This post identifies specific tasks the TeleIRC team identified as “good first issues” for Hacktoberfest hackers. They are in order of least difficult to most difficult. Golang developers especially are encouraged to participate!

Why work on TeleIRC for Hacktoberfest? 🔗

Before sharing how you can contribute for Hacktoberfest, what about why you should contribute?

TeleIRC originally launched in 2016. Since then, we have built up a community of users around the world. TeleIRC is also used in other larger Open Source projects like the Fedora Project and LibreOffice! Of course, it is still used in the Rochester Institute of Technology community where it was first developed.

Working on TeleIRC means you can contribute to a project that is actually used in the real world. Hundreds of user communities, some even the size of thousands of people, use TeleIRC. Your improvements and changes will help the many downstream users of our project. (P.S. – See the full list of who uses TeleIRC in our docs!)

With that out of the way… let’s talk about what there is to do!

#1: Large messages go to a pastebin 🔗

This corresponds to RITlug/teleirc#56.

• Goal: When a Telegram user writes a single line that exceeds the maximum number of characters for an IRC message (512 characters, per RFC 1459, section 2.3), send the string to a pastebin service.
• Success criteria: Any line greater than 512 characters is sent to a pastebin-like service.
• What we think: Note the difference between “lines” and “messages”. Telegram users can add line breaks to messages. TeleIRC should respect those line breaks as new IRC messages. So, only a single line that exceeds the maximum should go to a pastebin-like service.

#2: Telegram Poll handler 🔗

This corresponds to RITlug/teleirc#267.

• Goal: Send text representations of Telegram Polls to IRC. Currently, Polls are ignored by TeleIRC and do not appear in any way on IRC.
• Success criteria: If a Telegram user sends a Poll to a group, a text representation should appear in IRC.
• What we think: IRC users will not be able to participate in Polls. This is a platform limitation. However, IRC users should get some context about what a Poll includes, e.g. what the question is and what answer choices are available.

#3: Support more encoding types (e.g. CP1251) 🔗

This corresponds to RITlug/teleirc#332.

• Goal: Support more string encoding types than UTF-8.
• Success criteria: If a Telegram user writes a message in Cyrillic script, it should appear in Cyrillic script on IRC (if the server supports it, e.g. CP1251).
• What we think: This is one of the toughest issues we have and requires knowledge about string encoding methods. The current core developers are native English speakers and we do not use other languages that have non-Latin script. The GitHub issue has more info, but it will need additional research or knowledge about string encoding.

Need Hacktoberfest help? Come talk to us! 🔗

Want to work on any of these? Add a new comment to the GitHub Issue and let us know you are interested in working on it.

Have questions about the project or getting started? Come talk with the TeleIRC team! Of course, you can find us both on IRC (#rit-lug-teleirc on Freenode IRC) and Telegram (@teleirc).

Additionally, the TeleIRC team meets virtually every Sunday at 11:00 U.S. EDT / 15:00 UTC. Ask us for a calendar invite in our team chat if you would like one!

Home is a suitcase 🔗

I began the third year of my degree and moved for the fifth time in two years when I made it back to Rochester in August. This time, I found somewhere to ideally live longer than only a few months of the year. I moved into a house with a few other roommates with more space than I’ve had before. For the first time in a while, it’s somewhere I’ve made to feel like home.

This move came months after I ended a semester of a study abroad program and lived in a city for an internship. Most of 2017 made my suitcase feel like a home, but it afforded many unique experiences.

Croatia: Study abroad 🔗

From January to May 2017, I participated in a study abroad program with my university to Dubrovnik, Croatia. RIT has full campuses in both Zagreb and Dubrovnik. This made planning the semester abroad easy, but also encouraged me to go somewhere I might not have gone otherwise.

My choice to study in Croatia was well-rewarded. On paper, I earned 12 credit hours, but I took away more than what I learned in class. My most important lessons came in the form of midnight bus rides to Albania, photograph exhibits capturing genocide in Sarajevo, and hugs from normally faraway friends in Czechia. My time abroad began a process in finding myself that has continued since my time in Europe.

DevConf 2017 / Fedora Diversity FAD 🔗

At the beginning of the year, the Fedora Diversity Team held a “Fedora Activity Day” (FAD) event in Brno, Czechia. If you’re outside of the Fedora community, think of a FAD as a focused, in-person team sprint. Together with our team in-person and remote, we mapped out our goals and plans for 2017 and set out to continue the work we began nearly three years ago.

In addition to the work we accomplished together, it was fulfilling for me to see my teammates that span three continents. I spent a week with not only my teammates but also my friends. The days we get to spend together are a privileged few in the year, and it was fulfilling and motivating for me to spend some of our time together in a way that wasn’t Pagure tickets or IRC meetings.

Read more about our team sprint in this event report:

https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/fedora-diversity-fad-2017/

FOSDEM 2017 🔗

In February, I attended the Free and Open Source Software Developers European Meeting (FOSDEM) for the first time. FOSDEM is the largest open source conference in Europe, bringing together over 8,000 open source enthusiasts, contributors, and leaders from around the globe.

I had the privilege to attend as a member of the Fedora community, so my time was between the Fedora booth to meet the community and catching interesting talks. I also gave a talk of my own on the main track, What open source and J.K. Rowling have in common! I gave this talk to a smaller audience at DevConf, but the FOSDEM audience was considerably larger.

In retrospect, my original talk topic is relevant but I have ideas on how I could have delivered my message more effectively. Regardless, it was a learning experience for me to present in front of a new audience. Public speaking opportunities filled my youth, both in theater and in presentations, but I had never presented to a technical audience before (let alone on a non-technical topic). The experience at FOSDEM helped build my understanding and I hope to return with a new topic someday in the future.

Exploring the Balkans 🔗

Outside of open source and Fedora, my time in Croatia included a lot of time outside of Croatia. When many of my roommates went to explore the wonders of Western Europe, I lost my heart in the shadows of the Balkan mountains. My spring break was a solo trip split between Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Tirana, Albania.

Sarajevo 🔗

The three days I spent in Sarajevo were short but significant. I was truly alone on this visit and it was up to me to make the most of it. Originally, I was skeptical to go alone, but I knew that I would never have a better opportunity to go. My fascination with Sarajevo stemmed from a year of studying European history in high school, and knowing the cultural significance of Sarajevo as a meeting point of western and eastern cultures. In the end, I decided to go, and I was rewarded for it.

Most of my trip in Sarajevo consisted of museums. I visited various museums, ranging from eighteenth to twentieth century history. The most rewarding for me were the Galerija 11/07/95 and the Tunnel of Sarajevo. The gallery documented the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995 by the Serbian armed forces. The exhibit was eye-opening and perspective-shifting. The Tunnel of Sarajevo, sometimes called the Tunnel of Hope, is another perspective-shattering experience. The museum introduces the tunnel used during the siege of Sarajevo during the 1990s, when Serbian forces surrounded the city for an almost four-year siege. The tunnel was the only way for citizens and resistance forces to contact the outside world and keep the resistance alive. A small part of the tunnel is preserved, and the other artifacts make it a gripping experience (not to mention it’s a short drive out of the city, so you also have a chance to mentally prepare and later unpack the experience).

