The SELF Consortium and the Free Knowledge Institute have the pleasure to invite you to spend exciting days of interaction and discussions on one of the most important topics nowadays - education and learning in freedom, in the paradigm of the Information technologies.

Richard M. Stallman (GNU Project and Free Software Foundation), Karel de Vriendt (EU/IDABC) and many more well known speakers will form the elegant mix between keynote speakers, panel discussions and parallel tracks. Participants choose between several parallel discussions, divided in streams on:

1. Free Knowledge and Free Technologies in society - legal issues of Free Knowledge; who creates Free Knowledge; quality assessment in collaborative authoring systems; the economy and social implications of Free Knowledge and Free Technologies
2. Free Knowledge and Free Technologies in public bodies, co-organised with IDABC and Cenatic
3. Educating in Freedom - technological aspects of e-learning; the SELF Platform; training Free Technologies advocates; showcase of educational materials and many more specific topics.
   

As part of the Conference, we are inviting you to witness the awarding ceremony of the "Free Knowledge, Free Technology" Open Documentary Contest.

With the objective of promoting Free Software and the sharing of free knowledge, the FKFT 2008 Conference will bring together hundreds of people from different continents including government representatives, school and university teachers, IT companies, publishers, and NGO's. By gathering together people from all these groups, we aim to stimulate both present and future collaboration between diverse disciplines, sectors and countries, through the medium of free software programs and the sharing of successful experiences related to free software and free technologies.

Registration is now open. Please register here.

The FKFT 2008 organisers highly recommend that you make reservations for hotels and flights as early as possible as July is high-season period in Barcelona.

The Free Knowledge Institute and the SELF Consortium (Internet Society Netherlands, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Free Software Foundation Europe, Gothenburg University, Internet Society Bulgaria, Fundacion Via Libre and Tata Institute for Fundamental Research) will collaborate to organise the content of the conference and to build strong relationships between attendees. The conference partners recognise the vital importance of the collaborative creation and sharing of free educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards. Our conference host is the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

The SELF Platform, a collaborative authoring tool inspired by Wikipedia, will play an important role in achieving this goal. SELF is an international project, initially supported by the European Commission, which has developed a platform to encourage the creative cooperation and the sharing of educational materials, paying special attention to Free Software and Open Standards. The SELF Platform is open to the contributions of all those who like to bring their knowledge to it, and share this knowledge without restrictions.

Free Software, as opposed to proprietary software, can be copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restrictions. Moreover, Open Standards, and the capacity they offer for exchanging knowledge and sharing information, have become essential because they allow business and administration processes to function in a more flexible, transparent and cost-efficient way. The expansion of Free Software has brought together a continually growing community of developers.

General Co-Chairs:

David Megias (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
Wouter Tebbens (Free Knowledge Institute)

Program Co-Chairs:

David Jacovkis (Free Knowledge Institute, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
Dragoslava Pefeva (Internet Society Bulgaria)

Conference information
Organising team
For Papers
For Registration
For Sponsorship

Contact Addresses:

David Megias, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Tel: (+34) 933 263 735
Fax: (+34) 933 568 822

Wouter Tebbens, Free Knowledge Institute
Tel: (+31) 20 8910 319
Fax: (+31) 877 844 107