MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY, Oct 17

The first APC FOSS Prize established in 2006 to honour Chris Nicol, a long time FOSS advocate and activist who for many years, worked with APC, has been jointly awarded to:

Free Geek (USA) and NepaLinux (Nepal)

"Free Geek" from Portland in the USA is an organisation that recycles used technology to provide computers, education, internet access and job skills training to those in need in exchange for community service. Any individual may contribute 24 hours of volunteering in the "Adoption Program" at Free Geek in exchange for a free computer and any individual who wishes to learn how to build computers can join the "Build Program". All computers have free and open source software installed.
http://www.freegeek.org

The other joint-winner from Patan in Nepal is the project "NepaLinux" from the organisation "Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya". NepaLinux is a Nepali-localised Debian and Morphix distribution based on GNU/Linux. The main contribution of the project is allowing non-English speakers to use GNU/Linux and to develop on it. The second contribution is creating a general awareness around the use of FOSS in Nepal as opposed to using pirated and unlicensed proprietary software. The NepaLinux team is committed towards producing more user-friendly, more stable and less technical software that would meet the actual demand of the Nepali people.
http://www.nepalinux.org

Both initiatives will share the $4,000 USD prize.

In addition to selecting above mentioned prize winners, the jury has decided to award an honourable mention to the educational project Gleducar in Argentina.
http://www.gleducar.org.ar

The winners were selected from seven previously short listed best prize nominations. The four remaining prize finalists were - Extramadura's Technological Literacy and Free Software Plan in Spain, KLDP in South Korea, MetaReciclagem in Brazil and Saregune in Spain. The winners were selected by an international jury of FOSS experts.

Detailed description of the seven finalists and winners are available in English and Spanish on the prize homepage:
http://www.apc.org/english/chrisnicol/finalists

You can read interviews from the APC with:

Free Geek: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241758
NepaLinux: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241651
Gleducar: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5245948

A ceremony celebrating the APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize 2007 will be held during the APC council meeting in Rio de Janeiro on November 6. The exact location will be announced soon. The ceremony will be streamed online. All related details will be made available on http://www.apc.org/english/chrisnicol

The Chris Nicol FOSS Prize is open to any person or group anywhere in the world who supports or promotes user-oriented free and open source software. The prize is financed by APC.

The Association for Progressive Communications is an international network of civil society organisations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and individuals through the strategic use of information and communication technologies, especially internet-technologies.

For interviews, contact the APC FOSS Prize coordinator, Karel Novotny: Karel at apc.org

(END/2007)