3 April 2008 - Media Release

Will the future of innovation be built on Open Foundations

ACT Senator Kate Lundy and Tom Worthington, Adjunct Senior Lecturer at The Australian National University are co-chairing a Local Summit in Canberra today that will explore the opportunities presented by open technology and digital knowledge.

"Having a Local Summit on the Foundations of Open Technology and Digital Knowledge will shine a spotlight on the important public policy ideas that are built on the principles of open standards and genuine collaboration from a community, education, business, innovation and government perspective" Senator Lundy said.

Speakers include ANU Acting Vice-Chancellor of the ANU Professor Lawrence Cram, delivering the keynote address, Pia Waugh, President of Software Freedom International and will showcase some of the latest innovations using open technology.

“Open access is best known in the software development field with Open Source, where technology is developed publicly and openly and exposed for comment and contribution throughout development. The same techniques can be applied to the distribution of information for research and education, such as open access publishing with the creative commons." Mr. Worthington said.

Mr. Worthington will give the first public demonstration of a new open access research publishing system being developed by ANU in Canberra for worldwide use and show a disaster management system developed for the Boxing Day Tsunami, which has been ungraded with Australian technical assistance for use by developing nations.

Pia Waugh, a long term advocate for technology openness sees the event as a very important milestone for Australian government policy. "A baseline of openness provides many opportunities for socio-economic and business development, sustainable technology/information, international collaboration and global competitiveness. Openness underpins our very ability to maintain equal access to opportunities and to each other in a world that is increasingly dependent on technology for everything from work and socialising to voting."

The 'Foundations of Open' technology and digital knowledge Local 2020 Summit will explore, discuss and develop specific policy initiatives borne out of open access for information, technology, education and governance for the benefit of our society and economy.

Ideas from "Foundations of Open" will be collated and conveyed to the National 2020 Summit". Presentations from the Local Summit will be available online via Tom Wothington's Web site http://tomw.net.au/moodle and Kate Lundy's web site http://www.katelundy.info.

Members of the public can participate in the Summit virtually by registering on the website to participate in online discussions and ideas development. The Summit will also be podcast online.

For more information or details about location if you wish to attend contact Rachel Allen:6230 0411 or  0418 488 295