Open Source Track

The Open Source Track is designed to provide a variety of offerings involving Open Source and for different audiences, culminating at the end of day with a Codeathon for Humanity session. Sessions include an introduction to and discussion of the career and economic opportunities of Open Source Software to a panel discussing Open Source in humanitarian and philanthropic causes. A panel will provide practical advice and information on getting started in Open Source Development and the day will end with the opportunity to participate in a Codeathon for Humanity with the Sahana project.

This track is intended for anyone interested in Open Source Software. There are sessions available to all levels – anyone new to or unfamiliar with Open Source Software to women who might like to contribute to a FOSS community-developed project.

Through the efforts of a number of experts from the Open Source community and sponsorship by NSA, this track is possible. Special thanks to the speakers, the Sahana Software Foundation, and in particular the Open Source Committee.

The Open Source Track sessions on Thursday, September 30th are:

Session One: An Introduction to Community-Developed and Open Source Software

Thursday, September 30th. 10:00-11:00 am – Room: Regency Ballroom V

Session Description:
Are you scared to publish your code to the public? Wondering what it really means to be involved in a community-developed software project? This session gives an overview of the community-driven software model and how to approach open source software.

Moderator: Natalia Vinnik, Yahoo! Inc.

Presenters:
Sara Ford, Microsoft, CodePlex
Olga Natkovich, Yahoo! Inc., Apache/Hadoop
Stormy Peters, GNOME Foundation, Executive Director

Session Details:
Industry leaders in the Open Source Community bring their passion and expertise to excite women about the possibilities of Community Developed and Open Source Software. In this session, we will break down the stigmas of Open Source Software by sharing personal and professional experience getting started with Open Source Projects.

New comers to open source software projects often have the most basic of questions about how things get done, and without someone sitting at the desk next to you to ask, it’s often hard to find answers. Stormy Peters will open the conversation with a speaking about the open source software model and how things get done in open source. Additionally, she will discuss the role of Community Manager that developed from the Open Source movement. Come discuss the questions that come up like:

  • How do I propose a new idea? People liked it, now what?
  • How do I report a problem?
  • When should I email an individual versus the mailing list? Is it ok to email them or IM them directly?
  • Who’s on this mailing list anyway?
  • How come everyone seems to know something I don’t? (Hint: IRC)
  • How do I figure out who’s who, with email addresses, IRC nics and real name – how do you keep them all straight?

Sara Ford continues this discussion by breaking down some of the technical barriers related to Open Source Development. Sara discusses her experience getting started in Open Source Software development. She discusses some of the tools available and how to navigate and learn the tools used on a specific project.

Olga deepens the discussion by providing her personal experiences working on Apache Hadoop. She brings her experience for the women to learn from and understand the challenges she faced on this project.

Bios :
Sara Ford is a Developer Evangelist in California, after spending many years as the program manager for CodePlex, Microsoft’s open source project hosting site. Prior to CodePlex, she worked on the Visual Studio team for six years, where she ran the Visual Studio Tip of the Day on her blog. Her life-long goal is to become a 97 year-old weightlifter, so she can be featured on the local news.

Olga Natkovich leads Pig development team at Yahoo. She has over 10 years of development experience building large distributed systems and holds several patents in this area. She has Master Degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Stormy Peters educates companies and communities on how open source software is changing the software industry and how they can best use, interact and participate with open source software projects and companies using open source software. Stormy Peters is currently serving as Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. She also is an advisor for HFOSS, OpenSource World, IntraHealth Open and Open Source for America, as well as founder and president of Kids on Computers, a nonprofit organization setting up computer labs in developing countries.

Natalia VinnikNatalia Vinnik is a Lead Software Developer at Yahoo! Inc in the Cornerstone Team, a team that develops cross-platform internal infrastructure applications and frameworks to provide efficient product development. She is also actively involved with Yahoo! Women in Tech charter in Southern California. Being a Networking & Outreach officer, she organizes events for inspiring and supporting women in Yahoo! as well as events for the next generation of technical women. She received her BS in EECS from UC Berkeley and her MS in CS from UCLA.

