Aspiration was delighted to collaborate with Google in co-organizing two events focused on the Joomla! open source content management system.

Aspiration facilitated the Joomla! Core Team Summit, which took place May 8-11 and brought together 20 Joomla! Core Team members. The core team is distributed across the globe, and this was the first in-person meeting in over a year. The agenda combined visioning and team-building sessions with working group meetings to move the project forward on a range of fronts, all aimed at delivering Joomla! Version 1.5. The team enjoyed the righteous hospitality of Google, and lots of extracurricular fun was had by all.

Following the Core Team Summit, Joomla! Day USA West brought over 100 users, developers and service providers from across the western US together to share knowledge, meet other Joomla! community members, and collaborate in the Joomlasphere. The convergence followed the Aspiration event format, meaning that the community determined what was discussed, powerpoints were an endangered species, and nary a panel was seated. Joomla! Core Team members stood by to answer questions, offer insights and explain the exciting new Joomla! Version 1.5.

Aspiration thanks Google and Joomla! for inviting us to help out at such great events!

Penguin Day Austin took place on April 28, 2007 in Austin, TX. Details of what went down are at austinpenguinday.org. Also see the wiki and agenda for the event.

Penguin Day Austin was co-organized by Aspiration, EFF-Austin, Polycot, and Gmeta.

Penguin Day took place in Washington, DC, right after the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC). As at every Penguin Day, we explored the potential and the role of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in nonprofit organizations, in sessions designed to answer questions and curiosities!

Penguin Day DC took place Saturday, April 7th at Josephine Butler Parks Center

You can see the Penguin Day DC Agenda.

Penguin Day DC was organized by Aspiration, PICnet and NOSI.

What in the world is a Penguin Day?

Are you passionate or curious about the reality, the potential and the role of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in nonprofit organizations? Do you want to learn about latest free and open web publishing tools and technologies? Would you like to meet other like-minded and passionate participants, including developers, activists, and nonprofit “techies”?

Penguin Day DC will bring together nonprofit technology staff with free and open source software (FOSS) developers for a day of learning and conversation.

We’ll explore and explain open source for nonprofits, frankly address the challenges of developing open source tools for nonprofits, and celebrate strengths and successes of open source in the nonprofit sector. Leading open source innovators in the nonprofit sector will share their stories and knowledge, and focus on answering your questions!

If you are curious about open source software for your nonprofit organization, Penguin Days are for you!

Register at www.penguinday.org

Who is organizing Penguin Day in DC?

Penguin Day DC is made possible with the help of Aspiration, PICnet and NOSI, local partners and YOU!

What will I take away from Penguin Day?

Penguin Day features a packed agenda of interactive workshops, round tables, and “SpeedGeeks.” Topics include:

• Introduction to Free and Open Source Software for Nonprofits
• Local resources and who’s-who in the Free/Open Source community
• Helping techies and non-techies communicate
• Overview of Free and Open Source desktop applications
• e-Advocacy platforms
• Making sense of Free and Open Source Content Management Systems
• Healthy and Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities
• How Users Can Influence FOSS Development
• Business Models for FOSS developers and providers
• Content Management System (CMS) Crash Courses — Plone, Joomla, and Drupal
• Creative Commons and Open Content
• SpeedGeeking (a lively tour of projects and tools)

What Are Others Saying About Penguin Days?

“I had a wonderful time at Penguin Day. It was one of the best IT related conferences I’ve been to. I’m definitely in a position to help my current and future non-profits with MUCH needed tools. I thank y’all on their behalf. Keep up the good work and positive energy.” - Steve Garrison, SolarBoy.org

“Penguin Day was great - I had an excellent day - made new friends, put a lot of faces to email addresses, had a whole load of fun - and got introduced to some new applications and distributions! Thanks again to everyone who organised the day, ran sessions etc - it made my 4,500 mile trip worthwhile!” - Ian, from London, UK

“Penguin Days are a fantastic opportunity to get together with a wide variety of people and understand more about the issues that surround open source. Unlike a lot of conference/gatherings, the emphasis in these is on meeting people and making connections that you carry out of them room. And that works.” - Marnie from San Francisco

“Now on to Penguin Day… Wow. For my part I was impressed by the international scope of the audience, folks from Great Britain, Canada, Kenya, Turkey, Ghana, Chicago and all points in between. The energy was great and the range of topics on the agenda meant there was something for everyone….suffice it to say Penguin Day set the mark against which all other events will be measured in my mind.” - John from Chicago

Background

Since 2004, Penguin Days have been held in Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon; London, England; Toronto, Canada, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Texas and Seattle.

