Google Code-in Wrap-up: Beyond the winners...

To conclude our series of posts about Google Code-in (GCI) 2014, we have an inspiring story from FOSSASIA mentor Praveen Patil. Although we’ve been shining a well-deserved spotlight on the contest winners -- including the two from FOSSASIA -- GCI is also about helping students take their very first steps toward becoming contributors to open source projects. For some students this year, GCI was even more than that: it was a first step toward essential computer literacy and the new possibilities it opens up for them.

December 2014 and January 2015 marked FOSSASIA’s first time participating in Google Code-in (GCI). Attending the FOSSASIA conference in February 2014 was a life-changing experience for me, and I spent the summer contributing to a FOSSASIA-sponsored project during the 2014 Google Summer of Code. Mario Behling and Hong Phuc, the mentors who helped me complete my project, asked me to take part in GCI with them and help pre-university students take their first steps into the world of free and open source software.

Ahead of the contest’s start, I began spreading the word about GCI with presentations at local schools and through online social networks. But when the contest began on December 1st, I noticed that most of my tasks had been claimed by students outside of India and that there was hardly any response from students of my own institute or the neighboring pre-university colleges. The few local students we did see participating were finding it difficult to complete even the beginner tasks, and none claimed any tasks in the coding category. So we began trying to understand why and see what we could do about it.

Ours is a small city in south India and we found that the main reason students weren’t participating was a lack of IT infrastructure in schools. Less than 1% of high school students have access to computers and the internet. They get a chance to learn coding after high school in the 11th standard, but only if they’ve opted to study computer science. In rural India, the situation is even worse. I realized that students are willing to participate in programs like GCI, but most are unable to do so because they lack even basic computer skills.

With suggestions and guidance from Mario and Hong Phuc, we organized a series of workshops at my home for students on every Saturday, Sunday and holiday. The first workshop in the series was “An Introduction to Free and Open Source Software and Google Code-in”. More than 100 students turned out for the session. We also held a session on installing Gnu/Linux and software like Libre Office, Gimp, Inkscape, and more. I was happy to see students engaged with FOSS, learning ‘til late in the evening even though their final exams were approaching.

Our next few workshops focused on using FOSS for documentation, basic image processing, designing, blogging, and an introduction to Python. These interactive sessions helped develop confidence and motivation in our students. More than 70 students registered for GCI! Many said that it was the first time they’d been able to have hands-on experience with computers and that they enjoyed learning and creating.

Many of our friends helped us by providing laptops, internet dongles, a projector, and -- most importantly -- their valuable time. My best friend (and better half) Minal Patil provided snacks for students and helped us conduct the workshops. We even had a GCI session on Christmas Day and celebrated in a different and meaningful way.

It was amazing to see the happiness on the face of students when they completed their first GCI tasks. After starting with no previous hands-on experience with computers, many were able to complete beginner tasks related to documentation and outreach. Some could create blogs and write about themselves and their GCI experiences. And a few students were even able to contribute to our open source project ExpEYES (Experiments for Young Engineers and Scientists) which turns a $35 Raspberry Pi computer into a lab for conducting science experiments. Some students also worked on building a small website about our group intended to give the students an opportunity to experience open source development culture.

It was great fun to learn new things every day along with the students, and it was incredibly fulfilling when the GCI 2014 results were announced on Google’s Open Source Blog. FOSSASIA had more completed tasks than any other participating organization, with 587 tasks completed by 174 students. And our school, Govindram Seksaria Science P.U. College, Belgaum (GSS), ranked #2 among 397 schools worldwide for participation with 49 students completing tasks. The school’s management were happy to learn about our success with GCI, displaying a congratulatory banner on the campus, and they are exploring ways to work with FOSSASIA to continue helping students in our region learn to code and contribute to FOSS.

Participating in GCI with FOSSASIA was a great learning experience for myself also, and I’m very grateful to Hong Phuc, Mario Behling, and the Google Open Source Programs Office. You have inspired me to take up this task of helping kids from this region to learn to code as a lifelong mission. Thanks a billion to all the students who participated in the contest, and I wish them a great future ahead.

by Praveen Patil, GSoC alumnus and GCI mentor

Google Code-in 2014 wrap up with Wikimedia, part two

The Wikimedia Foundation was one of twelve organizations who participated in Google Code-in (GCI) this past December and January, our open source contest for 13 to 17 year old students. Today, grand prize winner Danny Wu tells us about his experience. He was also a GCI winner in 2012 with Fedora.

