[Linux-aus] LCA 206 - Having Education as a Theme?

[Jon maddog Hall <maddog@li.org>]

Hi,

In relatively rapid succession I have gotten these three email messages:

g@netcraft.com.au said:
> Each year the ACM International Collegiate Programming Competition is held.
> This attracts the best and brightest computer science students in
> universities around Australia to try to make it into a team that will compete
> at the world event. 

atulasthana@gmx.net said:
> Novell has signed a national agreement with the New Zealand Ministry of
> Education to provide all state and state-integrated schools with a range of
> Novell software, including SUSE Linux operating systems. 

>http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=12417&cid=3

organisers@lca2006.linux.org.au said:
> 2006 - Dunedin, NZ!
> linux.conf.au is the annual Australian Linux technical conference, and is one
> of the largest gatherings of users and developers of Free and Open Source
> Software in the Southern Hemisphere.  It is an opportunity for developers and
> groups to present their ideas amongst peers, and for the Free Software and
> Open Source communities to gather in general. 

Now since Dunedin is a center of education in New Zealand, I was wondering
if the LCA program committee might consider a THEME for the conference in
Education?  You could have a track that would concentrate on education, and
training sessions concentrating on things of use to educational groups,
perhaps getting funding from philanthropic groups to fund some projects
and do what we call in the states a "full-court press" for education....to
move the K-12 and even University education using FOSS ahead by a year or two.

Some of the students in the ACM group might be approachable in doing projects
for education, and there could be some training sessions for "teaching the
teachers".

This is not to say that you could not consider other tracks and other subjects,
but it would allow you to create a certain amount of interest and excitement
to have a "conference within a conference".

Of course this would be applicable back in Australia too.

Just a thought.

maddog
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog@li.org         80 Amherst St. 
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