Tirana 🔗

I visited Tirana, Albania four times on my trip abroad. In Tirana, my heart was captured by the people there. For years, I read about the Open Labs Hackerspace community based in Tirana and I always imagined an opportunity to see it in person. I actually remember my first encounter with their community was an Ada Lovelace Day event report. And somehow, the circumstances shifted where I was able to meet their community and immerse myself in the culture, if only for a short time.

During my times in Tirana, I participated in the first-ever 48 hour hackathon to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the first edition of Linux Weekend, and the annual Open Source Conference Albania (OSCAL).

https://fedoramagazine.org/students-fedora-linux-weekend-2017/

India 🔗

At the end of my study abroad experience in Croatia, a unique opportunity presented itself to me. I did not buy my return airfare back to the US before I left for Croatia. When price-checking for my trip back, I noticed it was a few hundred dollars extra if I decided to spend a week in India before flying back to the US.

I booked the tickets.

The last day of my classes finally came, and the next day, I was traveling further east, to Mumbai (or Bombay, if you prefer). I had the great fortune of having two great friends who invited me to the homes of their families during my trip. I visited Bee in Mumbai and Amita in Pune, all split across a single week!

My trip to India was eye-opening. For years, I’ve had a fascination with Eastern culture and philosophy, but it was something completely different to experience. Bee and her family took me to the Global Vipassana Pagoda, a personally fulfilling experience for me. We visited the Bandra–Worli Sea Link, Shree Mahalakshmi Temple, and several other places in Mumbai. I remember walking through the streets more than anything.

In Pune, Amita and her family showed me their favorite places. I had a chance to meet many other Fedora friends in Pune too. One of my favorite memories of Pune was a historic gurdwara. Amita took me and the others in our group to visit. For a moment, I finally got to see something I’ve only read about right in front of my eyes. The history and reverence in these places was absorbed into my mind.

I never expected an Indian visa stamp in my passport in 2017, yet it happened. I’m equally filled with wonder at how the circumstances unfolded as I am grateful this experience sneaked into my year.

Chicago: Urban experience 🔗

After my semester abroad and visiting India, I was whisked back to the United States, only to pack up once again for another new experience. From June to August, I lived in Chicago, Illinois to work an internship at Jump Trading. Chicago had a feeling of nostalgia for me because much of my father’s family has origins tracing back to Chicago. But I would find myself losing more of my heart in Chicago than I realized.

The internship 🔗

I worked with a fantastic team of people on exciting projects. Professionally, my time in Chicago was motivating and empowering. I was provided the opportunity to learn and also contribute. I walked in with a dreadful feeling of imposter syndrome and left feeling more confident in my own learning abilities. Docker, Kubernetes, and time-series data became a part of my daily work life, when I had little to no knowledge before then.

By the time my internship finished, I helped contribute to our team’s goal of standing up Kubernetes and contributing a few patches in Kubernetes projects like Minikube. I have great mentors to thank for not only direct, technical assistance but also motivational mentorship and empowerment too.

Everything else 🔗

There was more to Chicago than only the work too. Before long, I felt like a true Chicagoan, traveling the subways into the Loop, catching free concerts in Millennium Park, and indulging in the Chicago tradition of deep-dish pizza.

Unlike other cities I’ve visited, like New York City, Chicago felt easier to integrate into. The culture was notably “slower” than the fast-pace life of NYC, London, or Washington DC. I discovered Middle Eastern markets that became a regular part of my weekends, made friends with the baristas at a local coffeehouse, and had the privilege of hosting friends from three continents for short stays.

I left Chicago and was offered a new contract for the following summer in 2018. I’m looking forward to be back in June again.

Year of Fedora 🔗

2017 was full of time and effort spent in the Fedora community. In addition to the Diversity FAD, I was elected to the Fedora Council (on my third attempt), attended the annual Fedora contributor conference, Flock, and also narrowed my scope for contributions.

When I began contributing to Fedora, I was contributing to many things. Marketing, community operations, Fedora Badges, Fedora Magazine, Ambassadors, Games SIG, Join SIG, the Diversity Team, and maybe a few more things. After a while, I realized my contributions carried great width but poor depth. In 2017, I “reconfigured” my time in Fedora to focus in on the areas where I felt my time yielded the highest impact. This is Fedora CommOps and the Diversity Team.

I resigned as Fedora Magazine editor-in-chief and also formally stepped down from other teams. It made me sad, but I knew it was the right decision for me. I’m happy to spend more time working in fewer projects at a greater depth and focus than I had before.

Flock 2017 🔗

Flock, Fedora’s annual contributor conference, was held from Aug. 29 to Sep. 1 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Every year, Flock is an empowering experience for me because of the face-time I get with the people I spend much of my year working with remotely. This year was no different, and many new faces were mixed in with the old ones.

The highlights for me were in three forms: the CommOps session, the Diversity Team session, and the Fedora Magazine session. Together with Sachin Kamath, we led the CommOps session. You can read more about our session here:

https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/metrics-docs-flock-2017/

The Diversity Team and Magazine sessions were also valuable for both teams to get feedback from the rest of the community. In the Diversity Team session, we had many active participants outside of our team that reminded us the importance of narrowing our focus for higher impact. I also attended other interesting sessions held by the community, like the future of fedmsg by Jeremy Cline.

CommOps FAD 🔗

Towards the end of 2017, I worked together with our team in CommOps to organize our own team sprint, or FAD, in 2018. We successfully planned the event and organized it in Brno, Czechia, similar to last year’s Diversity FAD.

More details on this will be found in its own event report!

ListenBrainz indie study 🔗

In my fall semester of 2017, I took on an independent study to further explore the ListenBrainz project. ListenBrainz is an open source social platform to document the music you listen to over time. If you’re familiar with Last.fm or Libre.fm, it’s a similar concept, but the focus is more on the data than the social features. ListenBrainz is supported by the MetaBrainz Foundation, also the guiding body for the more well-known MusicBrainz project.

In my independent study, I had a chance to contribute documentation and community tools (like issue / PR templates), as well as explore how the project gathers and builds metrics. I didn’t make my original milestone of major code contributions to the project, but I better understood the community and tried to help in the areas of low coverage, like documentation.

The experience was insightful for me and provided me an excuse to work on something that I am genuinely passionate about. Music is a powerful part of human culture, and the MetaBrainz Foundation takes a serious approach to documenting music, especially in a technical sense. ListenBrainz represents an opportunity for us to better explore and understand ourselves through our music listening habits. I hope someday that ListenBrainz will be a platform for data journalism and research about music. That’s my dream.

Opensource.com community moderator 🔗

At the beginning of 2017, I was brought on board as an Opensource.com community moderator. Together with other community moderators and site staff, I help contribute new content and source new writers to the site. My invitation to the community moderator team came shortly after the announcement that I received the 2017 People’s Choice Award. When Rikki Endsley invited me to the team, it felt like a natural alignment to my passion for storytelling.

All Things Open 2017 🔗

I was invited to All Things Open, an annual open source conference in Raleigh, by the Opensource.com team. The day before the conference, I met the rest of the team and other community moderators at the Red Hat HQ in Raleigh. We spent the day locked into a room together to hash out plans and goals for the next year. It was a productive opportunity for the team to work together and also a great opportunity to meet the other members of the community.

Some of my best takeaways from this experience were catching coffee with other community moderators, meeting Jim Whitehurst to talk about Opensource.com, and giving my talk, What open source and J.K. Rowling have in common, for the final time.

I hope I have the opportunity to go again next year to meet the awesome team behind Opensource.com. (If you haven’t considered before, come and write for us too!)

Happiness Packet Challenge 🔗

Another unusual milestone for my 2017 was the first rendition of the Happiness Packet Challenge. I was introduced to the Happiness Packets website in 2016. Happiness Packets are an easy way to say thank you to someone who has had a positive impact on you. I came up with a challenge to my friends and network to write one Happiness Packet a day, every day, for a week.

I followed up with the team behind the project to evaluate the impact of this idea, and I was pleasantly surprised. Here’s the number of messages sent for the two weeks prior to the Happiness Packet Challenge, followed by the week of the challenge:

• Week starting 2017-03-27: 2 sent
• Week starting 2017-04-03: 35 sent
• Week starting 2017-04-10 (challenge week): 72 sent

You can read more about the challenge in my original blog post. Keep an eye out for it again in 2018.

Living openly 🔗

Earlier in this post, I alluded to how I felt like I began to find myself when I was abroad. My study abroad experience was the beginning of a longer process that leads into present day.

In April, I went public with my depression, both to help take a weight off my shoulder and to be a voice for others who are afraid to speak up. I was always concerned of the reaction from publishing something like that, but I was met with nothing but loving-kindness from friends and strangers. It gave me new confidence to live more openly and wear my values in the open.

The story continued in October, when I decided to delete my Facebook and Instagram accounts.

https://medium.com/@jflory7/cut-the-plug-deleting-facebook-and-instagram-6cbe7c86d9c9

I considered this for a couple of years before, but I pulled the trigger in October. Like many others, it felt almost too much of a task to disconnect myself from this huge network of people and friends. But the negative impacts of it were draining me and trapping me. Since I deleted my accounts, I’ve noticed a positive impact in overall levels of happiness and awareness. However, I don’t think the social media accounts alone are the reason for this.

In the near future, I hope to do a follow-up post to my decision to cut away from the Facebook and Instagram machines. Keep an eye out for more.

2018 🔗

It’s already February in 2018 when I finished this post. This year, I thought it would be the year when I get the post out closer to the new year, but somehow I always slip. In either case, it gives me a chance to take in some of the new opportunities and excitement of the new year before reflecting and looking back.

This year, I’m working an internship with UNICEF to help lead on open source community engagement and supporting the non-technical areas of their MagicBox platform. In the one month I’ve been doing this, I feel like I have tens of articles I could write about, but the experience is still maturing for me.

I also have another round in Chicago to look forward to over the summer. I’ll get to work with the same team as last year on similar projects, and I’m looking forward to going back.

As for the rest, who knows what’s to come? So many things that made 2017 what it was were the things I didn’t expect. The surprises in life are the salt to the regiment of daily life, and add flavor and spice in unexpected ways. I have no idea what my 2018 Year in Review will look like, and that’s okay. I’m looking forward to seeing what will make it in.

Thank you 🔗

Above all, every year, I think back on the people who positively impacted my life and contributed to the “flavor” of my year. A close friend reminded me recently that we all stand on the shoulders of giants. And isn’t it true? We all have our great mentors, great friends, and unexpected sages that help us find our own footing on this great path of life. We become ourselves from the various pieces impacted on us by others.

I’m thankful for all of the people who have made my year into the experience it was. The list is too long to write and I fear I would leave someone out – even significant impacts were made by people who had a short-term role in this last year.

A long time ago, my open source experience was jump-started by someone who did something kind and exceptional for me. It was a continuing trend since that moment. My only aspiration is to pay forward the good will that so many have bestowed unto me.

Thanks for making it this far down, and I hope to see you in 2018. Or who knows – maybe it will just be me reading this far down for next year, when I go to write my next year in review. Hi future me!

On November 7, 2017, members of the RIT community came together for the annual Election Night Hackathon held in the Simone Center for Student Innovation. This year marked the seventh anniversary of a civic tradition with the FOSS@MAGIC community. As local and state election results come in across nine projectors, students and professors work together on civic-focused projects during the night. Dan Schneiderman, the FOSS@MAGIC Community Liaison, compiled lists of open APIs that let participants use public sets of data made available by governments at the federal, state, and local level.

The hackathon officially began at 5:00pm and went until 10:00pm. Plenty of pizza and drinks were provided to fuel participants during the evening.

Open source with open government 🔗

Each year, the hackathon welcomes students and faculty to analyze civic problems happening in the local community, state, or country, and then propose a project to address them. MAGIC Center faculty help students choose open source licenses to share their projects. Organizers encourage students to use a site like GitHub to publish and share their code.

Second Avenue Learning, an educational game company in Rochester, demonstrated their Voter’s Ed app that replays historic elections, keeps voters up-to-date on current ones, and lets them simulate their own using open data and HTML. It also allows users to examine key issues and hot topics related to national level events. The company, represented by the founder Victoria Van Voorhis and two employees (one an RIT alum) held a design discussion for new features to prototype with students and the community. Sean Sutton and Paul Ferber (RIT faculty) provided subject matter expertise to the application.

While people began their projects, coverage of the local and state elections were displayed across nine different projectors. As the night progressed, votes from local and state elections rolled in. Rochester coverage was enhanced, since Monroe County is one of three counties in New York that releases public data for election coverage. Some participants even used the local Henrietta data for their own projects.

LibreCorps internship 🔗

Pratik Shirish Kulkarni, a second-year computer science major from Mumbai, India, presented the current status of his FOSS@MAGIC LibreCorps internship. LibreCorps placed Pratik with UNICEF Innovation in Manhattan, where he worked on MagicBox, a set of big data APIs and technologies used to chart Zika outbreaks and connectivity across schools in Africa.

Pratik demoed some of the work, which he is continuing part-time on campus this semester, funded by UNICEF. Another internship to work on the project is currently posted in Handshake.