We all use open source software every day, but although I had contributed patches here and there, I’d never contributed in-depth to a major project before taking part in Google Code-in (GCI). This year, GCI helped me dive into open source development and join the wonderful, helpful, and talented community of Wikimedia.

This year’s contest wasn’t my first time participating in GCI, though. I had completed tasks with KDE and Fedora in the past. But this time, I was intrigued when I saw that Wikimedia -- the non-profit behind Wikipedia and MediaWiki -- was a mentoring organization. Like many people, I've used Wikipedia countless times. I also knew that MediaWiki powers several of the sites I visit. The web-dev nature of Wikimedia sites meant my skills were a good match too.

My first task involved refactoring Citoid, a Node.js service for looking up citation metadata. I was initially a little scared. There are so many established conventions, and everyone seems so busy. What if I make a mistake? I hoped I wouldn't waste anyone's time. Regardless, I followed a guide and set up my development environment for Gerrit code review, then submitted my first patch. My mentor helpfully pointed out some code convention issues (like trailing whitespace). After fixing those, my patch got merged!

I also completed a variety of other interesting tasks like improving extensions, adding internationalization, and working on MediaWiki core. They were fun and I even learned Python through working on pywikibot. More importantly, it was fun to work with my mentors and the other people in the community. Software isn't made in a vacuum -- it’s written by real people with real interests. Being a part of a community is one of the best things about many open source projects. People helped me graciously when I couldn’t figure something out, and I was happy to answer others’ questions on IRC when I could.

I’ve learned a lot through GCI: new tools, the value of code reviews, and even that it’s fine to not know exactly what you're doing at first as long as you're willing to learn! I had a fantastic time and am grateful to have been selected as a Grand Prize winner. I'd like to repeat what Wikimedia mentor Andre Klapper said previously -- thank you!

by Danny Wu, GCI grand prize winner

Google Code-in 2014 wrap up with OpenMRS, part two

OpenMRS is a medical records system used around the world, especially in places where resources are scarce. This past December and January, the OpenMRS community took part in Google Code-in. Today, grand prize winner Parker Erway tells us about writing code during the contest. (We previously featured a story from OpenMRS’ other grand prize winner.)

I’m Parker Erway. I worked with OpenMRS as part of Google Code-in 2014, a contest encouraging kids ages 13-17 to contribute to open source organizations. I’d say it’s working!

OpenMRS itself has a wonderful mission statement: “to improve health care delivery in resource-constrained environments by coordinating a global community that creates a robust, scalable, user-driven, open source medical record system platform.”

I had fun and learned a great deal contributing to OpenMRS. I spent about three weeks on developing an iOS client and its accompanying tasks (adding more features to, documenting, and publishing the app). Although I could have done this faster, I wanted to incorporate every best practice I knew of. One of my favorite things to do is start a fresh new project and try to do everything perfectly. It was great seeing all that hard work and learning pay off, and I’m proud to have made a lasting contribution to the community.

Through six tasks, I also spent time helping to overhaul OpenMRS-ID’s user interface in accordance with their new designs. I had never worked with Node before, and I learned a lot about how partials work, how the asset pipeline works, etc… Other projects I got to work on included deploying OpenMRS to OpenShift and suggesting improvements to the documentation, improving the Modulus search algorithm, correcting bad code practices using Sonar, and fixing a few bugs.

I’d never contributed to a large open source organization before, but I think it’s totally worth it. You meet amazing people doing amazing things, and you get to work with and learn from them. Before working with OpenMRS, I had the impression that large organizations -- even open source ones -- tend to take forever to make changes and review work and such. But once I started, I found that things happened quickly and you could really get stuff done. I truly felt like a member of the community after the contest period, and I’m very grateful to the OpenMRS mentors.

Although I could have completed a larger number of tasks, what’s important to me is that every line of code I write is maintainable, solid, testable (ideally tested as soon as I write it), and in general, good. I want to do good work, not a large amount of mediocre work. Google Code-in has helped cement that concept in me, and I plan to continue contributing to OpenMRS. I hope to see other GCI students stay in the community, too!

by Parker Erway, GCI Grand Prize Winner