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Session Two: Career and Economic Opportunity in Open Source Software
Thursday, September 30th. 11:15am -12:15pm – Room: Regency Ballroom V

Session Description:
Career and Economic Opportunities in Free & Open Source Software

Moderator: Cat Allman, Program Manager, Google

Presenters:
Jenny Han Donnelly, Senior Engineer, Yahoo! Inc.
Margo Seltzer, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University
Sarah Sharp, Linux Kernel Hacker, Intel

Session Details: Some people think that all work on free and open source projects is done purely as a charitable donation, to solve a challenge or “scratch an itch,” or to support a cause. These people are not entirely correct. These *are* common and good reasons to be involved in FOSS, but they are not the whole story. You can get a job, make money, advance in your existing career, and build a start-up – all through working in FOSS development.

This panel brings together women working in settings including industry, non-profits, and academia to discuss some of the ways FOSS work can benefit one’s career. Topics to be covered include:

  • The economic value of FOSS experience
  • Debunking the myths
  • More than code; alternative ways to participate
  • Corporate careers in FOSS
  • Entrepreneurial and consulting opportunities
  • Working for non-profits & NGOs, foundations, and humanitarian groups

Bio:
Cat Allman is a Program Manager for Google’s Open Source Programs Office, working on programs & events that support the Open Source community at large. From her first experience with Decus in the 1980s while working for Mt Xinu, and later at Sendmail, Inc, the USENIX Association, and Google, Cat has loved bring together geeks to talk tech and get things done as cheaply as makes sense. She has also worked as a Systems Administrator, IT Manager, and in marketing and sales.

Jenny Han DonnellyJenny Han Donnelly is a Senior Engineer on the YUI team at Yahoo! Inc.. As a component author for the popular open-source library, she focuses on making her products usable for end-users and developers alike. Additionally, she enjoys teaching YUI to developers all over the world, editing the YUI blog, and organizing the annual YUIConf developer summit.

Margo SeltzerMargo Seltzer is the Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and a Harvard College Professor in the Harvard’s Schooll of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She received an A.B. degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard/Radcliffe College in 1983 and a Ph. D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1992. She is the author of several widely-used software packages including database and transaction libraries and the 4.4BSD log-structured file system. Dr. Seltzer was a founder and CTO of Sleepycat Software, the makers of Berkeley DB and is now an Architect for Oracle Corporation. Before pursuing an academic career, professor Seltzer spent several years working at startup companies designing and implementing file systems and transaction processing software and designing microprocessors. She is a Sloan Foundation Fellow in Computer Science, a Bunting Fellow, and was the recipient of the 1996 Radcliffe Junior Faculty Fellowship, and the University of California Microelectronics Scholarship. She is recognized as an outstanding teacher and won the Phi Beta Kappa teaching award in 1996 and the Abrahmson Teaching Award in 1999.

Sarah SharpSarah Sharp is a Linux Kernel hacker at Intel’s Open Source Technology Center. In her spare time, she volunteers for the Portland State Aerospace Society, an open source/open hardware group that builds amateur rockets. Sarah is also a member of Portland’s Code ’N Splode group.
Sarah has used git in many projects for two years: her wedding wiki, blog, Linux kernel projects, and keeping track of her home directory.

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Session Three: Creating Mobile Phone Applications and Motivating Females in CS with Google’s App Inventor for Android (Working Lunch)
Thursday, September 30th. 12:30pm -1:30pm – Room: Learning Center

Session Description:
Google App Inventor for Android (AIA) is a visual programming environment for creating mobile phone applications, designed with the goal of making Computer Science attractive to students not motivated by existing offerings. Attendees will get hands-on experience with AIA, led by presenters who are developers of AIA and have successfully taught it to girls and college women, enabling attendees to evaluate the use of AIA in their own outreach.

Moderator: Ellen Spertus, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Mills College

Presenters:
Jill Dimond, PhD Student, Georgia Institute of Technology
Sharon Perl, Staff Software Engineer, Google

Session Details: Google App Inventor for Android (AIA) is a visual programming environment for creating mobile phone applications, designed with the goal of making Computer Science attractive to students not motivated by existing offerings, including girls and women. Specifically, AIA is relevant to students by running on mobile phones and supporting social computing, and it has been successfully used at women’s colleges (Mills and Wellesley) and in workshops with groups of girls. The objective of this workshop is to give attendees hands-on experience with AIA to (1) help them evaluate whether they would like to use AIA in their formal or informal teaching, (2) teach them how to use AIA well enough that they can continue learning on their own, and (3) enable them to learn from AIA in designing their own programming environments, just as the AIA designers were influenced by Alice, Scratch, and StarLogo TNG.

