Stephanie Hankey of the UK believes that non-profit organisations needs a healthier relationship with technology. She spent seven years on working out the relationship between NGOs and technology. For her, the seven year itch, if you want to call it that, resulted in an ambitious event at Bangalore -- India's wannabee Silicon Valley. She was one of the main organisers of this 'camp', held in end-January and early-February 2005, to build bridges between non-profits and Free Software.

Hankey and her team also undertake consultancy work. They are advisors to the Soros Foundation in about 20 projects. She herself comes from an information design background, ran a magazine and worked in multimedia. After studies in the Royal College of Arts where she studied computer design, Hankey designed an interface for social software. Her graduation project was an information system for journalists working in conflict zones.

Brighton-based Hankey was based in Amsterdam till four months ago. Tactical Tech (www.tacticaltech.org) is registered in Netherlands, and has some of its activities in Poland, and some in UK.

The almost-frail 31-year-old British information designer, creative director and producer narrates what lead to this Asia Source event, and where she sees the marriage between the geeks and non-profits going.

FN: To start with, could you tell us where your work started, what lead you to co-found Tactical Tech ( http://www.tacticaltech.org) and where it is now headed?

Both co-founder Marek Tuszynski (of Poland) and I started Tactical Tech, after both worked for the project of the (George Soros-founded) OSI Technology Support for Civil Society of the Soros Foundation.

We felt there was a need for somebody to look specifically at the Open Source-NGO area in the developing countries. Also there was the need for a group to be working at the level of connecting people across different regions.

FN: So what's your focus?
What we organise around is right-based work or social justice work. Perhaps the only other group doing similar work is the Association of Progressive Communicators, but with a different style of working and different perspective. We got funding from the Soros Foundation.

For us, the first thing we put together was the Summer Source camp, which we did in Croatia in 2003. We were able to bring together a number of people there. So many had been working on the ground; we tried to bring all people together, whom we thought were interesting.

FN: Why do you see a gap there?

For our part, the main gap we see is that there is lots of talk between technology and NGOs but very little work at the practical level. Conferences are there, but nobody knows on the ground how to implement it.

We always saw that gap as being needed to be countered with a very practical, hands-on work at the grassroots level. We thought we knew the people with the expertise, and that's why we thought of doing Summer Source.

It was far more successful than expected it to be. We were then asked by computer programmer Kwindla Kramer, the CTO of allafrica.com , who had just been a facilitator, to do a similar camp in Africa. We said we'd do if had an African partner. We got Schoolnet Namibia (a project to take Free/Libre and Open Source Software to the students of that country) and Joris Komen. So we got together for it.

FN: What was the experience there?

What we discovered is that the Open Source community and the Non-Government Organisations are not connected. Nobody knows each other. There have been a lot of African developers reaching out to Europe and US, but not really to each other (within Africa).

It was really hard to find African facilitators. We just didn't know who those people were. So we made Africa Source, much smaller (than Asia Source). There were some 50-60 participants.

Our intention was to get people to meet each other, and also help find facilitators and partners. That's why, for instance, we've brought in some people who were at the Africa camp here, like FLOSS evangelist Wire Lunghabo James of Uganda.

FN: If you were asked to list the three biggest problems in NGOs adopting cost-friendly and politically-correct FLOSS tools, what would you list?

Even if NGOs want to use Open Source Software, they don't have anybody around to give that kind of support. If they had the money they would go in for proprietorial software. So, there's the sheer lack of technical support. That's one of the major stumbling block that needs to be addressed.

Connected to that, those people who do know about Open Source, (and those in Open Source) don't know how to go to the process of marketing that. Convincing NGOs (about the benefits of FLOSS) is the way to go. Rather do things like throwing them into the deep end of the pool, where they simply can't survive.

Third is the need for basic awareness raising. What the selling point? Why do we want to use it? In some countries it's much easier to start with Open Source, specially when there is no entrenched computing tradition, for instance Tajikstan. In other cases you have to make a very solid case, so it's very difficult. As more Open Source applications come into the market, rather than just distributions, it will filter into the NGO sector.

FN: What is the message you're passing on to NGOs? What are you encouraging them to look at?

We try to look at issues beyond just migration (to FLOSS). We've also been focussing on open publishing, video, audio and localisation. We've had a session on FLOSS and disabilities, for instance.

FN: In terms of the 'NGO In A Box' product, what exactly is this package of yours meant to be?

We're trying to make it a stand-alone product. It's a collection of Free and Open Source Software that would be useful to deploy for an NGO. We are working to have it localised and make it appropriate for each region.

We need to look at how information is handled within an NGO, and look at the full cycle. From collecting information, to seeing it efficiently stored and shared, taking care of security issues, and how you analyse it, to end up making information understandable to people. Basically, this means having information -- rather than technology -- as the core focus with dealing with an NGO.

By talking about technology alone you're never going to get to a lot of NGO people, because it terrifies them. Putting information first and foremost, it makes things much more accessible. If technology is a piece of that larger part, then it's fine.

FN: What do you see as the stumbling blocks in the adoption of FLOSS by NGOs?

Even with technology people, Open Source had a big image maybe a couple of years ago. Still, you have a lot of people saying its not ready yet. They saw it two years ago and they forgot all about it. They need to be convinced that it has changed a lot over a short period of time, and you need to be sure what you're talking about.

The other aspect is obvious: in a lot of countries we work in, software is 'free' (in the sense of being free of charge). That's because of 'piracy'.

When proprietorial firms like Microsoft cracks down on license, it becomes easy, and they want alternatives. Take the case of Bulgaria. There, the government did a deal with Microsoft, and in return started to crack down on licenses for NGOs. We worked with a group which realised that if everybody in the NGO sector had to buy a license for the software it would cost $2 million for the sector.

FN: How do you see countries like India, and their NGO sector?

We're still finding out. We're learning all the time. We'd love to think that India can play quite an interesting role for us too in the future. What we would like to see India as a good resource to draw upon to advance similar projects in other countries.

Other countries too like Philippines, leaped forward in NGO area and information areas. Lot of problems in Africa are very similar to those here, though very strong difference too. You have a very talented tech sector, and dynamic NGO scene.

FN: How do you see your work fitting into the wider priorities of the Soros Foundation?

They work on the policy and practical levels. On the policy level, I can't say. On the practical level, I think at the beginning they wanted[ to see what would happen. Philosophically, Free and Open Source Software is very connected to their interests (and the Open Society initiative). They're connected to openness. They want that process (of wider adoption of FLOSS) to be kick-started. So therefore fund event s like this.

They do policy but also promote some open source tool-sets.

From a strategic point of view, if you're into funding, Open Source is a really fast way of making contacts (and having a wider impact in attaining your goals). People connected with Free and Open Source Software are usually aligned with social belief systems. Thought it's not a rule.

We went to the Middle East and, in a couple of days, got 20 names of people to meet, because of the networks that already exist (in the FLOSS world).

FN: What do you see as being able to achieve by bringing two diverse sets of people together, geeks and non-profits?

We wanted to bring NGO people together with the technology people. What we found is that you get extremely talented 19-year-old hacker who wants to build a system for human rights activist. But he has no idea what he needs, because he's never met one. It's not just a question of teaching the NGO people about technology, but it's a big reverse.

Submitted by: Frederick Noronha  fred@bytesforall.org