[OH-Alumni] Alumni Newsletter: August 2014

Tue Aug 26 20:26:54 UTC 2014

Hello Open Source Comes to Campus alumni!

You’re reading the inaugural alumni newsletter, which will be going out
once a month and will keep you informed about open source events and
opportunities you can get involved with.

Have something to add to the newsletter?  Email hello at openhatch.org with
“For the newsletter:” in the subject line.  Questions, comments, concerns?
 Email hello at openhatch.org with “About the newsletter:” in the subject line.

Okay, let’s get started!

Upcoming Events

Our schedule for the fall is not quite set, but we are planning to run
events at the following schools:

University of Minnesota at Morris (Morris, MN) on Saturday, September 13th

City College of San Francisco (San Francisco, CA) on Saturday, September
13th

DePaul University (Chicago, IL) on Saturday, October 18th

Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA) on Saturday, October 18th

University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada) on Saturday, October 18th

SUNY Stony Brook (Long Island, NY) on Sunday, October 19th

Hartnell College (Salinas, CA) on Saturday, November 15th

University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT) on Saturday, November 15th

University of Washington (Seattle, CA) on Sunday, November 16th

Interested in helping organizer or mentoring?  Email hello at openhatch.org
and I’ll put you in touch with your local organizer.  Want to attend again
for a refresher?  You are totally welcome to!  Keep an eye out for
publicity 3-6 weeks before the event is scheduled.

There will be more Open Source Comes to Campus events announced in the next
newsletter.

Other events:

   -

   Software Freedom Day <http://softwarefreedomday.org/> is nearly here!
    Join free/open source software enthusiasts in your area on September 20th.
   -

   The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
   <http://gracehopper.org/> will be held in Phoenix, Arizona on October
   8th-10th.  I’ll be leading an ‘Open Source 101’ workshop on the 8th, and
   would love to meet up with any alumni who are attending.
   -

   PyCon <https://us.pycon.org/2015/> is one of the friendliest and most
   diverse open source conferences.  It includes tutorials and workshops,
   three days of talks and open spaces, and up to four days of sprints at the
   end of the conference.  Join OpenHatch at the conference!  The call for
   proposals <https://us.pycon.org/2015/speaking/cfp/> and posters is now
   open, and registration starts on September 1st.
   -

   Other sources to learn about FOSS events: LWN calendar
   <http://lwn.net/Calendar/> & Wikimedia events
   <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events>.

Opportunities and Scholarships

Want financial support while contributing to open source?  There are tons
of scholarships and opportunities out there.  We keep a list of ongoing
opportunities on our wiki page <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Opportunities>.

This month’s highlights:

   -

   The summer may be over, but several open source internships run year
   round.  Check out the GNOME Outreach Program for Women
   <https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen>, the Open Source
   Robotics Foundation <http://osrfoundation.org/jobs/>, and X.org’s Endless
   Vacation of Code <http://www.x.org/wiki/XorgEVoC/>.  Or, if you want to
   improve your programming skills specifically, try Hacker School
   <https://www.hackerschool.com/apply>.
   -

   Have your heart set on a summer program, maybe Google Summer of Code
   <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Opportunities#Google_Summer_of_Code>?  Now
   is a great time to start thinking about your application.  The single most
   influential factor when applying to GSoC is whether you’ve already got a
   relationship with the community.  So start browsing projects!  Need help?
    You can always email us.
   -

   Already graduated?  The opportunities page is not just for students.
    Check out the fellowships
   <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Opportunities#Fellowships>, grants
   <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Opportunities#Project_Grants> and other
   opportunities
   <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Opportunities#Other_Opportunities> listed!
   -

   “The Linux Foundation’s Training Scholarship Program aims to provide
   funds to up-and-coming developers and sysadmins who show incredible promise
   for helping to shape the future of Linux, but do not otherwise have the
   ability to attend Linux Foundation training courses.”  There are
   scholarships
   <http://training.linuxfoundation.org/free-linux-training/linux-training-scholarship-program>
   for college grads as well as women in Linux.  Application deadline is
   September 2nd.

Alumni Reports

Open Source Comes to MIT organizer and alumni Jonathan Garcia reports on
his summer working on open source robotics:

My institute's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program has granted me
access to amazing projects this summer.

For instance, I have worked on a thirteen foot long autonomous boat that
will fly to Singapore this October in order to to compete in the Maritime
RobotX Challenge. This I have been doing while assisting in the ongoing
development of the MIT course 2.680 (Unmanned Marine Vehicle Autonomy,
Sensing, and Communication).

Both these responsibilities have taught me to appreciate MOOS-IvP, the open
source autonomy platform that runs my team's vessel.

Throughout this past season, I quickly learned to grapple with the
computers that let the competition craft think; making and then tying
Ubuntu boxes to a network with the machine's sensors, keeping them in line
when they cried for maintenance, and learning to call the terminal my home.

Have you been working on open source recently?  Want to share your
progress?  Email me to be included in a future newsletter.

Coming soon: pair participation with OpenHatch

In about a month, OpenHatch will be launching our new ‘Pair Participating’
program.  Newcomers will be paired with mentors for short, remote sessions
using IRC, video and/or screen-sharing technology.  You can choose what to
work on: fixing a bug, going through a tutorial, picking an open source
project, applying for an internship opportunity, and more...

We’ll let you know how to sign up in the next newsletter.  In the meantime,
if you’re really excited, we’d love to have your feedback on how to
structure the program, so emails us at hello at openhatch.org if you want to
help us with that.

*

Have any general open source questions, or just want to hang out?  Feel
free to join us on IRC, at #openhatch on Freenode
<http://openhatch.readthedocs.org/en/latest/community/contact.html>.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your summer!  :)

~ Shauna
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