Apereo Foundation invites you to join us for our monthly micro conferences!
Apereo Foundation’s MicroConferences bring together leaders from across open source education technology to discuss the latest topics and trends impacting higher education.
Each month, leaders and influences in the open source world will speak about topics ranging from research and community building to policy shifts impacting the world of open source and education.
This free service provided by the Apereo Foundation and our partners requires registration to attend the live event. Contact registrar@apereo.org to join the invitation list. All are welcome!
February 2025
Date: February 12, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Eastern US Time
Speaker: Josh Baron, Apereo Foundation, Baron's EdTech Consulting
Talk Topic: Evaluating Granting Opportunities - Apereo's Tools and Process
Our very own, Josh Baron, current Apereo Development Officer and former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Senior Program Officer, showcases Apereo’s newly developed funding tool and process for collecting and evaluating granting opportunities.
Talk Description: Looking for OSS funding but aren’t sure where to start? Trying to figure out what it will take to submit a winning proposal? Just want to get your general funding questions answered? Then join Josh Baron, current Apereo Development Officer and former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Senior Program Officer, for an introductory session on OSS grant funding which include:
- Overview of Grant Funding Strategies - Learn about key differences between federal/national funding and funding provided by private foundations and the different strategies that these require.
- Current Trends and Opportunities - What OSS topics and issues are funders focused on today and what are some of the current funding opportunities coming up in 2025.
- Assessing Funding Opportunities - With limited time and resources, it can be important to assess funding opportunities across a range or metrics to ensure you pursue those with the best chance of success. Apereo has developed a “Funding Prioritization Framework” to help projects make these assessments which are releasing for broader use and will be reviewed on the webinar.
- Funding Q&A - Josh will hold the last 15 minutes for general Q&A for any and all funding-related questions.
Past Micro Conferences
January 2025
Date: January 15, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Eastern US Time
Speaker: Michael Feldstein, current Chief Strategy Officer, 1EdTech Consortium
Talk topic: Join Michael Feldstein, Chief Strategy Officer at 1EdTech, as he unpacks how open standards like HTTP and LTI empower educational technology.
Talk Description: Whether it's HTTP or LTI, software, including open-source software, relies on standards. These standards exist and work because we agree to shape and work on them together. The nature of the collaboration is different than it often (though not always) is with open-source because of the nature of the agreement we need to make standards work.
December 2024
Date: December 11, 2024
Time: 11 AM Eastern
Speaker: Dr. Manuel Hoffmann, postdoctoral scholar at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard
Talk Topic: The Value of Open Source Software
Talk Description:
We all know OSS is valuable, but exactly how valuable? While we intuitively understand its importance as the foundation of modern technology, quantifying its economic impact has been challenging due to its free nature and decentralized usage patterns.
- The bare cost to create popular OSS packages: $4.15 billion
- The economic usage value delivered: $5.25 trillion to $88 trillion (depending on whether one firm recreates and resells the software or each firm recreate the software themselves in autarky)
- Without OSS, corporate software spending would need to triple
November 2024
Date: November 13th, 2024
Time: 11 AM Eastern
Speaker: Karen M. Sandler, Executive Director of Software Freedom Conservancy and Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School
Talk Topic: Building a Thriving Community: The Software Freedom Conservancy’s Approach to Sustaining an Engaged Community
Karen Sandler, Executive Director of Software Freedom Conservancy and Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School introduced us to SFC, her work, and FOSSY.
We explored SFC's approach to community building and delved into their "Sustainers" program.
October 2024
Date: October 9, 2024
Time: 11 AM Eastern
Speaker: Emmy Tsang, Engagement Lead at Invest in Open Infrastructure
Talk Topic: Invest in Open: The State of Open Infrastructure
September 2024
Join the Apereo Foundation as we welcome Martin Dougiamas, founder of Moodle and OpenEd Tech, who will share his session, Open EdTech in an AI Future.
Date: September 11, 2024
Session Title: Open EdTech in an AI Future
About Martin
Martin Dougiamas is a highly influential figure in online education. He is known jokingly as “that Australian guy who founded and led Moodle,” an open-source learning management system that revolutionized online learning. Martin’s roots are in higher education. He developed Moodle while working at Curtin University, aiming to make education more accessible and collaborative. His vision grew into a global movement, with Moodle now used by millions of students and educators worldwide.