Hundreds of nonprofit staff, programmers, and activists have attended Penguin Days. Penguin Days feature humorous “SpeedGeeking” sessions (playfully modeled after speed-dating) to bring programmers and organizations together to learn more about each other and free and open source software.

The Penguin is the symbol adopted in the early days of Linux as the mascot of this growing software movement.

To register for an upcoming Penguin Day, go to www.penguinday.org.

About Aspiration: Aspiration, connects nonprofit organizations with software solutions that help them better carry out their work. We want nonprofit organizations to obtain and use the best software to maximize their effectiveness and impact so that they, in turn, can change the world. We identify what is available and what is missing in NGO software arena, and foster relationships, delivery systems, and sustainability strategies between NGOs around the world.

About PICnet: PICnet, empowers the missions of non-profits through the use of unique open source software solutions. PICnet moves beyond the nuts and bolts of technology, rising to find new and effective ways to assist organizations in meeting their goals.

About NOSI: NOSI was formed with three goals: to facilitate and encourage the use of free and open source software in the nonprofit sector, to bring nonprofit organizations together with free and open source developers and projects in ways that both can benefit, and to promote the understanding of the ways in which the fundamental values of each are similar.

Aspiration and Blue Oxen Associates co-hosted the fourth FLOSS Usability Sprint March 9-11, 2007. Once again, Google graciously hosted the event at their headquarters in Mountain View. Project participants included Firefox, Drupal, WiserEarth, and Aspiration’s own Social Source Commons.

Event proceedings were tracked on the FLOSS Usability Wiki.

The 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit was a first-of-its-kind convening to bring together the range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of roles around “developing nonprofit software”. The event provided an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity.

The Summit was hosted in Oakland, California, from February 21st to 23rd, 2007. Additional code sprints and collaborations were scheduled on the day following the event.

The 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit was supported in part by the generosity of TechSoup and Google, as well as anonymous donors.

See the Event Schedule and Agenda, the Agenda Overview, event background, and press release.

Please have a look at the Event Wiki.

And feel free to join the Event Mailing List to participate in discussions about the Summit!

Goals of the Summit

The Summit will had as its primary goals the following:

• To convene and strengthen connections between the networks of stakeholders in the nonprofit software spectrum, providing a fun and creative environment for celebrating successes and leadership in the field.
• To share skills and knowledge in a highly collaborative, peer-to-peer fashion.
• To map and discuss what is available and what is missing across the nonprofit software landscape in specific software “verticals”, and to posit solutions for addressing the gaps.
• To offer a point of entry for software developers interested in offering their skills to nonprofit sector.

The agenda will take a concrete and hands-on approach to topics and challenges, focusing on transferring skills and process knowledge in interactive and fun ways. Panels and slideware will be in short supply, supplanted by participant-driven collaborations and small-group formats.

Event partners working with Aspiration to design the agenda and sessions included Blue Oxen Associates, Brattleboro Technology Collective, Caltha.pl (Warsaw, Poland), Chicago Technology Cooperative, CivicSpace, CiviCRM, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, DemocracyInAction, DotOrganize, Drupal, Floatleft, Fund for the City of New York, Grameen Foundation, Grassroots.org, Humaninet, Idealware, Leland Design, Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI), ONE/Northwest, Openflows Community Technology Lab, The Open Planning Project, OpenID, PICnet, Project Zero, protest.net, Radical Designs, Salesforce.com Foundation, Sulá Batsú (San Jose, Costa Rica), and Ujima Consultants.

Aspiration was delighted to lead the facilitation at the Africa Telecentre Leaders' Forum 2006. The event convened telecentre practitioners, network leaders, researchers and development partners from across Africa and took place at Centre Songhai in Port Novo in Benin from November 28 - December 2, 2006. The Africa TLF was jointly organized by Centre Songhai, IDRC, Microsoft, OKN, SDC and UNESCO under the banner of telecentre.org.

• Develop a spirit of networking, learning and collaboration within the African telecentre movement.
• Provide leaders of telecentres and other Community ICT Centres a chance to gain practical skills and learn about new services that can be used in their own networks and telecentres.
• Search for common solutions to challenges faced by African Community ICT Centres such as sustainability, content, services, connectivity and impact.
• Encourage the development of concrete collaborative activities that offer solutions to these challenges.