[clug] Open Source Institute (OpenSI) @ UC, funded by Instacluster

[steve jenkin]

Open source research institute launches in Canberra
<https://www.innovationaus.com/open-source-research-institute-launches-in-canberra/>

The ACT government will provide half a million dollars over two years 
	to support a new innovation hub focused on furthering research into open source technologies
	at the University of Canberra.

The Open Source Institute (OpenSI), seeded by NetApp’s subsidiary Instaclustr 
	at a cost of $900,000, 
	launched on Monday in the hopes of 
		establishing 
	Canberra as an open source leader.

Total investment in the institute is $2.3 million, 
	with the remaining $900,000 in funding committed by the University of Canberra.

The institute will focus on four areas of open source research: 
	data solutions at scale, 
	cybersecurity and privacy, 
	artificial intelligence and machine learning, and 
	open source business models.

Instaclustr was founded at a shared innovation space on the campus of the Australian National University 
	and was acquired by NetApp in 2022 for $500 million.
It employs around 120 people and is currently based on the University of Canberra campus.

Three PhD scholarships and three technology research projects will initially be supported through OpenSI. 

The projects will be aligned with the interests of Instaclustr and NetApp.

NetApp vice president and general manager Peter Lilley 
	– formerly Instaclustr chief executive and co-founder before it was acquired … 

Mr Lilley also dismissed concerns that open source software 
would expose vulnerabilities to potential adversaries,
 highlighting that open source technologies often attract 
	“thousands of developers in a community 
	collaborating and inspecting the software, 
	testing it, 
	developing it, 
	looking at and trying to identify vulnerabilities”.

Not-for-profit governing frameworks such as 
	the Apache Software Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation 
also exist to organise these communities 
	“like full software engineering projects, 
	 that is a great safety valve and a level of protection against those kinds of vulnerabilities”, 
	he added.

--
Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

mailto:sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin