History

Starting in 2021, several experiments addressing tech gaps in the social sector began at the FOSS United Foundation in the form of tech volunteering, some software development, and partnering with various NGOs. It arose from the question: if mature, high-quality, out-of-the-box, low-cost Free and Open Source (FOSS) technology is widely available, why is there such a systemic technology gap in the social sector? Especially in an age where even the largest commercial enterprises are built entirely on FOSS. The lessons generated case studies and evidence that highlighted the fact that it was not the availability of technology, but the lack of technologists and technology knowledge and capacity in the sector that was the bottleneck. The many experiments and conversations gradually led to the coming together of like-minded organizations engaged in similar work of trying to build meaningful tech capacity in the social sector. A diverse group of people and organizations from various backgrounds—FOSS and technology, social sector, tech companies, volunteering and community, philanthropy—gathered for a casual, unstructured meetup 15-July-2023 in JP Nagar, Bengaluru at Zerodha's office.

First Workshop

There was overwhelming consensus on the matters at hand, most importantly, the fact that it is the lack of human capacity in technology, not software itself, that was the biggest impediment in the social sector. The conversations continued, and ASPIRe/Ashoka organized a full-day workshop in the month of $month $year again at the same venue. This was a well-planned, highly structured exercise held with people from similarly diverse backgrounds, which gave everyone significantly better clarity that systemic change cannot be induced in silos and such efforts need large-scale collaboration, replication, and a culture of sharing, which happen to be the fundamental tenets of FOSS.

The OASIS Summit 2023, a large conference specifically focused on FOSS for the social sector, the first of its kind, was held at BIC Bengaluru on 14 Sep 2023. It was organized as a collective, volunteering effort by the founding members of the alliance: ASPIRe/Ashoka, FOSS United, GitHub, Sagamaga Foundation, Tech4Dev, Tech4Good Community, Aikyam, and TinkerHub. The success of the event and the diversity of participation—small and large social sector organizations and NGOs, technology companies and communities, funders and philanthropists—provided significantly more evidence that the idea of an alliance working on the technology gaps in the social sector is a systemic problem in dire need of addressing.

Finally, in July 2024, the OASIS governing council and secretariat formed by select members from the original founding organizations became operational, with the secretariat hiring and setting up a full time team with funding from the Samagata Foundation.