Uganda Martyrs University - Nkozi is the first organization in Africa to adopt Free and Open Source Software policy. This was done through research from the department of Computer Science and Information Systems and in very close collaboration with the ICT department.

Rising licensing costs, improvement of ICT capacity development, and the belief that software should be available for all people, made the university decide to make Free and Open Source Software the standard at the university. This means that the university uses software that is available free of charge and that can be copied without compromising copyright laws.

At the present, most of the university has been migrated to Linux (SuSE), OpenOffice, Mozilla and other free and open alternatives for expansive software without compromising the functionality and compatibility with other computer users. The university recently received praise and an award from the Uganda Communications Commission for its outstanding contribution to the ICT capacity development in Uganda.

As a result of the knowledge gained about migrating organizations to Free and Open Source Software, Uganda Martyrs University in collaboration with the International Institute of Communication and Development (IICD - WWW.iicd.org) and Linux Solutions (U) Ltd (www.linuxsolutions.co.ug) formed the East African Centre for Open Source Software (www.eacoss.org). This centre, located in Nakawa, Kampala, provides training for beginning and advanced users and administrators in Open Source Software applications.