Grace Hopper Open Source Day
Saturday, November 12th | 8:00am – 3:00pm
B113-116 at the Oregon Convention Center
(Prior RSVP Required)
Please join us for the first ever Grace Hopper Open Source Day!
This event is part of conference registration or you can buy a one-day pass if you would like to attend just Saturday – REGISTRATION IS NOW FULL
What is Open Source Day?
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) adoption and usage is becoming wide-spread and many employment opportunities require experience on FOSS projects. It can be daunting to know how to contribute to an existing FOSS project or release your individual software tool or application under an open source license. Building on the success of the previous two years of FOSS events at the Grace Hopper Celebration, the Grace Hopper Conference is hosting an Open Source Day. We have put together an entire day where participants can learn how to contribute to a FOSS project, begin contributing to one of the Humanitarian FOSS (HFOSS) projects, and network with other participants interested in contributing to Open Source.
We invite you to come spend the day coding for humanitarian causes with a group largely made up of women. At the end of the day participants of all skill levels will walk away with new confidence when engaging with an existing FOSS project or starting their own community developed software project. They will also walk away with the satisfaction of knowing they helped make the world a little bit better for those in need.
Check out these photos from last year’s Codeathon for Humanity at the 2010 Grace Hopper Celebration:
terriko
Flickr
OSBR.CA
Open Source Day Activities:
- Codeathon for Humanity
With the guidance of experienced mentors and facilitators, codeathon attendees will collaborate to write code with their peers for FOSS projects that support humanitarian initiatives and goals. All of the humanitarian projects participating in the codeathon have a need for contributors from a wide-variety of skills and backgrounds including user experience and design, technical writing, front-end and back-end programming, software design, and system administration. (All skill and experience levels are welcome) - Networking Over Code
After spending a week meeting new friends and mentors over great sessions, workshops and events. This is your chance to do some hands-on geeking out with new friends over code.
FOSS Booth
Stop by the FOSS booth in Exhibit Halls B and C for more information about codeathon projects and how you can participate.
OPEN SOURCE DAY PANEL:
Friday, November 11th, 5:15pm – 6:15pm | (B117-119)
Panelists: Leslie Hawthorn (Oregon State University), Anvi Khatri (Massachusetts General Hospital), Rachel Leventhal (Nomadic Stories/Women’s Peer-to-Peer Network), and Pat Tressel (Sahana Foundation)
Abstract:
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) adoption and usage is becoming wide-spread and many employment opportunities require experience on FOSS projects. It can be daunting to know how to contribute to an existing FOSS project or release your individual software tool or application under an open source license. Join us for a discussion on how to find your place in an open source community and learn about the Humanitarian FOSS (HFOSS) projects participating in the GHC11 Open Source Day Hackathon.
Biographies:
Jennifer Redman
Jennifer’s primary focus is helping businesses and organizations integrate open source software into their IT infrastructure. She has more than fifteen years of experience working with technical and non-technical individuals in businesses and non-profit organizations to help build and manage their computing infrastructure. Jennifer is currently the Associate Systers-Keeper for Systers, the oldest International online community of technical women. One of the founders of the Systers open source project, she participated in Google Summer of Code in 2009 and 2010 as an organization administrator and mentor. Additionally, Jennifer served as a co-chair of the program committee for the first ever Open Source Track at the 2010 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing (GHC10). She is also involved in the Portland technical startup community and is currently a mentor at the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE). Jennifer’s previous adventures include technical writing, canvassing for Greenpeace and as a staff member on a national (and successful) presidential campaign. Jennifer has traveled extensively, loves a good book, and a great debate.
Leslie Hawthorn
Leslie Hawthorn has over 10 years experience in high tech project management, marketing and public relations. She currently works as an Open Source Outreach Manager for Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab. She also serves as a Board Member/Advisor to the following organizations: CASH Music, the Humanitarian FOSS Project, the Open Source Business Resource and the Sahana Software Foundation.
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 (now Google Code In) contest. You can follow her adventures on Twitter (@lhawthorn)
Avni Khatri
Avni Khatri is a Web Applications Architect at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Lab of Computer Science. She builds database-backed medical applications using OpenACS, an open source web application toolkit. Before coming to MGH, she worked at Yahoo! Inc. as a Senior Front-end Engineer on the Flex Force Tiger Team. She was also founder and co-president of the Southern California chapter of Yahoo! Women in Tech. In December 2010, she participated in the 3rd Random Hacks Of Kindness (RHoK). She is also Vice President of Kids on Computers, an organization that sets up computer labs in developing countries, and she plays guitar.
Rachel Leventhal
Rachel Leventhal is an award-winning human rights journalist and media consultant, working with women in developing countries and the US. She has covered such topics as incarcerated women, female child soldiers, and peasant womens’ role in electing Africa’s first women president. Her deep experience and passion for global women’s development and leadership, media, and technology led her to develop the Women’s Peer-To-Peer Network, a global effort to create universal connectivity for women. Rachel’s vision is one of inclusion, collaboration and empowerment. The first deployment is in Haiti as the Haitian Women’s P2P Network. Bringing together a multidisciplinary team, led by Haitian women in technology, the Haitian P2P Network partners with local women’s communities, ensuring usability and ownership. Global women in technology are instrumental, providing mentorship and support. Rachel’s work has been recognized by the Soros Foundation, Freedom Forum, and Third Coast Documentary Festival.
