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<h1><b><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-weight:normal'>HINT: At the end you will also find the names for two other
finalist, good leads to follow up on for this weeks assignment.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Sahana
wins the 2006 social benefit award<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="http://www.fsf.org/social-benefit-award-2006">http://www.fsf.org/social-benefit-award-2006</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Sahana, an entirely volunteer effort to create technology for managing
large-scale relief efforts, is the recipient of the 2006 Free Software
Foundation Award for Projects of Social Benefit. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Colombo,
Sri Lanka and Cambridge, Massachussets---March 26, 2007---Sahana, an entirely
volunteer effort to create technology for managing large-scale relief efforts,
is the recipient of the 2006 Free Software Foundation Award for Projects of
Social Benefit. Sahana was created, in the wake of the tsunami that devastated <st1:place
w:st="on">Southeast Asia</st1:place> in 2004, to compensate for the devastating
consequences of a government attempt to manually manage the process of locating
victims, distributing aid and coordinating volunteers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Free
Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented to a free software
project that intentionally and significantly benefits society through
collaboration to accomplish an important social task. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Speaking
at the award ceremony, the Sahana project leader Chamindra de Silva said,
"We are deeply honored to receive this award and were so excited we
traveled half way around the world from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:place></st1:country-region> to attend the ceremony
today. The Sahana project is all about a cohesive disaster response between
multiple agencies and bringing them together to help victims. None of
this would have been possible without the work of the wider free software
community, and we would not have been able to bring benefit to the victims and
the people who help the victims without that. It is a credit to the whole
community." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Richard
Stallman, President and Founder of the Free Software Foundation, in presenting
the award said, "We were inspired to create this award when we heard of
the tremendous good the Sahana project was able to achieve through the use of
free software. With this award we give recognition to their efforts." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
founding team, made up of Sri Lankan technology workers, worked around the
clock for three days to produce the first release of the software that was
quickly adopted by their country's government. The software resolves common
coordination problems that arise during a disaster and thus facilitates the
search for missing people, aid and volunteer management, and victim tracking
across refugee camps. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Sahana is
built completely on donated funds and volunteer effort coordinated by Lanka
Software Foundation. It has been officially deployed by the governments of <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region>,
the Philippies, and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
It was also part of the Strong Angel III, a test of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> civil and military disaster
response. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
members of the founding team that traveled from <st1:City w:st="on">Colombo</st1:City>
to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:place></st1:City> to
accept the award were, Chamindra de Silva, project lead, as well as lead
developers Pradeeper Dharmendra, Ravindra de Silva and Mifan Careem. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Every
year, three finalists are nominated for the award by the free software
community. This year's other two finalists were Project Gutenberg and the One
Laptop Per Child (OLPC). <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Previous
winners of the free software award: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>2005 Wikipedia <o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
</ul>
<h5><b><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>About
Sahana<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h5>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>For more
information about Sahana, please visit <span class=link-external><a
href="http://www.sahana.lk/">http://www.sahana.lk/</a></span>. Parties
interested in contributing to Sahana should send an email to<span
class=link-mailto><a href="mailto:donate@sahana.lk"> donate@sahana.lk</a></span>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h5><b><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>About
the Free Software Foundation<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h5>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Free
Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users'
right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF
promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software-particularly
the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants-and free documentation for
free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their web site, located at <a
href="http://www.fsf.org/">www.fsf.org</a>, is an important source of
information about GNU/Linux. Donations to<br>
support their work can be made at <span class=link-external><a
href="http://donate.fsf.org/">http://donate.fsf.org</a></span>. They are
headquartered in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Boston</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">MA</st1:State>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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