…and sadly, we’re not one of them. But that’s all right, our own Ateneo de Davao Software Freedom Day 2010 was a blast. And yes, we’ll do it again this year!

I might add that the Philippines as a country has, for several years running now, always had a strong showing in Software Freedom Day celebrations. This year, SPCF-CITE in Angeles, Pampanga took a major prize and two other teams received honorable mentions.

Press release from Software Freedom Day International follows:

Hudson, New Hampshire (May 23, 2011) – Software Freedom International is proud to announce the SFD 2010 best event competition results. Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) with the goal of educating the public about the existence and the benefits of using FOSS in education, in government, at home and in business.

The SFD Best Event Competition is an international recognition of the efforts made by individual organizing teams in regards to spreading the importance of Software Freedom and reaching out to the relevant groups of people in their area. Each year three teams are chosen and the awards given to those teams are meant to help them further in their tasks for the years to come.

This year, two leading organizations from the Free and Open Source Software movements have joined us to reward those exceptional achievers: the Free Software Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the Free Software movement, and Makerbot, a private company pushing the concept of Free Software to physical media and making an fully open source 3D printer.

Among the 40 submissions we have received the three teams that came out as outstanding organizers and promoters of Software Freedom in 2010 are spread over 3 different continents. We would like to name in no specific order:

• SFD team Melbourne, Australia
• SFD team Yaoundé, Cameroon
• SFD team SPCF-CITE, Angeles City, Philippines

As a side note we are very pleased to see winners from different areas this year, especially Africa and would also like to mention some entries which didn’t make it in the top 3 but definitely deserve to be mentioned:

• CPU & Software Freedom Network Team, Manila, Philippines
• 8layer Team, Manila, Philippines
• Limestone Coast GLUG, Mount Gambier, Australia
• NOSK team, Lalitpur, Nepal

The above teams should be an inspiration to all SFD organizers and help you to prepare for SFD 2011 which will happen on Saturday September 17th this year.