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News articles from 2014
IITP Newsline Extra - 14 November 2014
NZ Open Source Awards
IITP were pleased to be a Silver Sponsor and in attendance at the NZ Open Source Awards this week, and boy were there some awesome entries.
There's a great roundup of the awardees over on NBR(external link). Our favourite was the Catalyst Open Source Academy(external link), an excellent "code camp" style initiative run each year to teach school students how to code using open source.
Speaking of Catalyst(external link), it's not possible to comment on the awards without tipping one's hat to the great work Catalyst IT does in the open source space, and this was evidenced by the remarkable connection so many of the finalists and awardees had with the country's largest open source company. As one of the two Platinum supporters (alongside InternetNZ), Catalyst also continues to capture the spirit of our industry by giving back to their community - well done folks, and thanks.
NBR(external link) - Site that helps with OIA requests among 2014 NZ Open Source Awards winners
Stuff(external link) - Kiwi tech firms Open Source winners
Winners of the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards
November 13, 2014
New Zealand's Open Source community gathered at Te Papa in Wellington to recognize and celebrate open source projects and contributors from across the country and in a diverse array of categories.
Winners on the night included the Department of Internal Affairs for their Common Web Platform, a platform for government web content management systems built on SilverStripe, the open source CMS developed here in Wellington. The other finalists in this category, Open Source in Government, were DigitalNZ, the Totara Government User Group and Auckland Council Libraries.
Diamond Age and Mindkits, two open hardware businesses, won the Open Source in Business award for their collaboration on DiamondMind, the world-leading 3D printer; an easy-to-assemble device with great print quality at an affordable price. DiamondMind has been invited by the government to participate at Fab10 (International Makers conference) in Barcelona as part of the NZ delegation. Other finalists in this category were Piwik and Scoop Independent News.
Catalyst, the Wellington based, global free and open source software company won the Open Source in Education award for the Catalyst Academy, an annual summer school that provides senior secondary school students the opportunity to learn and practice open source development. In its fifth year, the Catalyst Open Source Academy has over 100 alumni from across the country. Other finalists were Dunedin Makerspace and WEKA Data Mining.
The Open Source Software Project award was won by fyi.org.nz, an open source tool for submitting and sharing requests under the Official Information Act. The site has already processed 1500 requests, and now serves over 5000 unique visitors a month, contributing to transparency and accountability of our government. Other finalists in this category were Koha and Loomio.
Andrew Bartlett won the Open Source Contributor award for his leadership of the Samba4 team. Samba4 brings interoperability to Microsoft's Active Directory stack, allowing innovation to thrive despite closed systems. A project member for over ten years, Andrew has been working on the domain controller software since 2005. The other finalists were Kristina Hoeppner and Randall Britten.
The Open Source in Social Services award was won by the the University of Canterbury for their CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquake digital archive, a cultural heritage project established for the long-term preservation of the images, stories and media relating to the Canterbury earthquakes. Other finalists were City Housing Computer Hubs and WikiProject New Zealand.
The Auckland Bioengineering Institute won the Open Science award for contributing core technologies to the suite of software that enables the Physiome Project, an ambitious project to explain how each and every component in the body, from the scale of molecules up to organ systems and beyond, works as part of the integrated whole. Other finalists were the WEKA Data Mining project and the Global Marine Environmental Datasets.
Birgit Bachler won the Open Arts award for her exhibition 'Copy Wildly', organised for the 2014 Wellington Fringe Festival. Birgit showcased several works from her artistic practice which is based on using Open Source software and Open Hardware platforms. Other finalists were Douglas Bagnall and 19 Tory Street.
The final award, the People's Choice, was won by Rob Elshire for his Genotyping By Sequencing contributions. The other nominees in this category were:
Andrew Caudwell for contribution to data visualisation
Chris Forbes for contributions to the Mesa 3D OpenGL Driver Project
Damian Mooyman for contribution to the SilverStripe CMS and Web development framework
Dragonfly Science for their commitment to open data
fyi.org.nz for NZ Official Information Act Requests
Loomio for open source application for Collaborative Decision-Making
The judges of the 2014 awards issued this statement:
“The depth and breadth of achievement by the New Zealand open source community, both locally and internationally, is nothing short of impressive. We are fortunate to have so many people here using open source technology and philosophy to deliver amazing technical, social and creative projects.”
Judges: Don Christie (Chair), Dr Fabiana Kubke, Dr Brenda Chawner, Amber Craig, Dave Lane, Francois Marier, Brenda Wallace and David Nind.
