Open Knowledge Foundation Nepal, the Central Department of Library Science and FOSS Nepal Community organized a workshop in April 2014 to discuss open standards in support of Document Freedom Day. One of the goals of the workshop was to garner participation of diverse organizations and stakeholders with an interest and passion in open standards. Participants included the Open Source Club of Kathmandu University, FOSS Nepal Community, Open Knowledge Foundation Nepal, Mozilla Nepal Community, Wikimedians of Nepal, Central Department of Library Science Tribhuwan University, Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment for the Government of Nepal.
The workshop covered topics such as open standards implementation in other countries, free and open source licenses, open source libraries and the Document Freedom movement. Prakash Neupane, the Ambassador of Open Knowledge Foundation Nepal, shared an impactful case example that highlighted problematic issues that arise from a failure to leverage basic open standards in technology development, proposing some possible solutions, actions and best practices for the future.
According to Prakash, one of the positive outcomes of the workshop was the agreement of the Nepali government’s IT Department to leverage open standards for the management of its data and growing web presence.