The Linux Party is organized every year since 1999 by students from the Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs (Rabat, Morocco) in order to promote and develop Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Morocco. The Party aims at:

• creating a common space to exchange information and experiences among professionals;
  
• acquiring the necessary skills to understand and use FOSS;
  
• sensitising the general public on FOSS.

The UNESCO Office in Rabat supported the 8th edition of the Linux Party within the framework of promoting ICT for sustainable development. At the Party, the UNESCO Office presented a memory stick developed under the Miftaah project. The Miftaah memory stick contains free and open source software, as well as a storage capacity for the user’s personal data. It also provides a customized and user-friendly interface which ensures accessibility to the FOSS package.

The Miftaah project was developed in cooperation with ICTDAR (UNDP's Regional Programme "ICT for Development in Arab Region"), CERIST (Centre de recherche sur l’information scientifique et technique, Algeria), the Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs (Morocco) and the Birzeit University (Palestine).

The project aims at promoting FOSS in Arabic in the Arab region. It allows universities and research institutions to undertake free and autonomous research and to provide quality high education, in accordance with the changes of the society.