'. In 2009 alone, the Ministry of Communications called for an important roundtable on open technologies; spurred the creation of an open tech association in the country; and developed numerous measures to begin transitioning the government to open technologies. Global Communities along with Sun Russia has been pleased to play a key role every step of the way through active participation and leadership in roundtables and associations and via direct collaboration with key public officials as shown by the photo here of President Medvedev using a SunRay work station.