Free/Open Source Software for Asia-Pacific Consultation (FOSSAP II)

Siem Reap, Cambodia

1- 4 September 2005

Opening remarks by H.E. Sok An

Deputy Prime Minister and Vice Chairman of NiDA

Delivered by H.E. Chhay Kim

Advisor of the Royal Government of Cambodia

Your Excellency Sok Leakhena, Deputy Governor of Siem Reap province,

Mr. Shahid Akthar,

Mr. Richard Stallman,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, Minister in charge of the offices of the council of ministerls and Deputy Chairman of the National ICT Development Authority (NiDA) which is the only government authority in charge of IT development in Cambodia, and on my own behalf, I would like to welcome you all to the beautiful land of Angkor.

Before I proceed further, I would like to take this rare opportunity to thank H.E. Sok Leakhena, Deputy Governor of Siem Reap for taking his time to attend this FOSSAP II event. We really appreciate your presences. My special thanks also go to Mr. Shahid Akthar, APDIP, Bangkok and his delegation. Also thanks to Mr. Richard Stallman for taking his valuable time to travel from the United States to Cambodia in order to share his extensive valuable experiences in FOSS with us. Thanks are also due to H.E. Dr. Leewood Phu, NiDA Secretary General and his staff for making such a nice arrangement. Finally, gracious thanks to Intel – the generous sponsor to this event and the organizers.

We are here today, witnessing the gathering of our friends from countries in the Asia Pacific region. The gathering here today, marks another milestone in the free and open source software success story for all participating countries and particularly, Cambodia.

Today, is an important day for Cambodia in the development of the free and open source software, and if I might say, marks a turning point for the Cambodian government in making the right choices to develop the country ICT sector without having to depend on proprietary software and to become an asset-member rather than a liability-member of the world community. We may be a little late in the IT development; but our political will in adopting FOSS is not.

In October last year, Cambodia proudly joined the World Trade Organization. The moment Cambodia accepted to this world body, Cambodia realized its heavy obligations in addition to the benefits to be received. Today, Cambodia has the opportunity to show to the whole world, in good faith, that it is serious in fulfilling its obligations and to become an asset-member to the world community.

By adopting the open source software practice, Cambodia will benefit from years of development experiences shared by the open source community and pave the way for Cambodian engineers to embrace the technology and the programming technique, which would not have been available without the FOSS movement.

Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The event today will have significant impact on Cambodia. First of all, the ability to create our own software will result in lots of savings in license fees. Second, when the software is readily available locally, the cost to use will reduce drastically. Thus, eliminating the possibility of having software piracy in Cambodia and strengthening the Cambodian position in the world trading body in protecting Intellectual Property Rights.

By having the source code readily available, Cambodian students could study from this code and understand its behavior, be able to create their own program and no longer depend on proprietary software. This is a unique opportunity for Cambodians to catch up with the industrial practice of Software development.

From the security standpoint, open source code will allow Cambodian engineers or programmers to tell what the code is doing. Currently, with Windows, none of us would know exactly what it is doing behind its beautiful screen in addition to our commands.

The endless benefit of open source practice can only be described by experienced practitioners or by going through it. For Cambodia today, it is a once in a life time opportunity, only our children could appreciate.

Ladies and Gentlemen

To conclude my remarks, I would like to again, thank the organizers, the sponsors for making it possible for all of us to be here today, and to all the participants for being here. I would also take this opportunity to remind NiDA staff to pay particular attention to all the speakers & their presentations and please don't be afraid to ask questions if you don't understand. Only through this close interaction shall we be able to learn from other experienced practitioners. May I wish you all success in your discussions for the days to come.

May I take this opportunity to extend a warm and cordial invitation for all of you to visit Angkor Wat during your time in Siem Reap.

Good luck and thank you.

3

Khairil Yusof

2005-09-02T21:26:24