Talk Intermediate

Measuring the value of FOSS for India

Approved

Session Description

A recent Harvard and University of Toronto study estimated that the derived value of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is $8.8 billion dollars. A European Union study concluded that open source technologies injected EUR 65-95 billion into the European economy. A 2009 study by IIM Bangalore found that India could save $1 billion by using FOSS. NLSIU, supported by Samagata Foundation, is working on a study that looks at the impact of FOSS in India, given the huge strides FOSS has made in recent years.

This talk explains why we need such studies in India, how these studies will help the Indian FOSS community, and how these studies help policy makers make more informed decisions.

References

https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/24-038_51f8444f-502c-4139-8bf2-56eb4b65c58a.pdf

Session Categories

FOSS

Speakers

Venkatesh

India Representative Open Invention Network

Venkatesh Hariharan (Venky) is the India Representative of the Open Invention Network (OIN), an organization that protects the FOSS community from patent litigation.

Hariharan has 34 years of experience in journalism and public policy with organizations like Indian Express, IIIT Bangalore, Red Hat, Google, iSPIRT, the Data Governance Network at IDFC Institute and FOSS United. In these roles, he has been involved in key policy issues like open source in government, open standards, software patents, Indian Language Computing, free speech on the Internet, privacy, building and evangelizing Digital Public Goods, and many others. His long term interest is in democratizing access to technology and knowledge.

Hariharan was Executive Editor of Express Computer, a publication from the Indian Express Group and the first Indian to be selected for Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Knight Science Journalism Fellowship in 1998-99. At MIT, Hariharan looked at technologies that can be used to advance India’s development. Open Source Software stood out as the most powerful at a time when expensive proprietary software was the norm. On returning to India, Hariharan co-founded a non-profit called IndLinux.org and wrote an article titled, “Why Linux Makes Sense for India.” IndLinux worked with linguistic groups in India and abroad and is partly responsible for the fact that Linux desktops are now available in 17 Indian languages. Hariharan was awarded the Indian Open Source Personality of the Year award in 2006 by the organizers of the Linux Asia conference. Hariharan went on to serve as Corporate Affairs Director of Red Hat (Asia Pacific) from 2004 to 2011 and as head of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Google India from 2011-2012. He also served as Director Fintech for iSPIRT and set up the Omidyar funded Data Governance Network at IDFC Institute. He has extensive connections across industry, academia and government in India and abroad.

Hariharan’s writings on technology and open source can be seen at the following links:

www.venkytech.medium.com

https://opensource.com/users/venky

www.osindia.blogspot.com

Reviews

More suitable as a lightning talk.

Reviewer #1 Rejected

having studies like this for the Indian context makes it easier to convince companies to put $$ towards FOSS. i hope the talk can have more than a call to action for more studies though.

Reviewer #2 Approved

While I like this idea, we can get more details about this talk from the speaker.

Reviewer #3 Approved