I spoke with the product Manager Amit Savant regarding GNOME and what the Indian govt is trying to achieve.
Overall it was a very positive call and we are working on some next steps to see where GNOME can help. They were especially receptive to the Outreachy and GSOC program and the need to build community around the work they are doing. I had also talked to them about how these programs have changed how students think about software and how we are helping create the pool of talent that would work on their initiatives. Many of students who have successfully created GSOC and Outreachy have gone on to work for well known high tech companies. The openforge effort is a way to build shareable code between government agencies. One example they gave me is that each state government has their own software to give out drivers license and public money is being wasted on a repeated process when instead it could be shared. There are a lot of other questions like taking existing government software and open sourcing it. For the most part, I think they understand most of the issues around this things. We talked a little of what would be required to start software from scratch, the need to be able to make sure that we can build software that is safe, translatable, and can be used by everyone regardless of abilities. GNOME's interest is to propagate Free Software and we see government initiatives like this as a way to further our mission. With over a billion people in this country, having GNOME be an influential part of e-Government software would be a big win for not only GNOME but for the entire stack. That was in essence what we had discussed in the overall 1 hour and 25 minutes phone call. I will likely try to handle this relationship until we have an ED who will take over from there. I did say that he can call upon me and of course the GNOME Indian community. (I will have a separate mail on this) I wanted to involve all of you in this and I hope that you will also lend your enthusiasm and expertise in helping make this relationship and this initiative a successful one. sri
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