The Free Knowledge & Free Technology (FKFT) Conference, organised by SELF Consortium, the Open University of Catalonia and the Free Knowledge Institute, is the first international event focused on the production and sharing of free educational and lifelong learning materials on Free Software and Open Standards.
The FKFT Programme has confirmed important keynote speakers and received a wealth of submissions from international participants. The selected sessions can now be found online at http://FKFT.eu/2008/

The pioneer of the concepts of Free Software and copyleft, and initiator of the GNU project, Richard Stallman will open the FKFT conference at the 15th of July. This session can be attended free of charge, previous registration.

In the educational track, there is a keynote from Stephen Downes, one of the most important thinkers of how technology changes education these days. There are presentations, discussion panels and workshops, e.g. from educational software projects, Free Software in schools, Higher Education and training. And of course there will be sessions about various aspects of the SELF Platform and the future of SELF.

In the governmental track, there are two keynotes: Karel de Vriendt from the European Commission (IDABC) will talk about open standards and Free Software at the European level, while Carlos Castro will give the regional perspective of Extremadura, the Spanish region that keeps inspiring many governments around the world with their strategic plan on Free Software and Digital Literacy. Besides there will be presentations from Cenatic, the Spanish national reference centre on Free Software, and various others.

For those who want to know all about the technology behind SELF, the developers team will hold a day-long pre-conference workshop at Monday July 14th, and a sprint session parallel to the FKFT. Those willing to code or contribute to the course materials for SELF during the sprint can request a scholarship to get their entrance fee waived.