asia source2

Can FOSS drive a person's passion? Well that may be it since a man once driven by the passion for music is lead today by the far-reaching impacts of FOSS.

“I just had lots of spare time to explore and play with FOSS and now its whole new story for me, I believe FOSS is mostly driven by interest”, shares Francis Boon, an Oxford University graduate in chemistry working with Oxfam GB engaged currently as a Deputy International Support Manager, “At Oxfam, my remit is to ensure that all of our 150 field offices have a high level of support available” he quotes. He does this by coordinating standards across the 8 Regions of Oxfam's operations in conjunction with the Regional IS Managers and their IT Officers. “I embarked upon FOSS as a partime hobby but today it is part of my major ICT intervention efforts and I have worked in the remotest regions of Uganda training locals on FOSS!”

Possibly, a productive way to learn computer use may be fiddling with it, however many may disagree but for Yohannes Baptista Agusnugroho, IT Coordinator of Formasi, Indonesia, it may really have been true. "Even though I was a student of Psychology, that didn't turn out to be the career track for me since I actually fell in love with computers" narrates Yohannes as he recalls the track he followed to aqcuire his Linux and FOSS skills.

Yolynne N. Medina, 30, carries a degree in Computer Engineering from the Universidad De Zamboanga formerly Zamboanga Arturo Eustaquio Colleges, Philippines.

"In 1998, I started working on System Administration jobs for Internet cafes for 3 years, and got a job as a it instructor in a public school for three years and then a job as a junior IT specialist and Instructor teaching software. Since May 2006, I have held a position as an Academy IT instructor for E-Learning Center at a Cisco Networking Academy teaching basic networking programmes."