changed:
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Shahid Akthar
=============

What are SME's, size of them and their contributions
* Korea 3 million SMEs - Contribution 80%

Constraints
-----------

- Legal Frameworks
- Financial Infrastructure

How ICT Can help
----------------

- Improve prod
- Access to Markets
- Decrease waste, through stock management/inventory

Examples

* Korea - Web Forum for SMES
* Philippines - Deregulating cost of communications
* Singapore - subsidising training

Role of Government
------------------
Training/creating enabling

Constraints for SMEs
---------------------
- integrating ict into process
- electronic payment
- policy constraints
- fixed costs

How FOSS can help
-----------------

Issues

- SMEs lack awareness
- FUD
- Lack of Capacity
- Ready to use systems (turn key systems)
- Lack of  co-ordinated approach

Opportunities

- develop turnkey - eg. foss sme-in-a-box
- local chambers of commerce

Questions

- e-business practices, how do implement it/make it more efficient
- Question how can it help?

Seibold Balthas
===============
- supporting foss community
- promoting awareness for localised FOSS development

FOSS is very interesting, is the move from selling code to services
Shift to information and knowledge society, where know-how and ...provision of services (?)
FOSS has potential of launching local entrepeneurship 

**Main goal is to help SMEs in the region to develop new business models, increase competitiveness through training and networking.**

Dr. Alvin Marcelo
=================

NIH is FOSS Centre of Excellence, has capabilities due to development of telehealth centres. And now is interacting and supporting FOSS for various sectors as IOSN ASEAN FOSS Centre of Excellence

Community Health Information System = http://www.chits.info

Hon Emmanuel C. Lallana
=======================
Commissioner, Human Capital Developoment Group

Philippines was not ready for a mandatory FOSS policy.

- Low level of awareness
- passive resistance
- bad press from commercial providers (FUD)
- not enough technical expertise to support migration

Solutions

- increase awareness
- develop deeper pool
- when doing training, eg. office productivity, they use open source, not specifically the software but the benefits

- govt dedicated to teach ICT skills as basic education through Internet Schools (I Schools) - using Linux distribution (Edubuntu, and OpenOffice as the application tool), therefore teachers are therefore trained on opensource
- has reached 75% of schools, 10 PCs, but only 20% has internet connection
- most deployments of .edu dept were on proprietary software starting middle of 2006, dept. edu started deploying FOSS
- this would mark the shift from now on, most if not all new deployments, will be FOSS as well as training
  
Use of FOSS in higher education

- not producing competent graduates (yeah)
- lots of schools, but not very good
- much room for improvement and FOSS has a role to play
- strategy is to introduce FOSS as a teaching/learning materials
- for higher education
- quality would improve
  
Other initiatives

- promoting cyber services corridor
- .ph is in number 2 for business outsourcing
- better if we start using FOSS

1. promote creation digital media using FOSS - 
2. promoting the use of FOSS in SMEs

The educational sources improve, then they become the source for training/assistance for SMEs so that SMEs are IT enabled through the use of FOSS