Mission

OpenSourceArmenia.com aims to develop large international community of IT professionals, students and entrepreneurs and to promote Armenian high-tech industry worldwide.

OSA exists to provide organizational, legal, technical, management, marketing and financial support for the OSA open-source software projects. An important OSA role is to ensure that the OSA projects continue to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source software projects.
OSA projects are driven by desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field.

Objectives

• Create a vibrant open source software development community
• Unique opportunity to gain valuable experience for those who otherwise won’t be able to do so
• Enhance software development and project management skills
• Enhance Armenia’s image in international IT community
• Encourage development of hi-tech enterprises in the county

Why Open Source?

Open Source is a powerful collaborative software development process and methodology that focuses on open, free and continuous exchange of ideas. Open Source is becoming an increasingly influential and popular movement in the software development community, and has already resulted in the creation of some of the worlds most successful software products (e.g., Linux, Apache,)

Open Source is a powerful and desirable software development process for the following reasons:

• Encourages establishment of a community of IT professionals able to work on sophisticated international projects
• It’s the best tool for generating new ideas in relatively small amount of time in comparison with proprietary product development
• It gives interested venture capitalists and private companies an insight of Armenian IT sector, thus helping local private IT enterprises and software professionals to gain access to capital
• Enables participation of large number of developers in the software development cycle
• Fosters innovation
• Cost effective way to develop more reliable software
• Provides new, compelling business models for software companies

Benefits to Participants

This Initiative will rely on the volunteer participation of IT students and professionals who will enjoy multiple educational, professional and social benefits from participating in OSA.

Participating in the OSA Projects will give individuals hands-on experience in cutting edge software development project, great networking opportunities, as well as chance to be a part of something fun and exciting in Armenia.