Where can I vote? 🔗

Third-year student Chris Bitler created a tool to make it easier to get to the polling booth. His web application, “Where can I vote?”, takes a specific election and your address, and gives you directions from your address to the closest polling location. It uses the Google Civic Information API to find election data and calculate a specific address’s voting district and candidates.

Chris was exploring for project ideas in the beginning of the hackathon, but quickly found the civic data API returned interesting data about polling locations. “After seeing that, I gave some thought to how some people don’t know their polling location and how a simple website could be useful for that,” Chris said. His web application was motivated by simplicity, so anyone could navigate without being lost in information.

In the spirit of open source, Chris open sourced his project on GitHub under the MIT License.

Linkybook: Local election data in real-time 🔗

Another project during the night focused on tracking local election data in Chautauqua, Monroe, and Suffolk Counties. RIT and FOSS@MAGIC alumni Nathaniel Case continued work on his monroe-elections application during the night. The site shows data for all races in the three counties.

During the night, his web application updated in real-time as the results from the local elections began to appear. Election results for the races is quick to understand and read. Additionally, referendum results and other non-partisan elections are available.

Nathaniel open sourced his project on GitHub under both the DBAD and GPLv3 licenses.

Join us next time! 🔗

The night ended after a quick round of project demos and finishing up project work. FOSS@MAGIC has more events planned in the near future. On November 15th, Christine Abernathy from Facebook’s Open Source Program talks about how Facebook approaches open source and how they’ve solved engineering problems with it.

You can learn more about the FOSS@MAGIC initiative on their website. Participation on the mailing list is welcome.

The local hackerspace in Tirana, Albania might be small, but they make up for size in spirit. During the weekend of 18-19 March 2017, the Open Labs Hackerspace organized the first-ever 48 hour “open source” hackathon focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are seventeen objectives identified by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to build a better world, starting in our own communities. Some of the goals include quality education, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, clean energy, and more. During the course of the hackathon, participants selected a goal, broke into teams, and worked on projects to make real change in their own neighborhoods. In the spirit of open source, all projects are made available under free and open licenses.

Organizing the hackathon in Albania 🔗

The board members of Open Labs oversee most of its operations and help guide members in hosting events and keeping the hackerspace busy. The current board members are Redon Skikuli, Jona Azizaj, Elio Qoshi, Kristi Progri, and Anisa Kuci. However, they emphasize that it’s strongly a community-based organization. Board members invite others to take part in the organization’s governance.

Open Labs board members. Pictured left to right: Jona Azizaj, Anisa
Kuci, Kristi Progri, Redon Skikuli, Elio Qoshi. (Justin Wheeler, CC-BY-SA 4.0)

When the opportunity came to take part in this event, the board members felt it was a great opportunity to try something new. While hackathon events are popular and well-known in the United States and elsewhere, this was foreign territory for the community. “At first, we were nervous because this type of 48 hour event was new for Open Labs but also for Albania. But we wanted to use this as a chance to introduce the open source philosophy to new people and to show what we do and why,” said Azizaj. The organizers hoped to appeal to a wider audience than only active community members too.

The visiting representative from the United Nations meets participants
and helps work with them on brainstorming ideas. © Eduard Pagria, used with permission

Organizing the hackathon was a challenge since many of the core team members were traveling the week before the event. However, community members and UN representatives were more than willing to help with organizing the hackathon. This event also required a level of coordination that was uncommon for the normal type of event organized in Open Labs. “When planning, we were hoping to reach out to non-members of Open Labs too. This way, more people are exposed to open source and its culture. This lets people who want to make change, but don’t know how, to understand what is available to help them,” said Skikuli. When the Friday before the event arrived, the team was ready for a weekend of open source, civic hacking.

On Saturday morning, approximately 30 people were present for the event kick-off. Open Labs members and United Nations representatives introduced the hackathon and the themes for attendees to focus on during the weekend. Attendees were a diverse group of people as well: there was a balance between technical and non-technical people, and the gender ratio was almost evenly split between males and females.

Working on projects 🔗

One participant, Edlina, worked with Augest to develop an application
that creates a feedback loop with students and teachers to NGOs and
governments to understand problems in schools and find ways to work
together without duplicating work. © Eduard Pagria, used with permission

The Open Labs organizers placed emphasis in networking between participants at the beginning. The event started with introductions and each participant made a note of whether they were a technical or non-technical contributor. After this, they wrote their names on sticky notes along with their preferred goals to stick on the wall. Participants were paired up with someone with a different background but with a mutual interest in a specific goal. “We separated participants into two groups: technical and non-technical. Our idea was the two sides would complement each other to share experiences to build a strong team,” said Azizaj. After the teams were formed, they began brainstorming and working on their projects. Mentors were available to offer support to participants and to introduce them to open source tools to help them prototype their projects.

World of Sounds 🔗

Silva Arapi, one participant, worked with her team on their project
“World of Sounds”. (Justin Wheeler, CC-BY-SA 4.0)

One participant, Silva Arapi, worked with teammates Dritan Sakuta, Hulemita Leka, Kristi Leka, and Klajdi Qehaja to address reduced inequalities. Their team project is called “World of Sounds”.  The application is a resource for parents of children with hearing or speaking disabilities. “World of Sounds is a platform to understand early on to improve education of parents and accessibility for children. This is very helpful for rural parts [of Albania],” Arapi explained.

She has been involved with the Open Labs community for almost a year and a half. It was her first hackathon but she also hadn’t seen an event like this in Albania before. “It was a new experience and something different. We get something done in 48 hours to have a social impact – why not participate?” Arapi balances her time leading the NextCloud efforts in Tirana while working towards her master’s degree in Information Security. She hopes to take part in another event at Open Labs like this again in the future.

Tackling gender equality in Albania 🔗

Another Open Labs community member came with an idea and a friend to try thinking through a specific issue she had seen in her community. Nafie Shehu is an Information Communication Technology student and has been involved with Open Labs for the past seven months. With her, she brought her friend Afrim Kamberi to help, for his first visit to Open Labs and an open source event in Tirana.

Shehu’s selected goal was gender equality combined with an experience of one of her friends. In some rural areas and villages in Albania, women have a more difficult time maintaining their rights. They rarely have financial independence, and as a result, this sometimes leads them to live a life they might not want. Sometimes, women are obligated into a non-consensual marriage and aren’t in a place to defend what they want for themselves. Her friend was in this situation and divorced later, but she didn’t know where to go after and had little resources of her own. Nafie heard about this story and it deeply affected her. She hoped to brainstorm ideas on how to improve this problem.

After research and looking at other solutions, she discovered similar attempts had been started to solve this problems. However, for various reasons, they were ineffective and weren’t thorough solutions to the problems. While this changed her own project development, she finished the hackathon determined to find ways to improve on what was already there and continue this even after the weekend ended.

Closing the hackathon 🔗

Towards the end of Sunday, participants put the last touches onto their projects. The deliverable product was prepared and all participants organized a short presentation to demo their project. “In the end, you get a real product, not just talking. It’s a real product that has an impact,” Progri explained. All of the various teams pitched their projects to the Open Labs community and to representatives from the United Nations.

