The Linux Professional Association of Kenya and ICT Consumers Association of Kenya are pleased to invite you to Kenya's first-ever Open Source Awards < http://www.lpakenya.org/home/node/17>, The ceremony will be held at the Panafric Hotel, Nairobi, on 27th May, 2009. The purpose of this awards ceremony is to appreciate with recognition Kenya open source contributors who have made an impact in the open source community both locally and globally with their innovative solutions. Gracing the occassion will be the Hon. Eng. James Rege who is the MP for Karachuonyo and Chairman of the Parliamentary committee on Communications (Guest of Honour), and Dr. Bitange Ndemo, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communications. The Master of ceremony will be Ms Njeri Rionge. Google and ixsystems Inc. www.ixsystems.com, are among our confirmed sponsors. The nomination process is open and will be facilitated by the LPA secretariat and the organising committee. We invite developers, system administrators, end users, SMEs, Corporate bodies, Government and Civil Society players who have made notable contribution to Open Source, for nomination. We especially invite those in the Skunkworks community who are involved in Open Source solutions, or those who know someone or some organization involved in Open Source projects to come forward and nominate the same for the awards. You can get in touch with the secretariat on opensourceawards at lpakenya dot org. *Some of the Categories include:* a) Best Open Source deployment by government b) Best Open Source deployment by business c) Best Open Source deployment by Civil Society d) Best FOSS Developers (various categories) e) Best FOSS in SME (various categories e.g. cybers, micro-enterprises, mini-business..) f) Best Innovative FOSS Solution etc. Further details will be shared on this and other forums. Evans Ikua, LPA-Kenya