[Typo3-marketing] Joint Edu effort

[Sander Vogels]

Guyz 'n girleez,

In Holland it has been in the news last week that already for four years 
there is an huge amount of money available for e-learning projects in 
the EU. The money, 70 billion euro(!), is still there because of the 
lack of projects. Well, I do know one or two..

We're currently negotiating with associations of ICT coordinators from 
high-schools about creating an open source ELO for TYPO3. We how have 
the support of two of the four associations who represent about 100 high 
schools. Yes, they're all going to use TYPO3 then...
The TYPO-ELO environment will replace Blackboard (www.blackboard.com) in 
most instances and more or less be based on the functionality of 
excisting open-source apps. The most recent wish list includes:

Moodle http://moodle.org
Claroline http://www.claroline.net
php exam management http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpexam
Media Wiki http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net
WebCalandar http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php
Php Colab http://www.php-collab.com

Programming these apps into one TYPO3 environment being one extension 
will cost somewhere between 100-150.000 euro, needs about 7 - 10 
php/typo programmers and has to be ready before the start of schoolyear 
2005/2006. So we have about four months to make this thing.
Because of the time line involved for the schools they ask us to have an 
proposition ready in the beginning of februari. If we don't make this 
deadline it will become the next year.

These schools will support my request for fundings for this to the Dutch 
Ministy of Education. They also want to contribute themselfes, which 
makes up for at least half of the funding needed. The ministry then 
might help to get the rest of the money out of Bruxelles.
But why shouldn't we make it an joint effort from all TYPO companies 
involved in education?

I really would like to have serious talks on the matter during the TYPO 
tour and like to hear who is interested in the project. Our chances to 
get funding are really realy high, so has been assured to me by 
government officials. But time is short so if we do this together we 
have to undertake fast action.

What do I ask from partners in the project?
- having clients in high school education
- having programming capacity
- having connections to your government
- availability
- being able to work fast

Please let me know if you're interested!

Ciao, Sander