I love meeting practical people working hard to implement big dreams. Noy Shoung is one of those people. He’s trying to infuse open source into how Cambodians enter the computing age. And he’s making some headway.

Noy is the Deputy Secretary General (In Charge of Human Capacity Building and Free/Open Source Software) at National ICT Development Authority (NiDA). Cool title to have. And, one that is hard earned. Noy’s built up a team inside NiDA to localize open source desktop apps into Khmer (a language too small to be interesting to Microsoft), build up open source development skills amongst young people (still early days on this one) and train end users on Linux, Open Office and Firefox (20,000 people and counting). He’s also the major champion behind Khmer OS, a localized OpenSuse distribution.

What’s interesting is that Noy’s headway is built on very practical foundations: most Cambodians don’t speak English, especially outside Phnom Penh. KhmerOS and related applications are the fastest route to computer skills for these people. And, these people want computer skills. So, Noy’s small army of 45 public servants is training people up, with most of the training happening in provinces and smaller cities. He’s also offering training to university students — most of whom show up without ever having used a computer — who can’t afford to go to private computer tutoring schools.

Noy’s next step is to localize Ubuntu and update some of the existing apps (there have been some problems with Suse KhmerOS). He also plans expand the developer and sysadmin tech training that he offers jointly with universities. And, he’s in the midst of updating the government’s FOSS Master Plan. If there are any folks out there reading this who have deep tech skills that they want to share to help with this effort, Noy has put out an open ended invite. It’s a fun and important thing to pitch into.