[Sugar-devel] Trip Report during visit to GSOC Summit

[James Cameron]

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archives, as we do lose access to Google Documents later if accounts
are compromised.

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Journey To GSOC events, USA


I never expected that this would be one of the turning points in the life. My journey to Google gave me opportunity to learn and explore new things in the current world.


I was given the chance to represent Sugar Labs at Google Summer of Code Meetup in Google Office, San Francisco, California, USA. This was really an amazing experience meeting prodigious people from different organisations and other communities especially the Google Open Source Team all over the globe. 
  
                              
L to R: Joshua Simmons(Google), Jaskirat Singh                                      me and Cat Allman (Google)
(me) & Stephanie Taylor (Google OSPM)


The major importance of this meetup was to connect with background Contributors i.e. students with the real time organisations and their missions. This meetup had various people including Google Code In and Google Summer of code students, mentors and organization administrators.


I connected with many people especially students in order to explain the functionality and product service of Sugar Labs. I had a very nice time spending hours with Mifos, Liquid Galaxy, Catrobat, and other organisation org admins: talking about collaboration and networking.


  

GSOC Meetup pic at Google San Francisco


Many students at this meetup were quite interested to know about the Sugar and make their contribution in the next GSOC that is GSOC’2019. I tried partnering with Liquid Galaxy here in order to introduce Turtle Blocks and Music Blocks in their laptops which they recently launched in order to expand within educational institutions. These laptops were similar to the Chromebooks.


The best time I had here was when I was demonstrating about the productivity of Sugar Labs especially Turtle Blocks and they were looking deeply into its codebase.


Then I moved to Sunnyvale for attending the GSOC Mentor Summit. The blood ran into my spine when the Stephanie Taylor ( GSOC Open Source Team member ) introduced about me at Summit.


The GSOC mentor Summit was a 3 day “unconference”. The people from different participating organisations proposed and held various session that included about Open Source, Organisation, projects, and other miscellaneous topics.


  
                            
      Opening Ceremony of GSOC Summit                                                         Organising sessions


During the starting ceremony the Google Team instructed and explained us about importance of this summit.


It was indeed pleasure to meet Devin Ulibarri (SL Org Admin in GSOC); discussing about the past histories of Sugar Labs and new plans for it. I discussed my idea of organising the Sugar Labs Summit once in the year. So maybe this gonna be covered in my next upcoming doc. Devin explained me about the Music and Music Blocks project going  in the Japan went he had been there. We also discussed about new User interface features for the Music Blocks and Turtle Blocks like creating a “New Tab window”, “Theme Changer”, etc.


  

Pic with Devin Ulibarri ( Sugar Labs )


I along with Devin attended many session, but the one I liked most was Google Season of Docs (GSOD). This session was lead by Sarah Maddox, a tech writer at Google who talked about of bringing more tech writers  into Open Source projects.


“GSoD is similar to Google Summer of Code but focuses on docs and technical writers, rather than on code and students. The target participants are experienced tech writers who can work with us on our docs. The writing part of GSoD will run for 3 months, similar to GSoC. Another difference is that the technical writers will not be earning stipends, they will be doing this to learn more about open source code and working on developer focused docs with code and building their resume.”


So this was really interesting topic to know  and understand about it. I really want to see this that how this will impact on Open Source organisations. This deck has more details about this program https://goo.gl/3Bpris
It was really good when Devin introduced the Music Blocks project that was done by Riya Lohiya in GSOC’18 under the SL org. Although his talk was restricted to 3 mins, Devin was able to express beautifully within that time perfectly.


  
               
 ( While Devin was explaining about the Riya Lohia’s project ( an intern in Sugar labs under GSOC’18 ) )


I also organised a session and talked about Open Source Social Networking platform. Discussed this with Google Open Source Team too and they were really glad and wanted to see that how it come up.


Having lunch with Karen Sandler from Software Freedom Conservancy including other member project member was really fun. We discussed supporting the member projects, some new offers and projects that needs to be included, etc. Many people put up there queries with functionality of SFC. And at last we framed up a video with all other member project people in the Google campus itself. ( Sorry that is missing here )


At the Summit I talked to Michael Downey and Alex about Sugar Labs outreaching to various schools and other educational institutions . We also had a Quora of room in which there was huge discussion about “What is a good way to keep potential contributors even after GSOC?” and yes, the outcome and the conclusion from this topic was about “money” that can keep contributors engage with organisations.


Swag area was opened everytime and I used to love collecting various Open Source swags stuffs within Google. It was really an awesome and never expected experience at Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit. Hope I get this Opportunity again in the near future.


  
                                                        
Chocolates Table having voluptuous Chocolates                            Stickers from all the communities
from all over the world


While I was in the San Francisco I also got a chance to meet Sameer Verma ( SLOB member ) and he took me on a drive which got converted into good discussions about community. We gathered to talk about various things and background of OLPC and Sugar Labs. He also gave me the tour of San Francisco State University. I had a very nice time with him though we were together only for a short span of time.
  
                                        
Pic with Mr. Sameer Verma                                                                  Pic with Caryl and her Husband ( Ed )




By God’s Grace I also got a chance to flew to Burbank and meet Caryl ( one of the Sugar Labs active member ). Staying with her and discussing about ongoing and upcoming projects in the educational stem in the Sugar Labs. We fixed some XO laptops too ( Upgradation ) and I cannot forget the gift by her that is a “XO” Laptop.
I also explored some nearby places with various folks and this time was really an unexpected time.I wish I be good enough to grab this opportunity.


So from my this experience I learnt a lot about networking and collaborating with various people across the planet and gaining as much more knowledge I can. This journey has been one of the extreme pulchritudinous for me. I wish i could be a part of it again.