By Emeka Aginam
To position West African sub-regions to optimize the use of Open Source solutions,  Open source resource center has been   launched in the  Ghana-India Kofi Annam Center of Excellence in ICT in Ghana.

The Deputy Minister of Community of Ghana, Hon. Gideon Quarcoo in his speech during the launch of the Open Source resource Center told the audience that the ECOWAS sub-regions should embrace Open Source which has grown businesses, civil society and the public sector.

According to him, an  increasing number of middleware deployments including web and application servers have boosted the total economic impact of Open Source Solutions.

Virtualization and other new techniques in computer science, he said  are being implemented using Open Source Software, adding that desktop deployments are also increasing with Ubuntu, the African desktop bundle from Canonical of South Africa proving popular.

“Major proprietary vendors are deploying blended solutions incorporating ! their technology with open source solutions. This is a clear indication of the . reliability and robust nature of Open Source Software solutions that is the   result of collaborative coding within the framework of standardized

“The issue new is how we can position our countries to optimise the use of Open Source solutions.
Africa is not well represented in active growth of Open Source initiatives.
“ In  fact as of April this year only 9 out of 350 globally-recognised Open Source  initiatives are in Africa according to the Centre of Strategic and International Studies.

“In Ghana, the Ministry of Communications has been very active through the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT which has a close relationship with FOSSFA, the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for  Africa and which this year alone has hosted 3 major international open source  meetings and many more training events” he explained.

Through its open source online  learning platform, according to him, the staff there were  support training on Open Source  solutions throughout Africa.

“ A number of Ghana’s key Government agencies  benefit from this support. Also our National IT Authority (NITA) has supported the development of Open Standards and frameworks that impact on open source deployments.

“Africans need to work together to advance our ownership of technology. It is for this reason that we are extremely pleased that the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT is hosting this meeting and that this  initiative is receiving the support of institutions throughout ECOWAS.