Targeted Audience:
Our target audience consists of (1) introductory CS faculty at middle schools, high schools, and colleges, (2) people interested in leading workshops for girls, and (3) visual programming environment researchers. No special knowledge or experience is needed. We would limit attendance to 30. Attendees would have to bring their own laptop computers with wireless access, a recent browser, and the Java Runtime Environment.

Format:
The format is based on one used at a popular SIGCSE 2010 workshop: an interleaving of presentation with hands-on audience participation, semi-independent work by attendees, and discussion.

Overview of information to be presented:

  • How to use AIA
  • How to learn more AIA, with the goal of being able to teach it
  • Examples of applications that are appealing to girls and women
  • Depending on time and audience interest, examples of applications created by teams of girls and women

Bios :

Ellen SpertusEllen Spertus is an associate professor of computer science at Mills College, where she has taught a class “Technology for a Better World” using AIA, and a senior research scientist at Google, where she helped develop AIA. She has been an advocate for girls and women in computer science for the past 20 years, including writing reports, leading workshops, organizing or appearing on panels, being an invited or keynote speaker, and teaching at a women’s college, where she has led a reentry program for women in computer science. She has presented at two prior Grace Hopper Celebrations. She received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in CS from MIT.

Jill DimondJill Dimond is a Human Centered Computing PhD student at Georgia Tech working with Amy Bruckman. Her research examines intimate partner violence, sexual harassment, and how technology is intertwined with these experiences—both to exacerbate and to combat violence. She interned last summer with the Google App Inventor for Android team where she worked on the user interface and twitter component. She is an Anita Borg Google Scholar and a NSF graduate student fellow, and she holds a BSE in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

Sharon PerlSharon Perl is a staff software engineer at Google, where she has worked since 2001, most recently as a developer of AIA. She has spearheaded activities for female computer scientists within and beyond Google. She received a bachelor’s degree in CS from The University of Pennsylvania and master’s and doctoral degrees in CS from MIT.

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Session Four: Open Source for Good
Thursday, September 30th. 3:00pm-4:00pm – Room: Regency Ballroom V

Session Description:
Are you interested in community service? Are you wondering how Open Source can be used as a tool for good? This session is in a panel format and will concentrate on how Open Source has been successfully used to aid in global relief efforts.

Moderator: Avni Khatri, Senior Front-end Engineer, Yahoo! Inc.

Presenters:
Alice Bonhomme-Biais, Senior Software Engineer, Google
Heidi Ellis, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Western New England College
Jamie Lockwood, Academic Relations Manager, Yahoo! Labs
Louiqa Raschid, Professor, University of Maryland

Session Details: Community based organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have utilized Open Source development as a means of creating applications for disaster relief and humanitarian efforts. This session gives an overview of how community-based organizations have collaborated with academia and the private sector to develop applications for humanitarian purposes.
Panelists from various organizations will share their experiences with developing Open Source collaboration applications that have been used to manage disaster relief efforts in countries like Haiti and Sri Lanka. Panelists will present technical and non-technical viewpoints on how to get involved in humanitarian Open Source efforts. Come discuss questions like:

  • Lessons learned from collaboration experiences.
  • What was your motivation to get involved in developing applications for humanitarian efforts?
  • What was the most challenging step in developing applications for humanitarian relief efforts?
  • What are the difficulties faced in working with governmental entities?

The audience will have an opportunity to ask question and share their experiences.

Bios:
Alice Bonhomme-BiaisAlice Bonhomme-Biais is a Senior Software Engineer at Google. After working on Google Maps for a couple of years, she joined the Google Crisis Response Team in 2010 and participated in the Person Finder project developed for the Haiti Earthquake, now an open source project. In June 2010, she took part in the 2nd Random Hacks Of Kindness (RHoK). Alice received her master and doctorate degrees in CS from ENS Lyon, France.

Heidi EllisHeidi Ellis is one of the founding members of the Humanitarian FOSS (HFOSS) project which focuses on involving students in OSS projects that improve the human condition. Heidi is PI on the NSF project “SoftHum: Student Participation in the Community of Open Source Software for Humanity,” which develops course materials that support student involvement in HFOSS projects. She is also co-PI on the NSF project “HumIT: Exploring a Student IT Practicum Supporting Open Source Software for Humanity.” Heidi has been active in computing education for the past 15 years and has multiple publications related to involving students in HFOSS projects.

