The first steps are being taken in Central America to network free software groups in the region and develop collaborative relationships with each other. The first Central America Free Software Gathering (ECSL) is being organized for June 17 - 21 in Nicaragua. The goal of the event is to:

• Share organizational experience from user groups of different countries,
• Exchange technical knowledge based on each group’s skill-set specialization,
• Create social ties and cohesion of ideas between regional communities,
• Set goals for the advancement of Free Software in Central America

The event’s blog has posts announcing public IRC meetings, updates and reports as well as announcements of free software community events around the region. Examples include the pizza-bash meetings in Nicaragua or the ‘Sabados de Software Libre’ (Free Software Saturdays) as well as pre-FLISOL events in Guatemala.

The event stands out because of the low cost to participate. The registration package includes: - round-trip costs from airport/bus-station to the event place; - hosting place during the event; - food; - a welcome kit when you arrive at the event. All of his is offered for USD $120, according to the estimates from the organization team.

The event website also includes a comprehensive directory of Central American free software groups: Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá and El Salvador.

FLISOL - The Latin American Festivals of Installation of Free Software are install fests organized by the regional free software communities since 2005. The event is the largest distributed free software event in the world — last year, there were install fests in more than 200 cities in 18 countries in Latin America.

The goal of the event is to promote the use of free software, so the general public can know its philosophy, install GNU/Linux on their computers, learn about the applications and understand how they are developed by volunteer communities. Every install fest is free of charge in every location and they also include lectures, presentations and workshops.

Check out the list of countries hosting the event:

Campus Party, an enormous LAN party that originated in Spain, began migrating to Latin America in 2008, with events in Brazil, Colombia and El Salvador, during the XVIII Ibero-American Summit (which included heads of state of many Latin American countries as well as Spain and Portugal).

This year, Campus Party continued in Latin America with double the number of people in attendance from 2008 converging at the Immigrants Exposition Center in São Paulo, Brazil from January 19 - 25th. With support and participation by the Brazilian federal government and the state of São Paulo, 6,655 registered “campuseiros” were joined by thousands more people who came through the open event areas. Campus Party has become regarded as one of the most important events for innovation in technology and electronic entertainment throughout the world, with an emphasis on free software, programming, robotics, computer modeling, grid computing and a lot more.

At this year’s event, there were around 19 tech-talks planned for Campus Party Brazil, including discussions about “OpenSolaris, Java, MySQL and Open Source”. The free software community in Brazil is one of the most vibrant in the world and activities were organized by and for the movement, at all levels of knowledge.

John “Maddog” Hall issued a challenge for participants to create a one or two minute video or audio “advertisement,” suitable for displaying on sites such as YouTube but captured, edited and otherwise produced using Free Software.

The surge in popularity and participation of Campus Party in Latin America is no surprise, given the leadership provided by the region in wide-scale adoption of technology innovations, backed by an enormous community movement that makes it all happen. Campus Party 2009 in Brazil was documented in photos on Flickr, a blog hosted by the event organizers and by nearly a hundred thousand other bloggers.