The finalists for the 2012 New Zealand Open Source Awards (NZOSA) have been announced. The Big Idea is proud to be a finalist in the arts category, along with the Open Source Organ Refit and Whisper Down The Lane.

The Big Idea is powered by an open source content management platform, Drupal 5, and is in the process of upgrading to Drupal 7.

The final NZOSA winners will be announced at the Gala Dinner in Wellington on November 7.

Chair of the judging panel Jason Ryan, from Catalyst IT, said the judges were impressed by the range and quality of the nominations.

“The quality and consistency of the nominations this year presented the judges with a welcome problem: how to decide which of these projects and people to recognize on the night. The depth and breadth of achievement by the New Zealand open source community, both locally and internationally, is nothing short of impressive. We are fortunate to have so many people here using open source technology and philosophy to deliver amazing technical, social and creative projects.

“Ultimately, though, we have to narrow down a list of nominations to recognize on the night and we have agreed that the following people and projects comprise the finalists for the 2012 New Zealand Open Source Awards.”

• Government: Central Agencies Shared Services use of Koha Library Management System, GNS Science for GeoNet Rapid, Piwik.

• Business: Fulcrum, Piwik and Totara LMS.

• Education: the Catalyst Academy, Manaiakalani, Warrington School for the Ubuntu Room.

• Arts: The Big Idea, Daniel Reurich for the Open Source Organ Refit, Whisper Down The Lane.

• Software Project: NIWA for Cylc, Piwik, Sofa Statistics.

• Open Source Contributor: Michael Kerrisk, Grant McLean, Simon Welsh.

• Social Services: EQNZ for the Christchurch Earthquake Ushahidi, SoupHub, Wellington City Council for Housing Computer Hubs.

• Open Science: Computational Evolution Group for BEAST, GNS Science for their GeoNet Data Policy, NIWA for Cylc.

There will be two other awards announced on the night, the People's Choice Award and the University of Auckland's Department of Computer Science will present the Clinton Bedogni Prize for Open Systems,” Jason Ryan said.

The judges for the 2012 New Zealand Open Source Awards are: Dr Brenda Chawner, Victoria University Wellington; Dr Fabiana Kubke, Auckland University; Dave Lane, Egressive; Francois Marier, Mozilla; Dave Moskovitz, Webfund; Paul Seiler, ETC Limited; Austen Sinclair, Inland Revenue Department.

About the NZOSA Awards

Free and open source technology is changing the way people and organisations collaborate and innovate to achieve common goals. For New Zealand, free and open source technology not only represents an opportunity to contribute and be recognised on the world stage, but also to deliver real competitive advantage to our business sector, show leadership in government and the public sector, and provide more effective tools for community-based organisations as they meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The New Zealand Open Source Awards recognise and promote:

• the contributions of New Zealanders directly to free and open source projects or the promotion of free and open source philosophy.
• exemplary use of free and open source by New Zealand organisations.

The Awards work to raise awareness of the free and open source advantage for New Zealand by telling powerful success stories based on real achievements that are already making a difference for our country.

Source:  New Zealand Open Source Awards