"Openness" provides many benefits in education, society and social development, technology, innovation, government, the business world, civil society, arts and creativity, intellectual development, and much much more.  "Closed systems", "closed minds", obsessive protection, and hording of information and knowledge all slow down innovation, ideas, and development.

Several programs and activities are in development as part of RootSpace's OpenSesame Initiative. Our first event is listed below: "OpenSesame BarCamp-Lebanon" (Beirut on February 28).

To help promote "openness" in various contexts, we are organizing our very own "OpenSesame BarCamp-Lebanon" in Beirut on February 28.  Through this event we are providing a forum to discuss open source technology initiatives (like Linux, Drupal, Joomla, OpenOffice, OpenSocial, etc), collaborative problem solving, Creative Commons and intellectual property in Lebanon and the region, open business models, Arabic on the web and collaborative sites (like Wikipedia, etc), and more
More info at:  http://barcamp.org/OpenSesame+BarCamp-Lebanon

Who should come?  Technology developers, entrepreneurs, students, lawyers, teachers, artists, bloggers, journalists, product and graphic designers, and anyone interested in social, political, or economic development wanting to learn more, share knowledge, and meet interesting people.  (We are also looking for some talented lawyers to help with a Creative Commons translation/adaptation project for Lebanon. Please let me know if you might be interested, or know of someone who might be interested.  It takes a bit of volunteer work, but it is also a great way to promote a lawyer or firm interested in intellectual property rights law.)

A BarCamp event is an open source collaboration. 
Your participation/contribution/attendance/volunteering/sponsorship welcome.

WHY? Everybody has fun, everybody learns something, everybody participates, nobody gets bored, ... or if you do get bored, it's your own fault for not proposing and leading a session that is more interesting to you (and probably to others).  :-)   We hope people learn something new, and some ideas are born and develop into something cool for the participants, Lebanon, the region, and beyond.