Objectives of the Training Program

FOSS-Bridge EU Vietnam offers to FOSS Intermediary inVietnam an expert knowledge on innovative business models and EU-regulations.

FOSS -Bridge offers training and information on technological regulations to intermediary and SMEs in the field of FOSS in Vietnam. The focus lies on establishing innovative business models for potential use in Vietnam, providing crucial knowledge on regulations and requirements to access the European marketplace.The transfer of know-how is one important basis of the FOSS philosophy and is the key idea behind FOSS-Bridge.

Note : FOSS intermediaries are key players of the national IT-sector in organizations such as open soure software resources centres, business chambers as well as key associations of FOSS companies and FOSS developers.

Why join the training?

Are you a working for a Vietnamese Intermediary in the IT domain? Take advantage of the following :

• A consistant training program (3 workshops) for you to develop skills in professional open-source
• A non-technical training to understand how FLOSS can be used in your business/ professional activity
• Interactive sessions around practical cases (FLOSS licencing terms, making money with free software, Methodology in the FLOSS bazard, Talking about FLOSS)

Training Program Organization

Training one : Training on Open Source regulation and Business Models

Trainer : François Letellier

Dates : April 17, 18, 21, 22.

Location : Hanoi. See details and program: Training One

Training two : Training on open source development and European best practices

Trainers : François Letellier & Christophe Ney

Dates : June 30 to July 5, 2008

Location : Hanoi. See details and program : Training Two

Training three : Outreach to a greater number of SMEs through training conducted by the intermediaries

Trainer : Christophe Ney

Dates : November 10-15, 2008 (tentative dates) + online continuous coaching.

Location : Hanoi. See details and program : Training 3

Training Material

The work material used for the FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam Training on innovative business models and EU-regulations is made available for the futur trainers from vietnamese intermediaries participating to the FOSS-Bridge program. See Training material section.

The trainers

The training program will be handled by Christophe Ney and François Letellier, two European experts in the field of open source technical regulations.

Christophe Ney :

Christophe Ney has over twenty years of experience in software engineering, information and communication technologies. After graduating at University of Paris-Sud Orsay (Paris XI) and subsequently at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA), he has designed, architected and developed complex software in domains such as CAD, Middleware, WEB, Knowledge-management and e-Business. Involved in cooperative projects and open source initiatives since 1998, he has been leading multiple projects and teams in multicultural and geographically distributed environments. Project Director at INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, he was in charge till 2006 of ObjectWeb, an international consortium for sustainable industry cooperation on middleware with open source. Back to business, Christophe Ney is now leading an ambitious project on management of virtual and remote teams, as well as offering consulting services to the IT sector.

François Letellier :

François Letellier is a freelance consultant on open innovation and open-source software. He helps innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups define open-source based business models, pursue open innovation strategies and secure funding. He also acts as an economical and technical expert for innovation support institutions, delivers lectures and training sessions and is strongly involved in structured and informal communities related to open IT innovation. François has a master in computer science and over 15 years of experience in software design, engineering and project management. He has been product manager in the field of pharmaceutical EIS/datawarehouse. He co-founded a software consultancy where he served five years and worked for global corporations like France Telecom and Michelin. He spent four years with INRIA, the French National Research Center in Computer Science and Automation, as marcom director and executive director of ObjectWeb.

Content of the training

The High Level Training Material of FOSS Bridge EU-Vietnam covering key issues such as "Open Source Regulations, Licensing and Business Models, Open Source Development & European Best Practice as well as design of Training activities" is available for download here for all sections described below.

Activity 1 : Training on open source regulations and business models

Module 1: Regulatory frameworks

Review of the most important licences in use today, such as GPL, LGPL, EPL, and BSD licenses:

• Presentation and main characteristics including patent rights and revocation, reciprocity requirements, sublicensing options, and several others. 

• Key distinguishing factors

• Adaptability of each licence to a business model, with customer needs and the values of a community.

In this respect, the focus will lie on to the regulatory frameworks and rules of the European Union (legal, economic and social standards) and their interaction with applicable Vietnamese regulations. The training seminars shall also demonstrate how a Vietnamese business or community might analyse a set of licenses to determine which are best aligned for their purposes and markets. The goal is for each participant to understand the focus of the legal and regulatory processes which govern and protect open source software.

Module 2 : Business Models

How can companies design a business model being able to leverage the open source advantage?
The training will explore the specific actions which have led to either beneficial or costly results for the individual situation of several very different companies using open source software in their business strategy. Such actions include those related to:

• Using open source when starting a business

•   Incorporating open source into an existing business model

• Designing legal frameworks

• Building open source communities and defining their role in the business model

• Marketing to those communities

• Others relevant models (such as Porter's five forces framework and stakeholder analysis or other suitable models)

Participants shall be able to gather information on the tactics used in Europe to incorporate open source software into business models, but more importantly with an understanding of why these tactics succeeded or failed in a specific context. A focus shall therefore lie on example-based hands-on training which analysis concrete success stories of companies / case studies (including interactive sessions involving participants in the case studies).

Activity 2 : Training on open source development and European best practices

Module 1 : Project Organization and Life Cycle
Module 2 : Developer and User Communities
Module 3 : Interoperability and Open Standards
Module 4 : Collaborative Tools

This training focuses on the various aspects which have an impact on the success of open source software. This shall provide participants a better understanding of open source project organization and lifecycle, the management of developer and user communities and expectations in order to enable them to start their own open source project or join existing communities.
This training scheme shall present the practices of major open source organizations such as the Apache Software Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, and the OW2 Consortium (formerly ObjectWeb Consortium) and shall review associated collaborative tools that support open source communities and projects development. The training programme will also discuss the question of open standards that help ensure interoperability of systems.

Open sourcing a project alone is not sufficient to acquire contributions magically and build a self-sustainable developer community around a project. How to make a project known in the community? How to attract and manage contributors? How to ensure the long term viability of projects? This scheme will try to provide some answers by presenting and analysing experience from various open source projects.

Activity 3 : Outreach to a greater number of SMEs through training cinducted by the intermediaries

Module 1: Training of trainer (communication skills, creativity techniques, delivering with confidence, tools and techniques to enhance learning, transfer management, managing one’s time, application of didactical guiding principles of InWEnt [participation, diversity of training formats and methods, focus on practical application of learning content, focus on participants and their needs, skills, interests and active participation, tolerance, transparency, fostering of holistic learning and systemic thinking])

Module 2 : On the job training and coaching (Training material development)

• Continuous (online) coaching for trainers

• Support to preparation of training courses

• Development and translation of training material

The aforementioned content of activity 1 and 2 will become part of the portfolio of the intermediaries. This allows the intermediaries to widen their portfolio and reach out to several more SMEs.
In order to optimize the training quality the intermediaries will receive a training of trainers course, which will strengthen the soft skills. Individual training material will be developed for further use in the respective language. Furthermore the first round of training conducted by the intermediaries will be carefully coached and monitored.