advice on organisation sought from Greece

[Richard Kweskin]

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:52:00 +0100
Paul Cooper <pgc at openadvantage.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
I have forwarded your reply to our member list. We very much appreciate hearing from you.

> Despite being of greek descent (my mother is greek), I don't know the
> local funding possibilities - here in the UK we have Regional
> Development Agencies (RDAs) that receive funding from central government
> as well as the EU for various initiatives. We were lucky in that our
> RDA, Advantage West Midlands (AWM) was looking for some innovative
> projects when we first contacted them (about 3 years ago now). I don't
> know there are similar agencies in Greece.
>
We will look into this. Many other members are far more knowledgeable on the subject than myself.

> Alternatively you could apply directly to the EU, perhaps for a
> framework bid. The process seems complicated and full of red-tape but
> the EU are extremely pro open-source (despite the problems with the
> patent legislation).
>
This way forward is definitely a possibility, though as you point out, is heavy in bureaucracy. :((

> We are in the process of developing such a bid ourselves, for a network
> of European centres to exchange knowledge and best practise of using
> OSS, especially in community redevelopment, but also in business,
> schools, local gov, etc. We are still looking for partners and would be
> happy to discuss this more, when we have our thoughts better organised -
> we're right at the beginning of the bid, thinking out exactly what our
> plans are. 
>
Again, other members are better equipped to respond to this than I, but I venture to say that we would be happy to discuss this at whatever later time is appropriate.

> One thing we've learnt about funding bodies (only after our initial bid
> to AWM) like to see evidence of an idea being popular / valid before
> funding it. For example if you put on through volunteer work a seminar
> or training course (for example my colleagues have Creative Commons
> licenced their PHP & MySQL training course material) you could then
> demonstrate the demand and interest to the funding body. Sort of a 'this
> is what we managed with no funding and we were massively over
> subscribed, image what we could do with some funding'.
> 
> I hope this is of use, please feel free to contact us again for further
> info or to ask questions and let us know how any funding applications
> go.
>
> Regards,
> 
> Paul
>
This has been very practical, useful and frank on your part. Any progress made will be gladly shared, Paul.

Sincerely, Richard