In recent years, Martin has shifted his focus to Open EdTech, an international association founded in 2023 dedicated to developing and promoting open source educational technology. They focus on creating a trustworthy, sustainable, and interoperable ecosystem that supports educators and community developers with enhancing lifelong learning opportunities.
May 8 - Dr. Heidi Ellis and Dr. Greg Hislop
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024
Dr. Heidi Ellis, professor of Computer Science at Western New England University, is one of the founding members of the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) project, which focuses on involving students in FOSS projects that improve the human condition. And...
Dr. Greg Hislop is a professor in the Information Science Department of the College of Computing and Informatics at Drexel University. Dr. Hilsop is an advocate for the educational and societal benefits of the free and open source movement. He facilitates the coordinating committee of Teaching Open Source, a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy.
Dr. Ellis and Dr. Hilsop will join the Apereo community to discuss Teaching Open Source.
April 10 - Vicky Brasseur
Wednesday, April 10th, 2024
Time is 2 PM, US Eastern Time
Topic: Open Source Governance By Example
Speaker: Vicky Brasseur, author of Forge Your Future with Open Source, the only book detailing how to contribute to free/open source (FOSS) projects.
March - Ben Cotton
Wednesday, March 13th, 2024
12 PM Eastern U.S./6 PM Central European
Speaker: Ben Cotton, a longtime contributor to the Fedora Linux project and author of Program Management for Open Source Projects: How to Guide Your Community-Driven, Open Source Project
Topic: Coopetition: open source projects working together.
February 14, 2024
Time: 10 AM Eastern U.S./4 PM Central European
Speaker: Philippe Krief, Director of Research Relations at Eclipse Foundation, France
Topic: Research @ Eclipse: 10 Years of commitment and support
Contact: registrar@apereo.org
January 17, 2024
Time: 1 PM Eastern U.S.
Speaker: Simon Phipps, Director of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation
Topic: Discussion ranging several open source topics such as:
- Do open source projects need foundations to host them?
- How should projects and adopting organizations respond to the coming waves of software regulation?
- What impact will/does open source have on AI, IoT and Cloud?
Contact: registrar@apereo.org
December 13, 2023
Speaker: Wayne Mackintosh, managing Director of the OER Foundation headquartered at Te Pūkenga – the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology and holds a UNESCO Chair in OER
Topic: Reflecting on anomalies in OER: Is ‘Open’ broken, and if so, can education fix it?
November 2023
Speaker: Anne-Marie Scott, Board Chair of the Apereo Foundation
Topic: OSPOs in the Academic World
September 2023
Speaker: Georg Link, Open Source Strategist and Founder of Linux Foundation's CHAOSS Project
Topic: Project Health in Academic Open Source
August 2023
Speaker: Samson Goddy, co-founder of Open Source Community Africa
Topic: From Users to Contributors: Strategies for effective community management
June 2023
Speaker: Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Topic: Defining an Open Source AI
May 2023
Speaker: Mike Milinkovich of the Eclipse Foundation
Topic: Government Regulation of Open Source Is Here
April 2023
Speakers: Wes Turner, Senior Lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Director of the Rensselaer Center for Open Source (RCOS); Alice Bibaud, RCOS Student Leadership team member
Topic: Getting Students Involved in Open Source Software
March 2023
Speaker: Hong Phuc Dang, Founder of FOSSASIA; Open Source Business Alliance Board Member; Vice Chair of the Open Source Committee, IEEE SA OPEN; Innersource Manager, Zalando SE
Topic: Opportunities through Open Source in Education in Asia
February 2023
Speakers: Deb Nicholson, Executive Director of the Python Software Foundation, and OW2 CEO Pierre-Yves Gibello
Topic: Open Source 2023 - Professionalization Benefits and Challenges
January 2023
Speakers: Dr. Cable Green, Director of Open Knowledge at Creative Commons, and Deb Bryant, former senior director in Red Hat's Open Source Program Office and current policy director for the Open Source Initiative and Eclipse Foundation
Topic: Open Source 2023 - A short list of important trends in open source software + public policy