Seasons of Debian - Summer of Code and Winter of Outreachy

Being students who started their contribution to Open Source through Outreach programme which Debian supports, we (Urvika and I ) would talk about two major open source initiatives – Google Summer of Code and Outreachy. Our objective would be to talk about How we got selected into these programmes, about the interesting tasks we got to do, how It helped us grow as developers and about the warm Debian community we got to experience.

Urvika would share her experience being an Outreachy Intern with Debian. Outreachy is a similar program like GSoC but it helps people from under-represented groups such as females and LGBTQ, to get involved in open source software. She would like to share her journey of getting into Outreachy in the hopes of inspiring budding female developers like her. She would talk about how being on Outreachy team changed her perspective from “how to code” to that of “how to contribute”.

Pranav would be sharing his working and learning experience during Google Summer of Code’16 with Debian.

Both, Urvika and I worked on the same project – Lumicall. We would talk about free - RTC and to share importance with the audience. We would talk about “Lumicall” which is a free and convenient app for encrypted phone calls from Android. We would be explaining the work we did using Android and Java to add new features into the existing application and how to pace the learning curve.

To explain what kind of work we did under these programs, Urvika would also give a brief about a few concepts that she worked on using Android/Java Explaining what “WhiteLabelling” is and how can we implement it in Android Working with productFlavors, How to add a silent mode feature by specifying time and weekdays, How to set bubble background image in Chat/Message screen using 9 Patch images.

I, Pranav would briefly explain about adding PUBLISH Support to Lumicall and developing a library for adding quick enroll option to Android Applications.

We would share how we got into these programs and what it takes to successfully complete it. Hoping it would help someone having questions like “How to get started with Open Source” and “How Can I contribute” to “How I Went From Newbie to Open Source Project Contributor “.

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