Hope its ok to post some updates on the INGOT programme. I was in Serbia/Montenegro last week setting up an INGOT Academy at the Belgrade Linux Centre. They have contacts with other former Soviet Union countries that are supported by the Open Society Institute funded by George Soros. We hope to get them to fund a meeting/conference where we can train assessors to set up INGOT Academies in many other Eastern European countries so we will be truly International. I also have someone in a college in New Zealand and someone else in Kentucky wanting to set up Academies so the International dimension looks like its taking off. I have also registered the scheme with Curriculum On-line so INGOT Academy subscriptions can be paid for using ELCs. I have put some content on the web site www.theINGOTs.org (Which has had a complete overhaul) for download to conform to the compliance rules for COL. As we build up I'll put more there if we get the resources to commision people to do the work. Of course this will be for free use so it might get copied to other places such as schoolforge over time ;-). So if you want to use your ELCs to support some FLOSS development, set up an INGOT Academy :-) We are also planning Infant INGOTs for 5-7 year olds due to demand from some of the primary schools. This will be a cut down version of the Bronze, with basic things like mouse control, basic operating of the keyboard etc. We'll work it out with a couple of our primary school clients and then make it available for everyone. At the other end of the scale, I'm setting up a partnership with Birmingham University Computer Science Department under the DTi Knowledge Transfer Partnership scheme to develop the Platinum INGOT as an endorsement for entry to university computer science courses involving practical experience in developing open source code. This can develop into a model for learning computer programming by contributing to the open source pool for prospective university students. Linspire has also provided us with their name as a supporter. For this they get a link to their web site from the INGOT supporters page. Its important for us to get industry support as it provides confidence and internationally, is better than say QCA endorsement which really only applies in England and Wales. I'm also talking to Sun. Maybe Novell? Anyone interested in joining in, send me an E-mail. -- Ian Lynch <ian.lynch@zmsl.com> ZMS Ltd