Other Education Groups and Projects

There are several groups and organizations around the world who follow the GNU Philosophy and are working on projects aimed at bringing Free Software to the education field. A few of them are listed below. If your project supports only Free Software and it is not listed here, please contact us at <education@gnu.org> to let us know.

FSFE Education Project

"FSFE's Education Team exists to raise awareness and bring the benefits of Free Software to all groups involved in education. It aims for a legal framework that prohibits discrimination against Free Software and its users."

GURI

Guri is a group which was born inside an Italian High School as the result of a program carried out by NGO Hipatia to raise awareness about the role of Free Software in the education field. Guri opposes the growing practice of treating knowledge as if it were a tangible object subject to ownership. It fights to change the mainstream cultural framework in Italy which prevents the exercise of some of the most important human rights by posing dangerous threats to our freedom such as software patents, unfair copyright laws, and the adoption of proprietary, subjugating software.

The goals of the Guri project are to convert the educational system so that it is based exclusively on Free Software and to extend the freedoms it grants to every field of knowledge. Guri believes in the power of education to shape a better society by teaching students the values of sharing and cooperation. It advocates and works towards a non-pyramidal system to share knowledge as a fundamental good for humanity, a system in which everyone can participate actively and access knowledge without restrictions.

To achieve its goals, the group takes action mainly in High School and University environments, organizing workshops and courses to promote awareness about the ethical principles of Free Software.

Hipatia

Hipatia is an international NGO (non-governmental organization) that upholds the right of all human beings to access, use, create, modify and distribute knowledge. It is formed by people from all around the world who advocate the ideals of the Free Software movement and work towards putting those principles into practice. Hipatia emphasizes the importance of using Free Software in education; to that end, its members often conduct workshops in educational institutions, specially in primary and secondary level schools.

The name of the group refers to the Greek philosopher Hypatia.

IT@School

IT@School is a project of the government of Kerala, India, started in 2001 to introduce Information Communication Technologies into the State's schools. As part of the project, a customized GNU/Linux operating system was developed, which is now being used in more than 2,600 schools in the State. Training in the use of Free Software was imparted to thousands of teachers, school coordinators and students.

OFSET

OFSET promotes the development and enhancement of Free Software for the educational system and the classroom. It was born in France but its members collaborate and work together towards common goals from all over the world by using the internet as a means of communication. Open and frank collaboration between teachers, software developers, translators and authors has always been the key to the success of OFSET's activities.

One important achievement of the OFSET group is Dr. Geo, a program widely used for teaching geometry. OFSET has also developed Freeduc-USB, a bootable USB stick that contains useful applications for the classroom.

Sugar Labs

Sugar Labs is a project that provides the Sugar learning platform, an interface specially designed to facilitate the use of computers by children, with a special focus on its use in educational environments.