The Linux Professional Association of Kenya and ICT Consumers Association of Kenya will be hosting Kenya’s first-ever open source awards at the end of this month.

The awards will be held at the Panafric Hotel in Nairobi on 27 May 2009 and are intended to “appreciate with recognition Kenya open source contributors who have made an impact in the open source community both locally and globally with their innovative solutions,” says the LPA Kenya.

Award categories include:
- Best open source deployment by government;
- Best open source deployment by business;
- Best open source deployment by civil society;
- Best FOSS developers;
- Best FOSS in SME; and
- Best innovative FOSS solution.

The event will be attended by James Rege, MP for Karachuonyo and chairman of the parliamentary committee on communications, as well as Dr. Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary in the ministry of information and communications.

To date the LPA Kenya has confirmed Google and ixsystems as sponsors of the event.