ENDS
5/11/2014 - InternetNZ Blog
The New Zealand Open Source Awards are happening on 12 November at Te Papa (you can purchase a ticket for $45 by emailing awards@nzosa.org.nz) and InternetNZ is a proud sponsor of them. But we thought it was a good opportunity to elaborate why we support and celebrate things Open Source.
Read full blog post - Why we're fans of Open Source(external link)
14/10/2014 - Proud Sponsors of the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards
Media release
The New Zealand Open Source awards are a biennial event to promote, recognise and celebrate the contributions of New Zealanders to free and open source projects and free and open source philosophy. Exemplary use of free and open source by organisations is also recognised.
These awards could not happen without the generous support of our sponsors. Every two years, a group of organisations who recognise the importance of free and open source to New Zealand and the world support these awards through their sponsorship.
Catalyst are once again delighted to be the main organisers and Platinum sponsors of the awards. Don Christie, Director of Catalyst and the chair of the NZOSA judging panel states “As New Zealand's and Australasia's leading open source company Catalyst and our clients benefit hugely from the generosity of spirit that is represented by the open source software community. These awards are an acknowledgement of that spirit and one small way in which we can recognise and promote the open source software community in general.”
InternetNZ, the other Platinum sponsor, said “As a voice, a helping hand and a guide to the Internet for all New Zealanders we wholeheartedly support open source. The generosity and innovative spirit of open source represents the best of the Internet. It is a great honour for us to be associated with such a wonderful evening.
Sigurd Magnusson, one of the founders of Gold sponsor SilverStripe, says “as strong advocates of open source software we are proud to sponsors the 2014 NZ Open Source Awards. SilverStripe was founded in New Zealand in 2000, we first open sourced our CMS software in 2006 and have continued to help push awareness and adoption for open source ever since.”
.nz Registry Services, the other Gold sponsor says “at NZRS, the folks behind operation of .nz, we are keen supporters of open source developments and proud to share in the recognition of projects and software that build on open source philosophies. It is exciting to see and contribute to the level of innovation and collaboration that open source engenders. Our congratulations go out to all the finalists.”
Silver sponsors IITP notes “IITP is a strong supporter of both open source and recognising excellence, so we're proud to be supporting the NZ Open Source Awards. The awards recognise the massive contribution New Zealand's diverse open source community makes and we're very happy to be part of it.”
Steve Cotter, CEO of REANNZ and Silver Sponsor, states "we are keenly aware of the importance of open source software in the research and education sector. Our constituency and the network that we operate benefit greatly from the work of the community. We are happy to stand with the other sponsors in support of open source software that is created and supported in New Zealand."
Dragonfly Data Science, one of the Bronze sponsors says “we are scientists by training, specialising in data analysis. Openness is integral to the scientific process. Data analysis should be reproducible, so that given the same data and the same software, another researcher can reproduce the results. Open source software supports this reproducible approach, and we recommend it to all researchers and analysts.
Open data makes the results of scientific research available to the broader community, gaining more efficiency from public funding, and building trust in any analyses which use the data.”
The NZOSS a bronze sponsor is delighted to sponsor Catalyst's 2014 NZ Open Source Awards. The President, Dave Lane says “There's a rich but often under-recognised free and open source software community in NZ, and we're thrilled to see some of the great contributors and projects recognised for their passion and creativity. I look forward to the ceremony celebrating the talent and efforts of the many worthy nominees, finalists, and winners."
NZOSA would like to thank all the nominators, congratulate the finalists and thank our sponsors and the wider open source community for their ongoing support of this event.
Full Sponsors list for 2014
Catalyst - Platinum
InternetNZ - Platinum
.nz Registry Services - Gold
SilverStripe - Gold
IITP - Silver
REANNZ - Silver
Rabid - Silver
Dragonfly Data Science - Bronze
NZOSS - Bronze
NZRise - Bronze
ENDS
22/9/2014 - 2014 Finalists announced
Media release 22 Septmber 2014
The judges have completed their review of the many projects and individuals nominated for awards this year, and have announced the finalists for each category.
“The standard this year has been very high, in some categories it was nearly impossible to pick the finalists as there were so many great nominations.”
“We are looking forward to announcing the winners at the gala dinner in November, when New Zealand's open source community will come together to celebrate the achievements of the projects and people who make such a great contribution,” said Don Christie, chair of the judging panel.
