Established in 2006, the International Free and Open Source Solutions Foundation (iFOSSF) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization incorporated in the United States. Its mission is to promote the research, development, and utilization of Open Technologies and Open Standards for sustained Social, Economic and Environmental Development (SEED) with an emphasis on locally and culturally fit solutions.

iFOSSF fulfill its objectives through a number of strategic Programs that drive a portfolio of enabling tactical Projects carried out joint by iFOSSF partners and membership networks. All iFOSSF tactical projects must address the root causes of social, humanity or economical problems and lead to new ways of thinking and acting.

iFOSSF strategic programs are defined by the iFOSSF advisory board, they are reviewed yearly. The followings are current programs defined. Please read more about how to propose or launch a tactical project under one of our strategic programs.

NameDescription
Collective Intelligence

The remit of this program is to distill the key mechanics of the process systems used for FOSS development, with a view to understanding how it can be utilised for other organisational and social benefits. FOSS features a unique blend of voluntary activity, distributed workforce patterns and software development practices that offers new insights into organisational management. These could be applied to many areas for considerable benefit, such as: eliminating bureaucracy, particularly in areas like government administration, distribution of investment and funding capital.

Projects sought under this strategic program including research and development of best practices, reports and tools  to understnd this process as well as the application to non-foss based projects.
FOSS Ecosystem

The FOSS Movement has evolved from the stages of philosophy and licensing into a complex and pragmatic Ecosystem for software production and distribution benefiting humanity globally. FOSS has introduced technological self-reliance, efficient use and sharing of resources, collaborative innovation and development providing new directions to develop local entrepreneurship. This gives humanity the freedoms of choice and empowerment encouraging development of a local industry and skills that result in immense financial benefits for both developing and developed  countries. 

These countries can now benefit as innovators and developers of software instead of simply being users thus engage within local and global markets. This leads us to believe that one of the most significant success factors to the acceleration of FOSS adoption is to establish and support a healthy Ecosystem at both International and Regional levels to support the supply and demand value chain. This Ecosystem can only be evolved with appropriate equal and open inclusion of multi-stakeholder involvement by Countries, Governments, Public Administration, Academia, Private Sector and Civil Society.

Projects sought under this strategic and dynamic program are:

  • FOSS Partner Network Development
  • FOSS Advocacy, Capacity Building and Education
  • Technology Accreditation Programmes
  • Research & Development studies on factors that influence ICT Production and Consumption Policies enabled by FOSS
  • Effective and Efficient Low-Cost Models for evolving FOSS Ecosystems
  • Localization of FOSS into regional languages, and
  • Production and Compilation of openly accessible resource publications and baseline research documentation as a means to assist FOSS development initiatives worldwide.
ICT Enpowerment

This strategic program focuses on the continuing and accelerating the development and adoption of FOSS technologies to provide more tools to more people, and to enable more conversation and more commerce with a view to increasing the activity levels and success rates of social entrepreneurism. Example projects in this strategic effort may include:

  • Solutions for local ICT ‘Telecenters':  Distribution of FOSS-based free PCs through corporate refurbishment, community-owned Internet infrastructure and free multimedia social networks for youth and other start-up businesses.
  •  E-Government Business Infrastructure: Tools to encourage increased political activism and engagement, Internet-centric, secured e-voting methods, and process integration to improve local service delivery.
  • Community development: use ICT solutions to enhance the collaboration and dissemination of community based projects locally or remotely,  such as collaborative art work, joint education curriculum development etc.