Anxhelo Lushka helps two participants after midnight to help work
through some problems in their project. (Justin Wheeler, CC-BY-SA 4.0)

In the project presentations, teams were given specific criteria to present in the project.

1. Summary or main idea of the project
2. Sustainability of the project for implementation beyond the weekend
3. Recommendations for funding the project / creating a budget to carry it out
4. Reasons why they would support this if it wasn’t their own project

After the presentations, teams were given the option to send their information and projects to the UNDP via Open Labs. The UNDP will select one project and team to bring to the United Nations office in New York City to propose their project and seek support to develop it further.

That’s a wrap! 🔗

After a closing ceremonies and words of encouragement from Skikuli, the hackathon came to an end. Both participants and organizers felt it ended on a high note. “I love coming to these events to learn new things, meet new people, and they’re cool!” Arapi said. Additionally, the organizers hoped that participants left with valuable knowledge and resources that would go beyond this weekend. “We hope people understand the role open source had in this event and understand why the philosophy is so important,” Qoshi explained. “Some people might think the projects are the main part, but networking with people from different backgrounds goes beyond the event. These connections support sustainability for people working together. We hope these projects continue beyond this event.”

The presence of open source software and its philosophy was present throughout the event. Stickers and swag from various open source projects was available for participants to take. This included stickers from Mozilla, Fedora, LibreOffice, NextCloud, and more. “We hope attendees enjoyed the experience and had fun meeting new people. Later on, when they leave Open Labs and work on their own projects, we hope they will remember open source tools to build their work and create FOSS solutions,” said Azizaj.

What’s next for Open Labs? 🔗

This was a milestone event for the Open Labs community, but they have more on the horizon after the weekend of this event. Organizers, volunteers, and members are putting together the first Linux Weekend in Tirana from 25-26 March. This is a traditional barcamp-like model with talks and workshops by several local and international speakers. However, there are a couple of goals ahead that the team hopes to begin working at.

One of them is a book in time for the hackerspace’s fifth anniversary. The book would be an “open source handbook” in the Albanian language. Not only would it have the history of Open Labs, but it would introduce various open source projects and connect readers to resources so they could have an impact on a project. Additionally, the team is looking at policy in their government as a next step. Qoshi had a great deal to say on this: “It feels like we’re reaching critical mass and gaining momentum to influence local policy in Albania. We want to push for open policies and government, especially with the coming elections in June. This is a great opportunity to let people know our stances on policies. Pushing FOSS only in our space can’t be an insider secret—we need conversations with people coming from different views if we want change.”

You can learn more about the hackerspace online at their website.

Preface 🔗

When I started writing this in January, I read freenode’s “Happy New Year!” announcement. Even though their recollection of the year began as a negative reflection, the freenode team did not fail to find some of the positives of this year as well. The attitude reflected in their blog post is reflective of the attitude of many others today. 2016 has brought more than its share of sadness, fear, and a bleak unknown, but the colors of radiance, happiness, and hope have not faded either. Even though some of us celebrated the end of 2016 and its tragedies, two thoughts stay in my mind.

One, it is fundamentally important for all of us to stay vigilant and aware of what is happening in the world around us. The changing political atmosphere of the world has brought a shroud of unknowing, and the changing of a number does not and will not signify the end of these doubts and fears. 2017 brings its own series of unexpected events. I don’t consider this a negative, but in order for it not to become a negative, we must constantly remain active and aware.

Secondly, despite the more bleak moments of this year, there has never been a more important time to embrace the positives of the past year. For every hardship faced, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Love is all around us and sometimes where we least expect it. Spend extra time this new year remembering the things that brought you happiness in the past year. Hold them close, but share that light of happiness with others too. You might not know how much it’s needed.

First year of university: complete! 🔗

Many things changed since I decided to pack up my life and go to a school a thousand miles away from my hometown. In May, I officially finished my first year at the Rochester Institute of Technology, finishing the full year on dean’s list. Even though it was only a single year, the changes from my decision to make the move are incomparable. Rochester exposed me to amazing, brilliant people. I’m connected to organizations and groups based on my interests like I never imagined. My courses are challenging, but interesting. If there is anything I am appreciative of in 2016, it is for the opportunities that have presented themselves to me in Rochester.

Adventures into FOSS@MAGIC 🔗

My involvement with the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community at RIT has grown exponentially since I began participating in 2015. I took my first course in the FOSS minor, Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software Development in spring 2016. In the following fall 2016 semester, I became the teaching assistant for the course. I helped show our community’s projects at Imagine RIT. I helped carry the RIT FOSS flag in California (more on that later). The FOSS@MAGIC initiative was an influencing factor for my decision to attend RIT and continues to play an impact in my life as a student.

I eagerly look forward to future opportunities for the FOSS projects and initiatives at RIT to grow and expand. Bringing open source into more students’ hands excites me!

I <3 WiC 🔗

With a new schedule, the fall 2016 semester marked the beginning of my active involvement with the Women in Computing (WiC) program at RIT, as part of the Allies committee. Together with other members of the RIT community, we work together to find issues in our community, discuss them and share experiences, and find ways to grow the WiC mission: to promote the success and advancement of women in their academic and professional careers.

Also, hey! If you’re a female high school or university student in the Rochester area (or willing to do some travel), you should seriously check this out!

Google Summer of Code 🔗

Google Summer of Code, abbreviated to GSoC, is an annual program run by Google every year. Google works with open source projects to offer stipends for them to pay students to work on projects over the summer. In a last-minute decision to apply, I was accepted as a contributing student to the Fedora Project. My proposal was to work within the Fedora Infrastructure team to help automate the WordPress platforms with Ansible. My mentor, Patrick Uiterwijk, provided much of the motivation for the proposal and worked with me throughout the summer as I began learning Ansible for the first time. Over the course of the summer, my learned knowledge began to turn into practical experience.

It would be unfair for a reflection to count successes but not failures. GSoC was one of the most challenging and stressful activities I’ve ever participated in. It was a complete learning experience for me. One area I noted that I needed to improve on was communication. My failing point was not regularly communicating what I was working through or stuck on with my mentor and the rest of the Fedora GSoC community. GSoC taught me the value of asking questions often when you’re stuck, especially in an online contribution format.

On the positive side, GSoC helped formally introduce me to Ansible, and to a lesser extent, the value of automation in operations work. My work in GSoC helped enable me to become a sponsored sysadmin of Fedora, where I mostly focus my time contributing to the Badges site. Additionally, my experience in GSoC helped me when interviewing for summer internships (also more on this later).

Google Summer of Code came with many ups and downs. But I made it and passed the program. I’m happy and fortunate to have received this opportunity from the Fedora Project and Google. I learned several valuable lessons that have and will impact going forward into my career. I look forward to participating either as a mentor or organizer for GSoC 2017 with the Fedora Project this year.

