The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), in Collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), yesterday launched an initiative christened “Open Source Resource Centre for West Africa”, in Accra.

Africa, he said is not well represented in active growth of the Open Source initiatives, saying that 9 out of 350 globally-recognized Open Source initiatives are in Africa.

He therefore, advocated the need to raise public awareness on the use of the Open Source Software and also build capacity both at the individual and institutional levels, stressing that the focus must be on solutions that best serve the needs of the citizens.

“My challenge to all is to ensure that the work of the Open source Resource Centre-West Africa, promotes collaboration between our software companies, so that our software companies grow”, he said.

The President of ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, in a goodwill message read on his behalf, said the Ghana India- Kofi Annan ICT Centre which has been adopted by the Commission will help train members in the sub-region in languages such as English, French and Portuguese.
He hoped that the advent of the Open Source Software and the Sub-Regions quest to break the digital divide will become a reality.

Madam Dorothy Gordon, Director General of the (AITI-KACE), maintained that Open Source Software is a computer software for which the source codes and rights for redistribution, ownership and modification are made available to the public under special licensing agreements.

The Launch of the Open Source Resource Centre also attracted good will messages from a High Level Advisory PANEL (HLAP) from the Sub-Region's.