Jordan Open Source Association Logo

 1.   What is JOSA? And why does our work matter?

 

In the last ten years, JOSA has established a reputation of being the leading tech community in Jordan, working on technology openness and emerging as experts in the field. There are several strength points that make our organization the ideal actor of change for everything related to openness in technology on a local level:

  1. JOSA’s organizational capacity increased drastically in the last couple of years, with a dedicated and supportive team of ten members owning high, valuable, and diverse skills, in addition to strong institualization, better financial sustainability, and state-of-the-art infrastructure.

  2. JOSA has a good reputation in the broader local tech community.

  3. JOSA is a focal point for everything related to digital rights, well-reputed in the global digital rights community and excelling in raising awareness on issues like privacy and digital safety.

  4. JOSA has established very strong ties with public bodies responsible for ICT policies and strategies, and is now a point of reference for everything related to Open Government Data.

 

JOSAns are extraordinary geeks with strong social values.

 

JOSA’s work matters. Different organizations and individuals could use our help to advance and grow. From tech professionals, to students and technology users, we can leverage our community, knowledge and expertise to provide support in many cases, with minimal competition:

  1. The local tech community needs a community like JOSA’s to enhance their tech skills and increase their open source contributions. JOSA can be a ‘mentor’ for local open source contributors, and can become a patron for local open source projects.

  2. On the other hand, many potential members are willing to contribute to JOSA and open source projects. JOSA can work on a membership plan that allows JOSAns-to-be to join JOSA’s community and to contribute, by providing them support, mentorship and recognition.

  3. A significant part of our members are located outside Jordan, with most of JOSA’s activities happening remotely as of COVID-19 restrictions, additional contributions can happen from abroad, including speakers for our events.

  4. There is a clear gap between academic output and the labor market. JOSA can work more on filling the industry gap by partnering with universities, and by providing students with practical knowledge in different fields, especially, hands-on experience in open source contributions.

  5. As many graduates’ skills don’t match the needs of the companies in terms of hiring, in addition to the growing number of people graduating from non-academic programs, JOSA has the potential to be a ‘technical authority’, helping in the assessment of the skills of graduates and IT professionals (by initiating a competency matrix, for instance) in addition to starting new programs or perfectioning existing ones.

  6. Many companies are interested in our work and willing to partner with us, especially in regards to recruiting tech talents. Many of our members and beneficiaries are willing to boost their careers. JOSA can act as a liaison, building on the high reputation our members have in the local IT sector.

  7. JOSA can also receive sponsorship from like-minded companies, and partner with the private sector in the provision of specific ICT services (even directly or through community members and partners, on open source software customization/support, infosec, privacy...etc. JOSA can also explore a membership plan for companies that share our mission.

  8. Many governmental initiatives around open source started or are planned to be launched. JOSA can be a partner of governmental entities in the field of open data, open standards, open APIs, privacy and ethical AI.

  9. As the need arises, the local community can be supported in censorship circumvention (TOR relays, VPN services, etc.), digital safety (services, awareness, etc.) and Fablab initiatives.