In March 2011 the ICT@Innovation programme, aimed at building free and open source capacity in Africa, achieved a 75% pass-rate for the Southern Africa leg of its Linux professional certification programme. This follows the 66% pass rate achieved in its East Africa leg which was held in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2010. The success of the project so far has double the number of Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certified professionals in countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Mozambique.
“The success of the programme so far has exceeded our expectations,” said George Nyambuya programme manager at ICT@Innovation, “ and we and hope to achieve a much wider impact as participants implement plans to roll out training programmes in their local communities.”
Linux Certification, a division of South African based Jumping Bean, an open source integration company was selected to run the two week intensive course which prepares participants to write the internationally recognised LPI Level 1 certification.
“We are thrilled to be part of the effort to build open source capacity in Africa and overjoyed that our Linux training programme has been so instrumental in helping ICT@innovation achieve its objectives” said Trust Zifa, Technical training manager at Jumping Bean, who attributed the high pass rates to the quality of the trainers and participants alike.
“With the first phase of the programme well under way we will now be concentrating on the 2nd phase of supporting participants as they grow floss businesses around Linux training and help foster the adoption and use of FOSS in a sustainable way for Africa” said Evans Ikua ,FOSS Certification Manager for ict@innovation.
ICT@innovation is a partnership of FOSSFA (Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Funding partners are the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). The programme focuses on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as a key technology to drive innovation, add local value and create sustainable and affordable ICT solutions. ICT@innovation aims to enhance regional networking and to strengthen consulting capacities of regional and national ICT associations and training institutions as well as of other relevant change agents.
Jumping Bean however also offers training in Drupal and Java training.
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