Flock 2016 🔗

Towards the end of summer, in the beginning of August, I was accepted as a speaker to the annual Fedora Project contributor conference, Flock. As a speaker, my travel and accommodation were sponsored to the event venue in Kraków, Poland.

Months after Flock, I am still incredibly grateful for receiving the opportunity to attend the conference. I am appreciative and thankful to Red Hat for helping cover my costs to attend, which is something I would never be able to do on my own. Outside of the real work and productivity that happened during the conference, I am happy to have mapped names to faces. I met incredible people from all corners of the world and have made new lifelong friends (who I was fortunate to see again in 2017)! Flock introduced me in-person to the diverse and brilliant community behind the Fedora Project. It is an experience that will stay with me forever.

To read a more in-depth analysis of my time in Poland, you can read my full write-up of Flock 2016.

Maryland (Bitcamp), Massachusetts (HackMIT), California (MINECON) 🔗

2016 provided me the opportunity to explore various parts of my country. Throughout the year, I attended various conferences to represent the Fedora Project, the SpigotMC project, and the RIT open source community.

There are three distinct events that stand out in my memory. For the first time, I visited the University of Maryland for Bitcamp as a Fedora Ambassador. It also provided me an opportunity to see my nation’s capitol for the first time. I also visited Boston for the first time this year as well for HackMIT, MIT’s annual hackathon event. I also participated as a Fedora Ambassador and met brilliant students from around the country (and even the world, with one student I met flying in from India for the weekend).

Lastly, I also took my first journey to the US west coast for MINECON 2016, the annual Minecraft convention. I attended as a staff member of the SpigotMC project and a representative of the open source community at RIT.

All three of these events have their own event reports to go with them. More info and plenty of pictures are in the full reports.

• Going to Bitcamp 2016
• HackMIT meets Fedora
• SpigotMC goes to California for MINECON

Vermont 2016 with Matt 🔗

Some trips happen without prior arrangements and planning. Sometimes, the best memories are made by not saying no. I remember the phone call with one of my closest friends, Matt Coutu, at some point in October. On a sudden whim, we planned my first visit to Vermont to visit him. Some of the things he told me to expect made me excited to explore Vermont! And then in the pre-dawn hours of November 4th, I made the trek out to Vermont to see him.

Instantly when crossing over the state border, I knew this was one of the most beautiful states I ever visited. During the weekend, the two of us did things that I think only the two of us would enjoy. We climbed a snowy mountain to reach an abandoned fire watchtower, where we endured a mini blizzard. We walked through a city without a specific destination in mind, but to go wherever the moment took us.

We visited a quiet dirt road that led to a meditation house and cavern maintained by monks, where we meditated and drank in the experience. I wouldn’t classify the trip has a high-energy or engaging trip, but for me, it was one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve embarked on yet. There are many things that I still hold on to from that weekend for remembering or reflecting back on.

A big shout-out to Matt for always supporting me with everything I do and always being there when we need each other.

Finally seeing NYC with Nolski 🔗

In no short time after the Vermont trip, I purchased tickets for my favorite band, El Ten Eleven, in New York City on November 12th. What turned into a one-day trip to see the band turned into an all-weekend trip to see the band, see New York City, and spend some time catching up with two of my favorite people, Mike Nolan (nolski) and Remy DeCausemaker (decause). During the weekend, I saw the World Trade Center memorial site for the first time, tried some amazing bagels, explored virtual reality in Samsung’s HQ, and got an exclusive inside look at the Giphy office.

This was my third time in New York City, but my first time to explore the city. Another shout-out goes to Mike for letting me crash on his couch and stealing his Sunday to walk through his metaphorical backyard. Hopefully it isn’t my last time to visit the city either!

Finalizing study abroad 🔗

At the end of 2016, I finalized a plan that was more than a year in the making. I applied and was accepted to study abroad at the Rochester Institute of Technology campus in Dubrovnik, Croatia. RIT has a few satellite campuses across the world: two in Croatia (Zagreb and Dubrovnik) and one in Dubai, UAE. In addition to being accepted, the university provided me a grant to further my education abroad. I am fortunate to have received this opportunity and can’t wait to spend the next few months of my life in Croatia. I am currently studying in Dubrovnik since January until the end of May.

During my time here, I will be taking 12 credit hours of courses. I am taking ISTE-230 (Introduction to Database and Data Modeling), ENGL-361 (Technical Writing), ENVS-150 (Ecology of the Dalmatian Coast), and lastly, FOOD-161 (Wines of the World). The last one was a fun one that I took for myself to try broadening my experiences while abroad.

Additionally, one of my personal goals for 2017 is to practice my photography skills. During my time abroad, I have created a gallery on 500px where I upload my top photos from every week. I welcome feedback and opinions about my pictures, and if you have criticism for how I can improve, I’d love to hear about it!

Accepting my first co-op 🔗

The last big break that I had in 2016 was accepting my first co-op position. Starting in June, I will be a Production Engineering Intern at Jump Trading, LLC. I started interviewing with Jump Trading in October and even had an on-site interview that brought me to their headquarters in Chicago at the beginning of December. After meeting the people and understanding the culture of the company, I am happy to accept a place at the team. I look forward to learning from some of the best in the industry and hope to contribute to some of the fascinating projects going on there.

From June until late August, I will be starting full-time at their Chicago office. If you are in the area or ever want to say hello, let me know and I’d be happy to grab coffee, once I figure out where all the best coffee shops in Chicago are!

In summary 🔗

2015 felt like a difficult year to follow, but 2016 exceeded my expectations. I acknowledge and I’m grateful for the opportunities this year presented to me. Most importantly, I am thankful for the people who have touched my life in a unique way. I met many new people and strengthened my friendships and bonds with many old faces too. All of the great things from the past year would not be possible without the influence, mentorship, guidance, friendship, and comradery these people have given me. My mission is to always pay it forward to others in any way that I can, so that others are able to experience the same opportunities (or better).

2017 is starting off hot and moving quickly, so I hope I can keep up! I can’t wait to see what this year brings and hope that I have the chance to meet more amazing people, and also meet many of my old friends again, wherever that may be.

Keep the FOSS flag high.

On Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, the FOSS@MAGIC at the MAGIC Center at RIT held the annual Election Night Hackathon. Over 140 students from across campus and across departments gathered together to work on a range of civic projects as the election night results came in. This year’s hackathon was the sixth in a long-standing tradition of civic duty and open source collaboration.

Starting the Election Night Hackathon 🔗

For this year’s event, registration was a ticketed event because of the overwhelming interest in the election. At 5:00pm, the sign-in table popped up in front of the Student Innovation Hall, where the hackathon would take place. Students began lining up to receive their wristband for admission, food, and open source swag.

