open source software (OSS)

See the following -

US Government Opens Access to Federal Source Code with Code.gov

Swapnil Bhartiya | Linux.com | November 11, 2016

In March of this year, the Obama administration created a draft for Federal Source Code policy to support improved access to custom software code. After soliciting comments from public,  the administration announced the Federal Source Code policy in August. One of the core features of the policy was the adoption of an open source development model: This policy also establishes a pilot program that requires agencies, when commissioning new custom software, to release at least 20 percent of new custom-developed code as Open Source Software (OSS) for three years, and collect additional data concerning new custom software to inform metrics to gauge the performance of this pilot...

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US Senate Releases Draft Future Pandemic Preparedness Plan - Asks for Feedback

On June 10, 2020 the US Senate released a white paper titled "Preparing for the Next Pandemic" under the signature of Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. The white paper has five recommendations to address future pandemics based on lessons learned from COVID-19 and the past 20 years of pandemic planning. "The five recommendations...along with a series of questions at the end of this white paper, are intended to elicit recommendations that Congress can consider and act on this year," Senator Alexander said in a statement, adding that "I am inviting comments, responses, and any additional recommendations for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to consider. This feedback will be shared with my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican." This feedback from the public will be accepted until June 26, 2020... Read More »

Ushahidi At Five

Erik Hersman | Ushahidi | February 6, 2013

Ushahidi is 5 years old. What started as an ad hoc group of bloggers and technologists scrambling to make sense of the madness that our country was falling into has become a global organization and platform. There was no way we could foresee what would happened in the intervening years...40,000+ deployments of the software in 159 countries means that we did something right. Read More »

Ushahidi Being Used To Assist Kenya Carpools

Staff Writer | HumanIPO | December 3, 2012

Ushahidi, a Kenyan non-profit organisation specialising in free and open source software, has aided the Kenyan carpool Twitter surge by creating a crowdmap to capture, categorise, geo locate and visualise as many tweets as possible. Read More »

Ushahidi Via USSD

Angela Oduor | Ushahidi | October 3, 2013

The mobile phone has been at the core of Ushahidi’s strategy when building tools for citizen engagement. Its ubiquitous nature makes it the easiest tool to use and ensure that a vast majority of citizens can actively participate. [...] Read More »

Ushahidi – Revolutionizing Disaster Relief

Molly Just | CTOvision.com | November 15, 2012

With tools like Ushahidi, humanitarian work can now operate much differently than it has in the past. In the past, humanitarian work was limited in part by the small number of foreign journalists who were able to get to a disaster location and report on events there.

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Ushahidi: A Story Of Non-Linear Innovation

Alan Moore | No Straight Lines | January 21, 2013

As described in No Straight Lines – what we face in a complex challenging world is a design challenge. Here is a story of how without spending any money a group of highly motivated people came together from around the world with multiple-design skills and capability, to create what has become the cutting edge in crisis management, and a new radical design of NGO. This organisation is called Ushahidi. Read More »

Using Blender to Prepare for Orthopedic Surgeries

The planning of orthopedic surgeries is a difficult process. In a lot of ways, it's like working while wearing a blindfold; a surgeon can't see the bone that needs to be worked on until during the actual surgery, when time is most critical. Even with X-rays and CT scans, the raw data can be difficult to interpret correctly. Fortunately, open source software can (and does!) help reduce the guesswork. At the 2015 Blender Conference, Vasily Shishkin gave a very interesting talk on his research project and use of Blender and 3D printing in the planning and guiding of orthopedic surgery...You may find yourself thinking, "Wait a minute. Blender? The same Blender that's used for making pretty images and animations? That Blender?" Yes. That Blender...

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Using open innovation and cognitive computing to solve healthcare's vexing problems

Nicole Gardner | Modern Healthcare | December 4, 2015

Open innovation can help healthcare organizations learn from each other to benefit a broader innovation network, while cognitive systems can learn from training by experts, from every interaction, and from continually ingesting new sets of data. In fact, they never stop learning. The IBM report highlights how agencies are employing open innovation across healthcare technology systems. Applying cognitive computing would further promote that innovation.

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Using Open Source in the Enterprise - 13 CIOs Embracing Free and Open Source Software

Edward Qualtrough | CIO | November 11, 2015

Open source enterprise use cases appear to be on the rise, at least anecdotally, with an increasing number of CIOs, IT directors and Chief Technology Officers telling CIO UK about investigating and adopting free and open source alternatives to proprietary software as they seek to gain freedom and flexibility, cut costs, increase agility, improve code quality and avoid vendor lock-in.

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USM Wins Top Award At MyGOSS Awards 2012

Press Release | Universiti Sains Malaysia's Advanced Medical and Dental Institute (USM) | November 26, 2012

Universiti Sains Malaysia's Advanced Medical and Dental Institute for the i-Care2x product, a solution using i-Care on the Ubuntu operating system, won the top award at the Malaysian Government Open Source Software (MyGOSS) Awards 2012 today. Read More »

VA Can't 'Force Feed' DoD On VistA

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | March 28, 2013

Since the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments called off a joint development program that was to have resulted in the core infrastructure of a single system known as the iEHR, the VA has stood by its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, or VistA. Read More »

VA Names Scheduling App Contest Winners

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | October 14, 2013

The Veterans Health Administration is looking for a new medical scheduling application — and now it has a range of choices from an app design competition. Read More »

VA Pushes DoD To Adopt VistA As Starting Point For Electronic Health Record

Jared Serbu | Federal News Radio | March 28, 2013

Ever since the Defense Department and the Veterans Affairs Department decided to step back from their approach to building a joint electronic health record earlier this year, DoD has been searching for a new electronic records system. As DoD nears a decision point, VA is making the case that its own system, VistA, would make a great fit for both departments. Read More »

VA Releases Open Source Policy Memorandum

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has just made public an executive policy memorandum that mandates a thorough evaluation of "Open Source Software (OSS) solutions when [the] VA acquires software." The policy also calls for the Federal agency to consider the use of open source "development practices when VA develops software." The release of this policy places the VA as the leader in government agencies innovating through the use of open source software.

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