Over 50 participants from Southeast Asian countries explored the chances for economic and social development through Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) at the “first FOSS@Work International Conference-Workshop for Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) in the I.T. Industry”, held at the Heritage Hotel Manila, Philippines from November 12th to 15th, 2006. In his opening speech, Balthas Seibold of InWent Capacity Building International, Germany, stressed, that new business models, innovative local FOSS products and services offer exciting opportunities for SMEs and for countries in the region, but only if the human resource base is expanded through capacity-building and training. Other keynote speakers included the Commissioner Emmanuel Lallana from the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) of the Philippines, Guest speaker Rep. Teodoro Casino and Shahid Akhtar of UNDP APDIP. Read what others said about foss@work at the account of media reports and on the official conference website. The event was one of the first actions of the regional capacity building programme it@foss.