[edu-eu] The "Association of Greek Users and Friends of Free Software" joins the FTA

[Franco Iacomella]

The Free Technology Academy (FTA) and the Association of Greek Users and
Friends of Free Software / Open Source Software (Greek Linux User Group
- Greek.LUG), announced today their partnership, joining the FTA's
International Associate Partner Network. The Network aims to expand the
availability of professional educational courses and materials covering
the concepts and applications of Free Software and the Open Standards.

The FTA consists of an advanced virtual campus with various course
modules, which can be followed entirely on-line. The learning materials
are all published under a free license and can be accessed by anyone,
but learners enrolled in the FTA will be guided by professional Teaching
Staff from one of the participating Universities. The FTA aims to enable
IT professionals, students, teachers and decision makers to undertake
accredited professional education in Free Software.

One of the FTA objectives is to establish a strong relationship with the
free software community and to turn the FTA course materials into an
essential reference. The FTA seeks to educate and promote the adoption
of Free Technologies, without losing sight of the Free Software
community's core purpose of freedom and social transformation.

Constantine Mousafiris, Special Registar of GREEKLUG, said:

"We are both happy and proud to be in a position to announce our
Association's new partnership with a prestigious European institution,
the Free Technology Academy (FTA). This cooperation will fit nicely into
an international partner-network with all involved parties motivated by
the same principles: passion for Free Software, for unrestricted access
to knowledge, desire to encourage further spreading of use of Open
Standards and a determination to offer outstanding quality of
educational courses in the subject of Free Software. It will be priority
to highlight the benefits of adoption of Free Software, both in the
Public Administration and in the corporate and private world. We aim to
raise awareness and contribute to the building of a critical mass for
the use of Free Software and Open Standards. This partnership offers us
both the expertise and the right platform, so that we can offer
excellent opportunities to the Greek public to study all possible
aspects of Free Technology, from the most basic to the most advanced
level of technical knowledge."

Wouter Tebbens, President of the FKI and Director of the FTA said about
the partnership:

"Our vision is to build the Academy together with those that are ahead
in learning and sharing knowledge about Free Software. It is therefore a
great pleasure to see the Association of Greek Users and Friends of
Free Software join the FTA. We need to do this with skilled and
passionate people. Then we're strong. We look all forward to welcome
GreekLUG members and friends in the FTA community and courses."


== Details of the Partnership ==

1) Contribution in terms of translation in Greek of various FTA books
and other educational material;
2) Contribution aiming towards either improving the existing educational
material (i.e. through providing book reviews, etc) or contributing
towards the creation of new material for the FTA courses;
3) Sharing with FTA partners various activities that
can be organised jointly and with the specific aim to promote Free
Software and Open Standards.

Anyone interested can join the FTA Virtual Campus freely by registering
at http://campus.ftacademy.org
Enrollment for courses starting in September 2011 is now open; learners
can browse the available courses and register at
http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme


== About the Free Technology Academy ==

A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the
Open University of the Netherlands and led by the Free Knowledge
Institute (FKI), the FTA has started up - with support from the EC's
Lifelong Learning Programme - an international educational programme on
Free Software. The courses are taught completely online, supported by
various Free Software Asynchronous Educational Platforms, in a virtual
campus based on the Campus Project interoperability framework. Following
the Free Software and Open Educational Resources movements, all learning
materials are freely available through the Internet. The use of Free
Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre Software) is
rapidly expanding in governmental and private organisations. However,
still only a limited number of ICT professionals, teachers and decision
makers have sufficient knowledge and expertise in these new fields. The
Free Technology Academy aims to address this gap by providing high level
courses that lead to a larger Master Degree Programme, at the
participating universities.

* More information: http://www.ftacademy.org
* Contact information: address@hidden
* About FTA Associate Network: http://ftacademy.org/about/associate-network
* FTA Study Programme 2011: http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme/2011


== About the Association of Greek Users and Friends of Free Software/
Open Source Software ==

The "Association of Greek Users and Friends of FS/OSS" is a Non
Goverment Organisation / Non Profit Society, whose purpose is to promote
GNU/Linux and FS/OSS (Free Software / Open Source Software). Its main
target is to spread the word about the freedom of software and the
choice that anybody could and should have, using computers. Since 2009,
it is an Affiliate Organisation with Free Software Foundation Europe
(FSFE) and from October 2010, GreekLUG is the Master Affiliate of Linux
Professional Institute (LPI) in Greece. This new cooperation with the
Free Technology Academy marks our Association's third international
partnership and it comes to enhance the Greek presence in the European
Free Software movement. It also amplifies the chances of our members and
of the wider Greek public to gain easy access to high quality
educational resources regarding Free Software and Open Standards.

* More information: http://www.greeklug.gr
* LPI Master Affiliate Greece: http://www.lpi.org.gr
* Contact information: address@hidden


--
Franco Iacomella