Deb Bryant, the OSU Open Source Lab's Public Sector Communities Manager, was recently invited to participate in a number of events in and around Matsue City, located in the Shimane Prefecture of Japan. The region has drawn national recognition for the Matsue "Ruby City" project, a highly innovative initiative to promote open source software through a collaborative partnership created by local industry, academia, and government.

While in Japan, Deb participated in a number of events to help share what the state of Oregon, industry, government, and the OSL has learned through its years in supporting the growth of the Open Source Community. The visit included meetings with Shimane University's President Honda; Matsue's mayor; Shimane Prefecture's governor; keynoting at a seminar for industry and government; addressing the 37th Open Source Salon of the Open Source Software Society Shimane; spending time with colleagues from Japan's IPA Open Source Lab (their national referendum on OSS); National Applied Communication Labs and Mr. Inoue and Matz.

Many thanks especially go to Mr. Doi from the City of Matuse, to Mr. Noda of Shimane University, and especially to Mr. Tansho Deb's host and translator - and of course to Shimane University which sponsored the visit.

Above you can find a picture of Deb Bryant with Yukihiro Matsumoto ("Matz"), the chief designer of the Ruby programming language. Nice OSL shirt, Matz! More pictures are available on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58459279@N00/sets/72157615202768027/