Pat Tressel
Pat started programming when her dad gave her a FORTRAN manual in high school. After realizing that, whereas there were few jobs for second-rate physicists, people would actually pay her to indulge this hobby, Pat switched directions to software engineering…any sort of software engineering: operating systems, machine learning, medical applications, inventory control, web search,… Since the Haiti earthquake, Pat has been volunteering in software for humanitarian purposes, via the Sahana Software Foundation, CrisisCommons, Random Hacks of Kindness, Geeks Without Bounds. She is now also working on mobile apps and social games for early-stage startup earthbongo.com. In her “spare time”, Pat sleeps.
Participating Organizations and Projects:
Google Crisis Response Team
Google Crisis Response Team makes critical information more accessible around natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Google Person Finder provides an open platform for people to log queries and enter updates about missing persons. Participants will work on fixing known issues in Person Finder, adding unit tests to allow faster development during crisis, making UI improvements and implementing small features.
The Haitian Women’s Peer-to-Peer Network
A Nomadic Stories project, is connecting women who are off the communications grid by integrating mobile and open-source applications with ubiquitous technology such as community radio and local women’s networks. In Haiti, we are collaborating with women university ICT students, the Master Program MBDS at State University in Haiti, and the Haitian software company SOLUTIONS to connect Haiti’s 55K market women. Our Open Source Day project is a cross-border collaboration with Haitian women ICT students who are participating via Skype. Participants at all levels will have the opportunity to collaborate on several apps, including developing a FrontlineSMS voice plug-in, creating a project wiki, and customizing the OpenStreetMap platform.
Humanitarian Open Street Map Team
Free, collaborative maps are uniquely valuable to humanitarian work, especially in places where base map data is often scarce, out of date, or rapidly changing. OpenStreetMap is a web project to create a free and open map of the entire world, built entirely by volunteers surveying with GPS, digitizing aerial imagery, and collecting and liberating existing public sources of geographic data. The information in OpenStreetMap can fill in the gaps in base map data to assist in responses to disasters and crisis. In the same way that the OpenStreetMap data bridges the missing information, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team [HOT] acts as a bridge between the traditional Humanitarian Responders and the OpenStreetMap Community. HOT works both remotely and physically in countries to assist to collection of geographic data, usage of that information and training others in OpenStreetMap.
Due to unforseen circumstances, the facilitator for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team will be unable to join us. If you were looking forward to working on this project, we would recommend that you sign up to work with the Sahana Software Foundation. Sahana’s software integrates OpenStreetMap code and the two projects often to work together in crisis relief situations. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope that Sahana or one of our other project partners will work well for you.
Kids on Computers
Kids on Computers (KOC) is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization working to provide free computers and free and open source software to disadvantaged kids and schools open to the public. Our mission is to set up computer labs in schools around the world where kids have no other access to technology. We use donated, used computers, open source software and volunteers. In the last two years, we have set up six computers labs in schools in Mexico and Argentina and are currently setting up new labs in India and Zambia.
Our two projects for the codeathon will be an Installfest where we set up Edubuntu on donated systems and an Inventory Management System where we build a database-backed web application to manage and track donations.
Sahana Software Foundation
Sahana software was first developed and used in Sri Lanka during the response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami. Over the past seven years, Sahana has been used by national authorities and charitable organizations in response to sixteen major disasters and for over a dozen disaster preparedness deployments. The Sahana Software Foundation (SSF) was established in 2009 as a non-profit organization to support the development and use of Sahana software for humanitarian purposes.
The project for the codeathon will be Sahana Eden. Eden is built with Python using the Web2Py framework. Contributions to the Sahana Eden project – whether through providing a bug fix, or feature enhancement or contributing a new module – will support our mission of saving lives by providing information management solutions that enable organizations and communities to better prepare for and respond to disasters.
Systers
Systers is the world’s largest email community of technical women in computing. It was founded by Anita Borg in 1987 as a small electronic mailing list for women in “systems”. Today, Systers broadly promotes the interests of women in the computing and technology fields. The Systers open source project supports the community through the enhancement and maintenance of a customized version of GNU Mailman. Bug fixes and new feature work is available for all skill levels including those completely new to open source software development.
Already signed up but have a question about it? Email your question to the Open Source Day Committee.
We look forward to seeing you at the Grace Hopper Celebration Open Source Day!
Grace Hopper Open Source Day Committee:
Heidi Ellis, Trinity/WNEC
Seema Gururaj, Anita Borg Institute
Leslie Hawthorn, Oregon State University
Avni Khatri, Massachusetts General Hospital
Deanna Kosaraju, Anita Borg Institute
Rachel Leventhal
Stormy Peters, Mozilla
Tina Pratt, Anita Borg Institute
Mark Prutsalis, Sahana Software Foundation
Jennifer Redman, Buunabet
Natalia Vinnik. Yahoo!