Avni KhatriAvni Khatri is a Senior Front-end Engineer at Yahoo! Inc. on the Flex Force Tiger Team, a team deployed to work on the company’s highest priority projects. She is also president of the Southern California chapter of Yahoo! Women in Tech. Before coming to Yahoo!, she worked as a software engineer and project manager at UCLA, building database-backed medical applications for clinical care and research. In her free time, she contributes to the OpenACS open source web application toolkit and the .LRN educational free software project, and she plays guitar.

Jamie LockwoodJamie Lockwood is an Academic Relations Manager at Yahoo! Labs and works with the scientists, engineers and universities to develop mutually beneficial programs. She manages University Hack events, Key Scientific Challenges and Technology for Good programs along with various other global curriculum development initiatives. Currently she is working on a socially motivated developer program designed to stimulate and support thinking about how to better utilize information and open technology to address the major social, economic and environmental challenges that we face in the world today.

Louiqa RaschidLouiqa Raschid is a professor at the University of Maryland. Her research has made significant contributions towards solving the challenges of data management, data integration, and performance for applications in the life sciences, Web data delivery, health information systems, humanitarian IT applications, financial information systems and Grid computing. She is member of the Board of Directors (and Founding Chair) of the Sahana Software Foundation.

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Session Five: Getting Started in Free and Open Source Software
Thursday, September 30th. 4:15- 5:15pm– Room: Regency Ballroom V

Session Description:
Are you interested in contributing to a Free or Open Source software project, but you’re not sure how to get started? Wondering about some of the social aspects of participating in the community, as well as the technical details? During this panel discussion, key contributors to several Free and Open Source Software projects will discuss tips for successfully engaging with the project of your choice. Panelists will share their own experiences getting started in Free and Open Source development. They will also share best practices with audience members, helping newcomers understand the basics of contributing to Open Source so their initial foray is most effective.

Moderator:
Leslie Hawthorn

Presenters:
Selena Decklemann, Database Architect, Emma
Greg Hislop, Associate Professor, College of Information Science and Technology – Drexel University
Deborah Nicholson, Membership Coordinator, Free Software Foundation
Terri Oda, PhD Student, Carleton University & Computer Security Consultant
Pinar Yanardag, Perceptual Intelligence Lab (PiLab) at Bogazici University

Bios:
Leslie HawthornLeslie Hawthorn has more than 10 years experience in high tech project management, marketing and public relations. She currently works as a consultant specializing in business development and marketing for early stage startups. Leslie previously worked as a Program Manager for Google’s Open Source Programs Office, where she was responsible for the company’s FOSS outreach efforts, most notably the Google Summer of Code program and Google Highly Open Participation contest. You can follow her adventures on identi.ca (@lh) or Twitter (@lhawthorn).

Selena DecklemannSelena Decklemann has 10 years of experience as an information technology specialist in high tech, government, and manufacturing. She has 8 years of experience with Perl development, and she’s worked as a network engineer, systems administrator, software developer and IT manager. Selena works for Emma and is an enthusiastic open source advocate and PostgreSQL specialist. She is Founder and Co-Chair of Open Source Bridge, a conference for open source citizens. In her spare time, she likes to mix drinks for her local Perl and Postgres user groups, and fetch eggs from her chickens (when she has them).

Greg HislopGreg Hislop is PI on the NSF project “HumIT: Exploring a Student IT Practicum Supporting Open Source Software for Humanity” which focuses on developing ways to have students participate as providers of IT support services for users of FOSS. Greg is also co-PI on the NSF project “SoftHum: Student Participation in the Community of Open Source Software for Humanity.” Greg has broad experience in curricula development and has played a central role in development of degree programs in Software Engineering, Information Systems, and Information Technology. Prior to coming to Drexel, Dr. Hislop spent eighteen years working in government and industry.

Deb NicholsonDeborah Nicholson Deborah Nicholson is one of the primary movers behind the Women’s Caucus, an initiative to increase recruitment and retention of women in the free software community. She has been working on equality, transparency and social justice issues for more than 15 years. When she isn’t working on her computer science homework, she likes to support Boston artists and teach girls that they rock.

Terri OdaTerri Oda is a web security researcher working on her PhD in computer security at Carleton University in Canada. She makes up a significant fraction of the GNU Mailman steering committee and volunteers as an open source developer, writer, teacher, amateur photographer and occasionally even a system administrator for various other organizations, yet somehow still finds time to play games with friends and bake cookies.