The space quickly became filled over the next hour as people began settling in for the night to work on projects (or maybe homework). On all sides were a range of projector screens with a range of sources for election night coverage. There would not be a lack of information through the night. In addition to the federal election, local and state elections throughout New York were also included on the projectors.

The Election Night Hackathon had no shortage of goodies provided by numerous open source organizations, companies, and supporters. The “swag table” featured plenty of stickers for people to add to their laptops or other devices. The Fedora Project, GitHub, Red Hat, the MAGIC Center, and more were available for attendees to pick their favorites out.

Projects 🔗

At the peak of the event, nearly 140 students, faculty, staff, and local citizens filled the MAGIC Center and overflow work spaces. Dan Schneiderman, the event coordinator and FOSS@MAGIC Research Associate and Community Liaison, led the event on a high note with a brief kick-off ceremony. Hackers were provided with a list of resources for building applications related to civic hacking. Shortly after the start, attendees began talking with one another to discuss project ideas or other topics to work on throughout the night. Professors and alumni provided mentorship, advice, and help for students planning projects.

Tyler Reimold worked on creating an open source server for real-time election updates in a Reddit thread. His Python-based project used the Huffington Post and Reddit APIs to build the application.

Adjunct professor at Monroe Community College  David M. Shein gathered a small group of hackers to build a website. The website, thankyousuffragists.org, honors and maps the graves of women around the country who campaigned for the right to vote. The early stage site allows people to add the locations of graves around the country to a map. “I personally loved how a number of our attendees were inspired by the crowds that stopped by Susan B. Anthony’s grave in Rochester, which then led to a project focused on honoring her work,” Schneiderman said.

Additionally, another project was the 2016 Election Viewer by Mark Repka. His Node-powered application delivered a state-by-state breakdown of election results throughout the night. Attendees were encouraged to check it out and provide feedback as he built the site to provide accurate coverage during the heat of the election coverage. You can view Mark’s application on his website, browse its own API, or find the source code on GitHub (MIT License).

Many other students worked on smaller projects or collaborated with professors on other ideas. Dr. Vullo at RIT opened a call for students to help him with a virtual reality idea powered by AFrame. Most of the projects and work from the evening was published on GitHub in the spirit of contributing civic hacking projects to the open source ecosystem.

And the winner is… 🔗

After seven hours of hacking and nail-biting, the election results were mostly called by midnight. With a short conclusion speech by Schneiderman, the hackathon began closing down in time for the next day of classes. “[My favorite part was] the collaborations and the mixing of students from majors that don’t usually get to work alongside each other. Attendance was a mix of computer science, marketing, political science, engineering, history, and visual arts,” Schneiderman said. Special thanks for the event go to the MAGIC Center at RIT for providing space and resources for the event. Additional thanks go to Red Hat for supporting the FOSS@MAGIC initiative so these events are made possible. You can find the full photo album from the event on 500px.

November 8th is a day that will stand in memory for a long time, and the Election Night Hackathon is a great opportunity for students to engage in discussion and collaboration with others in the community to identify issues in the civic area and try to build open source solutions to those problems. We’re looking forward to continuing the tradition next year for the next round of local, state, and federal elections.

https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/hackmit-meets-fedora/

HackMIT is the annual hackathon event organized by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. HackMIT 2016 took place on September 17th and 18th, 2016. This year, the Fedora Project partnered with Red Hat as sponsors for the hackathon. Fedora Ambassadors Charles Profitt and Justin Wheeler attended to represent the project and help mentor top students from around the country in a weekend of learning and competitive hacking. Fedora engaged with a new audience of students from various universities across America and even the globe.

Arriving at HackMIT 🔗

The Fedora team arrived in Massachusetts a day early on Friday to ensure prompt arrival at the event the following morning. Fedora was one of the first sponsors to arrive on MIT’s campus Saturday morning, and scouted one of the best positions on the floor. Fedora was given a choice of anywhere in the bleachers surrounding the floor. As a result, the team set up Fedora’s banners close to many of the tables where hackers would spend the weekend.

On the morning of the first day, over a thousand students arrived on the MIT campus. Around 10:00am, the kickoff ceremony began in the main auditorium. The event staff introduced themselves and the structure of the event. After covering the basics, every sponsor was given a 30 second “elevator pitch” to explain their company or project, and share anything important with the hackers. Justin represented Fedora and Red Hat on stage to introduce Fedora and what Fedora wanted to help students with. He introduced Fedora as a distribution targeted towards developers, briefly introduced the three editions of Fedora, and offered help for anyone wanting to open source their hack or seek support with open source tooling.

May the hacking begin! 🔗

After the sponsor introductions, hackers relocated to the main floor to start seeking teams and begin working on projects. While HackMIT was getting into full swing, many people visited the Fedora area before jumping into a project. Many of the students who talked with Charles and Justin were either surprised to see Fedora at an event like HackMIT or were curious to know what was going on in Fedora. For the most part, many students were familiar with Linux through classes or lectures. The ones familiar with Linux knew about it from hands-on experience or from guided instruction in classes. A smaller number of people were running Linux environments or using them in servers or other ways.

Overall, the demographic of people attending the hackathon were generally familiar with Linux, but not at an advanced level. This group was ideal for promoting Fedora as a developer environment. The ease of setting up a development workspace or installing dependencies for projects intrigued many students. HackMIT was an ideal opportunity to present Fedora to a new group of budding technological enthusiasts. HackMIT participants had an organic interest in Fedora and wanted to know how Fedora made development easier or what made it different from other distributions.

Personal engagement 🔗

During the event, Charles walked around the various tables to talk with students while Justin manned the Fedora area. Charles introduced himself to the hackers and asked to know what they were working on or what their plans were. For many teams, he provided advice on how to get over hurdles with first planning and project direction. He checked back in with these groups across the weekend to see how they progressed.

At the Fedora space, Justin fielded questions from students about Linux, what Fedora offers, and about open source software. Some people were familiar with Fedora, and a small handful of students were running Fedora as a primary operating system. However, most students were only familiar with Linux and were curious to know more. As a student, Justin offered specific advice about contributing to open source software and how helpful it is to gain real-world experience. Some students expressed interest in contributing but were unsure about where to start. Justin coached students through key steps to start with on beginning their open source adventure. He identified the process of choosing a project to contribute to, matching something genuinely interesting with technical skills, and getting involved with the community.

Additionally, there were two students organizing other hackathons in the country with a specific focus towards open source software development. The Ambassadors engaged with these students and joined in a dialogue about making open source a critical part of hackathons. More information about these events will become available in the coming future.

Evaluating impact 🔗

To help gauge our impact with the event, there was a limited edition HackMIT 2016 Attendee badge that attendees could claim during the event. The team leveraged Fedora Badges as a tool to help tell the story of our impact at the event. Through Badges, you can see a list of FAS accounts that claimed the badge from the event and their account activity in the long run. Bee Padalkar’s FOSDEM event evaluation demonstrates how this data can be used. Ten people claimed the badge during the weekend. One of the benefits of using badges as a tool for measuring impact and engagement is the follow-up it allows us to make with what badge claimers do in the Fedora community.

