The Linux Professional Association of Kenya is organising the software freedom day on September 1 at Strathmore University. The software freedom day is a worldwide celebration of free and open source software. The free and open source software gives users the freedom to use, to alter and to share it. Since the software source code is readily available, the users are able to make changes to suit their requirements.

"The goal of this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality free and open source software in education, government, at home and in business," a statement from the association said. Today, open source runs most of the technologies in use. The association estimates that more than half of all mobile devices being sold run the open source Android system.

Additionally, most social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube are built on open source tools. "Kenya is the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to launch open data," the statement said. The software freedom day will be preceded by the open source developers challenge on August 31 at the same venue.