Introduction

Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of software freedom and the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software. Local teams from all over the world organize events on the third Saturday in September. The most recent events involve around 500 teams from all over the world.

Objectives

To build awareness of free software, To promote and spread the spirit of free software, To show the benefits of knowing, using and contributing to the free software movement

Organizer(s)

• Digital Freedom Foundation, the organization coordinating the events worldwide
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Co-organizer(s)

• ...

Location

Date: September 21, 2013 (Saturday) Time: 13:30pm to 18:00 Venue: Hong Kong Polytechnic University, rooms N002, N114 & N115 (one amphitheatre and 2 rooms of 60 seats for workshops or small talks/discussions)

Target audience

Considering the scope of the event (“educating the public”) we believe the main targets in Hong Kong are students (middle, high schools and Universities) as well as their teachers, and the young workforce. Dealing with a city as big and modern as Hong Kong we will focus only on universities this year and make an attempt to reach the workforce. Check list in annexe 1.

Message

• For students: free software brings them privacy, independence from marketing companies and knowledge. Furthermore free software can definitely be the basis of their business later on, simply as a tool or to give them opportunities to learn from real life deployment all sorts of skills ranging from marketing, documentation, inter-cultural communication, technical skills being supported by huge communities and excellent developers, ethics and sharing, just to name a few. Besides that, it also gives them case studies of people like them being able to build success stories and wealth by using free and open source software, showing them a way for a brighter future. It also forges a stronger bond between students encouraging them to be part of a community and part of a globally shared ideal and community;
• For teachers: using and introducing free software teach students the freedom of creation, improvements, tools to make their career more successful later (see above point for student). It also brings a stronger bound between students encouraging them to be part of a community and a grand idea that is sharing. In terms of economics, schools don't get to spend money on licensing fees but can invest in infrastructures or any other things that requires the extra (unused) fund to better educate. It's also the possibility to give away all the tools being used in class without worrying about making the students running illegals copies or involving the school in distributing software they should not. Free software can be copied, modified and redistributed freely! Besides over the years Open Educational Resources have come to maturity and many leading universities even share their educational content. It is time for teachers in Hong Kong to jump on the train and bring the concept here!
• For schools: Free software can be copied, modified and redistributed without restriction or legal liability! Over the years Open Educational Resources have come to maturity and many leading universities even share their educational content. So don't spend your limited funds on licensing software if a free computing infrastructure that accomplishes 99% of the same results can be constructed from Free and Open Source Software;
• For the young workforce: ...

Content

Introduction

In order to convey the above messages the event will have two focus points:

• Speakers discussing openly with the audience successful cases of people using FOSS in their everyday life and explaining how to start using and contributing. Refer to Annexe 2 for “Current successful stories”;
• Several communities and Open Source companies participating, having a booth to discuss face to face with the attendees, demoing their free software and giving them away, and explaining how easy it is to start using free software.

Speeches

We're targeting one opening speech and 6-8 speakers in line with our topic. Speeches will start at 13:30 up until 16:30 depending on the number of confirmed speakers. Q&A will be moderated by the Master of Ceremony or eventually special guests. Questions will come from both the MoC or the audience. To help make the audience participate, interact, moderators will ask questions related to the speeches and give away gifts to students who can answer. See Annexe 3 for “Questions to the audience”.
Michael Iannini, Beijing GNU/Linux User Group founder and president from 2002 to 2007 has been invited to be our Master of Ceremony.

Confirmed speakers:

• Michael Iannini, Master of Ceremony

• Graham Leach, PolyU & DFF intro, conference introduction

• Google Hong Kong, Lokman Tsui

• Nick Jones, Network Box R&D head

• LibreOffice, Naruhiko Ogasawara

Pending confirmation:

• Head of OLPC Asia, Anthony Wong
• Candis Group CEO, Jorn Knutsen
• Canonical, Someone from the Chinese team

Booth

Booth area should be opened from 13:30 to 17:30 (and longer if necessary). Currently we're thinking of the following list of organizations or communities. Some have already accepted, some are being invited:

• OLPC (invited)
• Fedora/GNOME (confirmed)
• Digital Freedom Foundation (confirmed)
• Hong Kong LUG (invited)

• LibreOffice (confirmed)

Workshops

• Firefox 10 tips (invited/suggested)

• Jon Phillips, new project introduction - will confirm at the last minute

• Foss software demo, eventually InstallFest (checking on details to avoid issues with UEFI)

Expectations and marketing

We're planning for an audience of about 200 to 300 people based on space available. We will announce the event at targeted locations and make sure the people we want to target will be aware of the event. This will be done by:

• POP: posters and fliers in high schools and universities
• Internet: advertising in forum, university, specialized lists and FB young business groups
• Magazines: on target magazines will be contacted for free space (if possible)
• Visit selected schools and universities to invite teachers and management to join
• To help attract more people, free gifts will be given to all participants, 200 bags of gifts with CDs of Free Software and promotional freebies will be prepared. Companies and communities exhibiting will also be encouraged to do so. By doing so, we believe that all the attendees will have all Free Software represented and needed on hand and ready to try them at home (just insert the CD!).

Annexe 1: Hong Kong Universities

• The University of Hong Kong - 香港大學
• The Chinese University of Hong Kong - 香港科技大學
• The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - 香港科技大學
• City University of Hong Kong - 香港城市大學
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University - 香港理工大學
• Hong Kong Baptist University - 香港浸會大學
• Lingnan University - 嶺南大學
• The Hong Kong Institute of Education - 香港教育學院
• The Open University of Hong Kong - 香港公開大學
• Hong Kong Shue Yan University - 香港樹仁大學
• Chu Hai College of Higher Education - 珠海學院
• Hang Seng Management College - 恒生管理學院
• Tung Wah College - 東華學院
• Caritas Institute of Higher Education - 明愛專上學院
• Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong - 香港高等科技教育學院
• The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts - 香港演藝學院
• Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education - 香港專業教育學院

Annexe 2: Questions to the audience

1. Session about "all the FOSS you know" to let them know there is a lot of Free Software and not only Linux:
2. Operation system 12345
3. Database 12345
4. Tools 12345
5. Middleware 12345
6. Application 12345
7. Game 12345

If someone can figure out 3 of them we could give a gift

1. Best Free Software project seen at Software Freedom Day election:

Attendees will elect the software that they thought was the most interesting, then we'll have a lucky draw and give a price to both the project and the participants

Annexe 3: Exhibition hall floor plan

Size allocated per exhibitor is 2m x 2m Table and chairs can be provided by PolyU University when needed