However, there were more ways to measure engagement with the students and hackers than only with badges. Many of the most valuable insight into our impact was follow-up on the second morning. Charles went around to most of the tables he visited on the first day leading up to the final deadline. With one team, he helped do some live testing in the last 30 minutes before the deadline since her team was asleep from the previous night. Engagements like these left a positive impression of Fedora, and by extension, the community.

What was our engagement? 🔗

The type of interactions and conversations Fedora held with students and other attendees was productive and motivating, not only to the students but also to the Ambassador team. People were genuinely interested in Fedora and it was easier to shape their interest into an insightful discussion about what Fedora enables students to create and develop. A powerful message about open source software development was also delivered during the event. This stands in contrast to some other hackathons in the United States which are sometimes set up more like unofficial career fairs. HackMIT clearly held a strong focus on community. Events with that kind of management and direction are where Fedora succeeds and has a more valuable impact.

Leaving the event, the Fedora team was confident that we had a powerful impact on students during the event. For many, Fedora was not only introduced as an operating system, but as a tool for accomplishing and doing. Fedora provides the tools and utilities students need to build their projects and drive them forward. Open source as a development practice was also introduced to many for the first time, or deeper explained for those with a mild interest. These messages and the team’s other engagements were warmly received.

Looking ahead 🔗

The Fedora Ambassadors of North America would like to make a special thanks to Red Hat and Tom Callaway for partnering to sponsor this event. Without Red Hat’s help, attending this event would not have been possible. Our engagement and impact after HackMIT excites the Ambassador team. We hope many students from the event turn to Fedora not only as an operating system, but as a tool for their expanding technological toolbox. A congratulations also goes to the organizers of HackMIT for putting together a thoroughly planned and carefully executed event that placed a strong focus on community, which fits within one of Fedora’s four key foundations, Friends.

We hope to return to Cambridge again next year!

You can read Charles Profitt’s event report on his blog.

So why am I writing about WiCHacks? I signed up as a volunteer for the event this year. I would help with the setup, running the event, and packing it up. During my experience as a volunteer, I met some other awesome people, saw some really cool projects, and discovered an inviting and inclusive community on campus.

Opening the doors for WiCHacks 🔗

I was scheduled for the Saturday morning shift (8:00am - 1:30pm) and the Sunday morning shift (11:00am - 5:00pm). When I arrived on Saturday morning, the prep work was just beginning. The WiC team had breakfast pizza for all the volunteers, which was surprisingly delicious!

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, I began helping with setting up sponsor tables, moving equipment and tables around, and other miscellaneous tasks to prepare for the first influx of people, scheduled to arrive around 10:00am. After two hours of setting up, the hackers began streaming into the Golisano building and filling the atrium. As more and more people began to roll in, it was awesome to see how diverse and culturally unique the room was. There were people of all races, from all over the country and even the world, that had come here to join other women hackers in a weekend of creativity and fun. With such a wide palette of culture and ideas, I was anticipating to see some awesome creations in my time volunteering.

WiCHacks begins 🔗

After an opening keynote by the WiCHacks committee leader Susan Heilman kicking off the hackathon, the hackers were served a quick lunch before jumping into brainstorming and programming.

For those who had never programmed before, there was a special Newbie Track that aimed to help teach some of the basics. It helped give girls who didn’t know anything about programming a booster to also create something during the weekend.

GO HACKERS GO! There are 117 people listed as apart of teams already make sure you register your team #wichacks #soundoff

— WiCHacks @ RIT (@wichacks) February 27, 2016

After lunch, the hacking began! Teams could go into a room and have access to whiteboards, plenty of chairs, and outlets to charge devices. If needed, Major League Hacking also had a hardware lab where people could rent out laptops and other accessories during WiCHacks.

Accidentally discovering something awesome 🔗

After my volunteering shift ended, I had a homework assignment for one of my classes due at midnight. I had made plans many months ago after 7:00pm that night, so I had to work on the assignment that day to submit in time. I went up to an empty IST department lab, fired up my laptop, and began working. Suddenly, a team of five girls walked into the lab and began setting up close to the whiteboard near me.

I was curious after a while to hear what they were working on. I kept hearing the words “open source” and “FOSS” dropping, and it pulled my attention in. I learned that their idea was to make a social platform to help make it easier for girls to get involved with open source software. The plan was to collect an inventory of open source projects that need help and connect interested girls with project mentors to guide them in contributing.

There was overlap with some ideas I’ve had while working with the Fedora CommOps team towards boosting #WomenInComputing in Fedora’s community. I was anticipating hearing out their idea and seeing what they would come up with!

Their project would be known as OpenCircle. After 6:45pm rolled around, I started packing up my gear to head out for the evening. The OpenCircle team was busy hacking away on laptops or making slight alterations to the whiteboard mock designs they had drawn. It was clear that the creativity and motivation were running high when I left.

I was envious that I wasn’t there for the rest of the evening. Later on that night, Insomnia Cookies delivered to the hackathon. There was also a spontaneous dance party in the atrium of Golisano. Next year, I’ll have to make sure I’m able to stay for the entire night!

What's better than an impromptu dance party at @wichacks? @RITWIC #wichacks16 pic.twitter.com/NvvTZC4scO

— Major League Hacking (MLH) (@MLHacks) February 28, 2016

Closing out WiCHacks 2016

After a final push by hackers throughout the night, hacking ended at 12:00pm the next day. After a lunch break, the hackers returned to the auditorium in time  to present their projects. Before the deadline, all the teams added their projects to the WiCHacks DevPost. You can also find the list of projects submitted over the weekend there.

After helping with some other closing work, I wanted to listen to some of the presentations given by the teams. Some people designed some really cool apps, like Pink Planet, Resumatch (a play on Tinder but with resumes), and the ever creative Loocator.

However, the OpenCircle team was the presentation I was looking forward to the most. While they noted that they hadn’t had the time to demo it as completely as they wanted, the idea behind their product was there and it was pretty solid as a prototype.

After the weekend was over, I submitted a simple pull request and filed two issues against the project. I’m anticipating any future development the OpenCircle team collaborates on and seeing where their idea goes!

WiCHacks 2016: In retrospect 🔗

I was slightly nervous when registering as a WiCHacks volunteer as I had no idea what to expect or the type of community that it would attract. However, after spending time with the volunteers, hackers, organizers, and mentors, it was clear that the environment was inclusive, welcoming, and receptive to all people.

WiCHacks is a well-organized, powerfully motivating event and something more and more people should look into checking out on the RIT campus each year. WiCHacks empowers women interested in computer science to do something awesome in the presence of people who want to see you succeed. The mentorship and leadership at WiCHacks definitely supports this.

Great job to the WiC team for organizing this, and I look forward to participating as a volunteer again next year!