Pinar YanardagPinar Yanardag is a 24 year old computer scientist from Istanbul, Turkey. She has been involved with Free Software since 2003. Pinar is currently at the Perceptual Intelligence Lab (PiLab) at Bogazici University and working on her master’s thesis.

Before devoting herself to the field of machine learning, she worked for TUBITAK UEKAE (The National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology) as a Security Team Leader and as a Python/QT developer for Pardus GNU/Linux distribution. She has regularly mentored for Pardus as part of the Google Summer of Code program.

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Session Six: Open Source Codeathon for Humanity
Thursday, September 30th. 5:15-7:00pm – Room: International Ballroom

Session Description:
As a culmination to the Grace Hopper Conference Open Source Track, come participate in a Codeathon for Humanity with the Sahana project. This is a hands-on event where participants work together to build software that helps alleviate human suffering by creating access to critical information in disaster zones. Come socialize with your fellow GHC attendees while contributing to an existing F/OSS project. All skill and experience levels welcome!

Coordinators:
Avni Khatri, Senior Front-end Engineer, Yahoo! Inc.
Jennifer Redman, Founder, Buunabet

Facilitators:
Mani Abrol (Yahoo!), Cat Allman (Google), Fran Boon (Sahana Software Foundation), Selena Deckelmann (Emma), Heidi Ellis (Western New England College), Jenny Han Donnelly (Yahoo!), Leslie Hawthorne, Jenn (Kobi) Hsu (University of Maryland), Robin Jeffries (Google), Corey Latislaw (Comcast Interactive Media), Jamie Lockwood (Yahoo! Labs), Terri Oda (Carleton University & Computer Security Consultant), Stormy Peters (GENOME Foundation), Barbara Poblete (Yahoo! Research), Louiqa Raschid (University of Maryland & Sahana Software Foundation Board of Directors), Rosario Robinson, Shruti Satsangi (Carleton University), Sarah Sharp (Intel), Carol Smith (Midwest Research, LLC), Becky Stewart (Queen Mary, University of London), Malveeka Tewari (Systers), Pat Tressel (Sahana Software Foundation Member), Natasha Vinnik (Yahoo!), Robin L Yehle (IBM)

Bios:
Avni KhatriAvni Khatri is a Senior Front-end Engineer at Yahoo! Inc. on the Flex Force Tiger Team, a team deployed to work on the company’s highest priority projects. She is also president of the Southern California chapter of Yahoo! Women in Tech. Before coming to Yahoo!, she worked as a software engineer and project manager at UCLA, building database-backed medical applications for clinical care and research. In her free time, she contributes to the OpenACS open source web application toolkit and the .LRN educational free software project, and she plays guitar.

Jamie LockwoodJamie Lockwood is an Academic Relations Manager at Yahoo! Labs and works with the scientists, engineers and universities to develop mutually beneficial programs. She manages University Hack events, Key Scientific Challenges and Technology for Good programs along with various other global curriculum development initiatives. Currently she is working on a socially motivated developer program designed to stimulate and support thinking about how to better utilize information and open technology to address the major social, economic and environmental challenges that we face in the world today.

Jennifer Redman runs a technology-consulting company called Buunabet, that helps businesses and organizations use and deploy Open Source software. Jennifer is the Associate Systers Keeper for Systers – the largest and oldest international email community of women in computing, and participated as a mentor and organization administrator for the 2009 and 2010 Systers’ Google Summer of Code Project. On the core planning team for Open Source Bridge 2010 – she is a long-time advocate of, contributor to and user of Open Source Technology. Jennifer is an omnivore who loves to travel and voraciously consume books.

Jenny Han DonnellyJenny Han Donnelly is a Senior Engineer on the YUI team at Yahoo! Inc. As a component author for the popular open-source library, she focuses on making her products usable for end-users and developers alike. Additionally, she enjoys teaching YUI to developers all over the world, editing the YUI blog, and organizing the annual YUI Conf developer summit.

Open Source Committee

  • Cat Allman, Google
  • Sandra Covington, Yahoo!
  • Sara Ford, Microsoft
  • Jenny Han Donnelly, Yahoo!
  • Leslie Hawthorn, Consultant
  • Avni Khatri, Yahoo!
  • Stormy Peters, GNOME Foundation
  • Hilary Pike, Microsoft
  • Jennifer Redman, Buunabet
  • Natalia Vinnik, Yahoo!

A special thanks to our generous sponsor!