Open Source use in Government
Auckland city council Makerspace
Common web platform
DigitalNZ
Totara Government User Group
Open Source use in Business
DiamondMind
Piwik
Scoop Independent News
Open Sourse use in Education
Catalyst Open Source Academy
Makerspace in Dunedin
WEKA Data Mining project
Open Source Contributor
Andrew Bartlett
Kristina Hoeppner's contributions to Mahara
Randall Britten for Auckland Bioengineering Institute open source software
Open Source Software Project
FYI.org.nz - NZ Official Information Act Requests
Koha Library Software project
Loomio - Open Source App for Collaborative Decision-Making
Open Source in Social Services
City Housing Computer Hubs
UC CEISMIC programme
Wikiproject New Zealand
Open Science award
Auckland Bioengineering Institute of open source software
Global Marine Environmental Datasets
WEKA Data mining project
Open Arts award
19 Tory St
Birgit Bachler's exhibition copy wildly
Douglas Bagnall for the Recur project
People's choice
Andrew Caudwell's contribution to data visualization
Chris Forbes for contributions to Mesa 3D OpenGL
Damian Mooyman contribution to Silverstripe
Dragonfly Science for their commitment to open data
FYI.org.nz - NZ Official Information Act Requests
Loomio
Rob Elshire
Sponsors
The organisers of the NZOSA are please to confirm that once again InternetNZ has agreed to be a Platinum sponsor of the of the event.
We would also like to thank are other sponsors.
Gold - .nz registry services and SilverStripe
Silver - Institute of IT Professionals, REANNZ, Rabid,
Bronze - Dragonfly, NZOSS.
Institute of IT Professionals is also the category sponsor for Open Source in Education.
Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems
Once again The University of Auckland Department of Computer science is presenting the Clinton Bedgoni prize for open systems at the NZOSA gala dinner. More details and nomination forms are available at https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/our_department/Clinton_Bedogni/(external link)
END
22/9/2014 - Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems
The biennial Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems, administered by The University of Auckland’s Department of Computer Science, will once again be announced at the New Zealand Open Source Awards gala dinner being held on in Wellington on Wednesday 12 November 2014.
The Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems will be awarded to the New Zealand individual (whether from academia or industry) who has made the greatest contribution to the field of Open Systems in the past two years. The definition of Open Systems will be broadly interpreted and refers to interoperable systems with standards‐based and well documented framework of functionality and interfaces – not necessarily, but preferably, Free and Open Source.
This Prize is envisaged to distinguish and encourage New Zealanders working in this field.
Full details about the award and application forms are available on the website
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/our_department/Clinton_Bedogni/(external link)
11/8/2014 - 2014 NZOSA Nominations In
Once again, there has been a slew of talented people and impressive projects for the New Zealand Open Source Awards 2014.
Judges are now sifting through the nominations and will announce the finalists on 22 September.
The “People's Choice” award will be added to the website shortly and you will have an opportunity to vote the project that you think is most deserving of recognition and acclaim.
This year, the gala dinner, a wonderful opportunity for the open source community to get together and celebrate their collective achievements is being held at Te Marae at Te Papa on Wednesday 12 November 2014.
Come along and help celebrate the free and open source philosophy and outstanding projects, contributors and organisations within New Zealand.
Tickets are $45 and can be ordered by contacting awards@nzosa.org.nz
Sponsors
A big thank you to the organisations that have currently confirmed their sponsorship of this years event. If you still wish to be part of the sponsorship program contact sponsors@nzosa.org.nz for details of packages available, it is not to late.
Tuesday 6 May
Nominations for the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards are officially open.
The New Zealand Open Source Awards are designed to recognise and promote
the contributions of New Zealanders to free and open source projects and free and open source philosophy
exemplary use of free and open source by New Zealand organisations.
The last awards, held in 2012, celebrated a wide range of people and organizations that made a significant impact in their sectors or communities with open source. Winners included Piwik, GNS Science and Totara LMS.
Nominations for the 2014 awards are open for the best use of open source in the following categories: Business, Education, Government, Art and Science and Social Services. There are also awards for: Best Project and Best Contributor. All finalists are then entered into the People's Choice Award.
This year, the panel of judges is comprised of Dr. Fabiana Kubke, Francois Marier, Dave Lane, Dr. Brenda Chawner, Brenda Wallace, Amber Craig and David Nind. The judging panel is chaired by Donald Christie.
The New Zealand's open source community will gather on Wednesday November 12th to celebrate those businesses, projects and individuals that have been recognized by their peers as representing the best open source endeavours over the last two years
Nominations close on: 1 July 2014
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