Photo courtesy of FOSSC Oman Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/fossc.oman/].

In March of 2018, I delivered a talk about Mixed Reality for the Web at FOSSASIA in Singapore. Little did I know, an officer from the Information Technology Authority (ITA) of the Sultanate of Oman was listening to me among the conference attendees. Khalil Ibrahim Hamood Al-Maawali, Executive for FOSS Projects of Oman’s ITA approached me after my talk at FOSSASIA and asked me, “Can you deliver the same talk at Oman next year (2019)?” We exchanged email addresses and weeks after, I received the formal invitation to speak at Free and Open Source Software Conference (FOSSC) Oman at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU).

The Free and Open Source Software Conference (FOSSC Oman) is jointly organized by the Information Technology Authority (ITA) and the Communication and Information Research Center (CIRC) at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) , on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to support the national initiative on FOSS. It is a two days event and aims to promoting awareness and disseminating the use and development of free and open source software for professionals, staff, students, and the community in Oman.

The conference is scheduled for every two years. The previous events was on February 2013, 2015 and February 2017 and the main objective was always to promote the open source software. The next conference FOSSC-Oman 2019 will be on 11 and 12 February 2019 and its main theme is “FOSS as Driver for Technology Transfer, Innovation & Enterpreneurship“. FOSSC-Oman targets ICT companies and professionals, researchers, faculties, staff and students and the broader FOSS community.

https://fossc.om/2019/conference/
Photo courtesy of FOSSC Oman Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/fossc.oman/].

Prior to the formal start of the conference, all invited speakers met with officials of the Sultanate of Oman.

Photo courtesy of FOSSC Oman Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/fossc.oman/].

All keynote speakers were asked to be part of a Q&A Panel after delivering their respective talks.

Photo courtesy of FOSSC Oman Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/fossc.oman/].

In between breaks, there is a dedicated area at the SQU for conference speakers and attendees to meet and interact with one another. Met a lot of locals, as well as fellow Filipinos working at different universities across Oman.

Photo courtesy of FOSSC Oman Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/fossc.oman/].

During the lunch break, I was brought by Khalil to the Information Technology Authority (ITA) office to meet some of their team members working on VR and Open Source technologies.

And since I am in the sultanate already, I took the chance of meeting with childhood friend and first degree cousin, Richard who gave me a tour around the city, and of course, Jollibee Oman!

On the last day of the conference, invited speakers were given a tour of Oman. It is a country rich in cultural diversity.

Thank you very much to the Sultanate of Oman and to the people of ITA and SQU for their warm hospitality. Until next time.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert “Bob” Reyes is a technologist, an ICT Consultant and Tech Speaker, a certified Google IT Support Specialist, and an Open Source advocate representing the global non-profit Mozilla (makers of Firefox) in the Philippines. Bob is a Technology Columnist for the Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation and an aviation subject matter expert contributor for Spot.PH.

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