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.

Bitcamp is a place for exploration. You will have 36 hours to delve into your curiosities, learn something new, and make something awesome. With world-class mentors and hundreds of fellow campers, you’re in for an amazing time. If you’re ready for an adventure, see you by the fire!

The Fedora Project attended as an event sponsor this year. At the event, we held a table in the hacker arena. The Ambassadors offered mentorship and help to Bitcamp 2016 programmers, gave away some free Fedora swag, and offered an introduction to Linux, open source, and our community. This report recollects some highlights from the event.

Getting to Bitcamp 2016 🔗

I left Rochester, New York around 4:00pm after my classes for the day had finished. Bitcamp check-in started at 7:00pm on Friday, April 8th. It was about a six hour drive for me to get there, and I got to Maryland right around 9:30pm.

Once I arrived, walking in was a crazy experience. Tables upon tables of hackers were lined up bu the hundreds. Most were already working on brainstorming. I meandered my way through the crowds to the Fedora table where Corey Sheldon, Mike DePaulo, and Chaoyi Zha were set up.

Meeting the hackers 🔗

Many other students came up to the table before the hackathon officially began. We interacted with several students and helped establish ourselves as mentors as well. Additionally, we also had a badge that attendees could scan to get added to their FAS account!

Once the event officially began, teams of people began working on their projects. Many people had grand ideas of projects to cram into the one weekend. For a brief time, the Ambassadors had a chance to rest from answering questions and helping people with their own hardware.

The hackers began settling into a groove for the evening.

Spending the night 🔗

As the day turned into night, the home stretch of the hackathon was beginning. Those with firm ideas were deeply focused on their projects. Others were taking their plans back to the drawing board to overcome unexpected difficulties. Things began settling down for the night. The same cycle repeated itself for both Friday and Saturday nights.

Around this time, we had waves of interested hackers in Fedora, open source software, and Linux approach the table. This time was great for personalized, one-on-one conversations with visitors. Many excellent connections happened during this time!

Mentoring 🔗

During Bitcamp, there were several opportunities and connections made between Fedora Ambassadors and university students.

For most of one night, Corey worked with one student who was aiming to do a full dual-boot installation on his laptop with Windows 10 UEFI. For a mixed variety of issues, he was unable to get Fedora working properly on his system. With the help of Corey, he was able to install and use Fedora on his laptop. He was very excited to finally get it working and was hoping to use it for development work in both classwork and personal projects. He was also a repeat visitor from BrickHack and remembered some of the booth members from the last hackathon.

Chaoyi traveled around the hacker space and worked with students looking to get help on web development projects. Chaoyi was able to give advice and help for students working with HTML, JavaScript / NodeJS, and Python. He traveled around the room for most of both nights teaching and showing students how to work on their projects and promoting the benefits of doing their work open source.

Mike also helped several students at Bitcamp, and like at BrickHack, his triple-booted MacBook with OS X, Windows, and Fedora was a popular item. Students with Macs often came and asked him about his setup and how he got it working. Mike was also able to help answer questions about developing in Fedora and share his experience working with tools available in Fedora for working on his projects for work and for fun.

Many students were looking for help with how to better get experience working on software for their future careers. As a student familiar with open source, I enjoyed talking to these students about how open source was a great resource for them. I explained how open source is a great way to get real world experience without working an “official” job, showed how they could make an impact on the world and start doing things, and why we do open source. It was gratifying the see these students get something out of our discussions and build something awesome in the open by the end of hackathon.

Overall, I feel like the Fedora Project’s impact was notable and concentrated at the event. I am extremely thankful and fortunate to have been sponsored to attend Bitcamp as an Ambassador for the Fedora Project.