Sourcefabric launches theme contest at first Central American conference

Sourcefabric took the occasion of their first ever Central American conference last weekto launch a new global theme contest, in which designers worldwide are invited to submit themes for Newscoop, the open source CMS for news organisations.

The keynote speaker at the conference, called Software de código abierto para Medios de Vanguardia (Open Source Software for Cutting Edge Media), was Douglas Arellanes, co-founder of Sourcefabric. The Czech Republic-based, not-for-profit organisation support independent journalism through open source software, services and support.

“We’ve been working in Central America for a number of significant organisations,” said Douglas Arellanes. “Newscoop powers El Faro, the first online-only news site in Central America, and ElPeriódico de Guatemala which receives over a quarter of a million unique visitors a month.”

Sourcefabric’s Newscoop Theme Contest gives aspiring designers a chance to submit themes for newspaper sites like El Faro. Two winning entries will receive all-expenses paid trips to Prague for Sourcecamp 2011, the annual get-together of the Sourcefabric community.

The contest is free to enter at http://contest.sourcefabric.org, where designers can download a sample theme and view the competition’s guidelines. Newscoop uses a templating language called $gimme which works alongside CSS and HTML to enable designers to have complete control over the look and feel of the website.