 As Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, I would like to welcome all of you, the international guests, the board members of the OpenCourseWare consortium, as well as the local participants from UWC and other institutions to the OpenCourseWare workshop we are hosting today. The University of the Western Cape has a long history of fighting for political freedom and promoting access to education for all South Africans. We have been continuing in this tradition by actively participating in the OpenCourseWare and Open Education movements and are grateful for the opportunity to serve on the consortium board since 2008. The ideas of sharing and collaborating across institutional and national boundaries with academics and students from all over the world are a natural extension of our past. I wish you a constructive and informative workshop and hope that South African institutions will play a leading role in shaping the open education landscape in the years to come. God bless you.