Support students from developing countries

[lira.lg]

One Letter to FOSS Organizations

We would encourage to take students from developing countries. There
are an important number of selected students from Brazil, India and
China but these countries are the exception and not the rule. There
are not students from Peru, Nepal or Zambia, Why?

I know most mentors make selections based only in the proposal or
qualifications.

Well this is not good, first English is not a universal language and
most students from less developing countries dont speak english or
have a little knowledge of english grammar. Must students from
developer countries dont have a computer at home and most universities
from third world dont have computer labs, usually students have access
at internet cafes, but this is not free. But they are very talented
and creative developers. Please give to these students an opportunity
to show their talent.

Most organizations are based in first world countries. One of great
solutions to provide access to high education in USA and Europe are
the special programs to students from minorities or disabilities.

In USA thousands of hispanics, blacks, american natives, blind people,
etc have an opportunity to access to high education, Harvard, MIT,
Princeton, Stanford have many programs. Maybe this students dont have
a high GPA or they never take advanced courses at high school but this
special programs make the difference.

There many stories about students from very poor families who are in
Harvard for free because they are granted a special fellowships. Maybe
some people think is not just if a student with a high scores from a
private high school is not admited at harvard because his place was
awarded to black or hispanic student from a getto, and this student
have an average or low scores.

This is not charity this is justice, this is equality.

Please make a difference, thinking about these developer students,
they need an opportunity, they are motivated and talented.

[eran ratnayake]

Hi all,
That is a good idea. I am also in a third world country ( others say). I think problem is not the state not the development status of the country. I is is the problem of popularity of GSOC in those countries . So I think GSOC mentors must not specially think about thrird world countries. It is a shame for us.
We are only expected a fair selections. I think mentor are intelligent so they may not highly consider about the linguistic mistakes.
But I accept that the popularity of GSOC in third world countries too less.

Best Regards,
Eran

[lira.lg]

> That is a good idea. I am also in a third world country ( others say). I
> think problem is not the state not the development status of the country. I
> is is the problem of popularity of GSOC in those countries . So I think GSOC
> mentors must not specially think about thrird world countries. It is a shame
> for us.
> We are only expected a fair selections. I think mentor are intelligent so
> they may not highly consider about the linguistic mistakes.
> But I accept that the popularity of GSOC in third world countries too less.
>
> Best Regards,
> Eran
>

Dear Eran

Google Summer of Code is very popular in many third world countries.
SoC is very popular in south america, just check the high number of
blogs whick talk about SoC.

There are many students from Brazil, India, China and I Think this
year will be more applications from this countries than the last year.

But what about Peru, Nepal or Zimbabwe. There are not developers in
these countries?

The foss communities in this countries are very actives and motivated.
The last year LinuxChix in Zimbabwe won Software Freedom Day
Competition in the teams category. FOSS groups at Nepal are very
actives, they are working to promote OLPC project.

But What is the message When you never select a student from this
countries?. The last year only 1 student from Chile was selected and
Chile is one of countries with a large number of foss developers.

And never a peruvian student from Peru has been selected, the number
of peruvians students in 2006 was 0.

$4500 is very attractive, this is equal to the annual income of an
peruvian engineer. There are many peruvian students who apply but when
a student ask to other student for advice about SoC, the answers is
simple dont waste your time google nevers accept peruvian students,
only check the SoC page and see how many peruvians have been selected.

Google is sending a negative message.

Imagine if a black student from a getto want to study at harvard,
nobody say this is imposible because harvard never accept black
students, what is the positive message, well there are many blacks
students at harvard, check the webpage from The Medical School or Law
School, there are many opportunities for student from minorities,
there many grants and felloships only for support black students.

[Manuel López-Ibáñez]

On 16/03/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:
>
> But What is the message When you never select a student from this
> countries?. The last year only 1 student from Chile was selected and
> Chile is one of countries with a large number of foss developers.
>
> And never a peruvian student from Peru has been selected, the number
> of peruvians students in 2006 was 0.
>

Last year there were only 600 people chosen. There are more than 600
countries in the world. Moreover, you didn't analyse the distribution
of applications per country against the distribution of accepted
students per country. I am sure that if you did, the difference of
distributions would be non-significant at least at a 90% level and
perhaps even at a 95%.

So far you are accussing Google of something without proof at all. I
see you are from Peru. You say that "$4500 is very attractive, this is
equal to the annual income of an peruvian engineer" and then you
request a positive discrimination for peruvian students. I could
easily make the claim that you are just interested in the money. It
would be an unsubstantiated accusation, since I don't know if you are
actually applying, or how many peruvian students will apply. Yet, it
is more reasonable than your accussation of Google, since I cannot
imagine any reason why Google would discriminate peruvians while not
discriminating Brazil or China.

So, please, come back when you have some hard data.

Thanks,

Manuel.

[Manuel López-Ibáñez]

On 16/03/07, Manuel López-Ibáñez <lopez...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16/03/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:
> >
> > But What is the message When you never select a student from this
> > countries?. The last year only 1 student from Chile was selected and
> > Chile is one of countries with a large number of foss developers.
> >
> > And never a peruvian student from Peru has been selected, the number
> > of peruvians students in 2006 was 0.
> >
>
> Last year there were only 600 people chosen. There are more than 600
> countries in the world. Moreover, you didn't analyse the distribution
> of applications per country against the distribution of accepted
> students per country. I am sure that if you did, the difference of
> distributions would be non-significant at least at a 90% level and
> perhaps even at a 95%.
>

Just to be fair. There are not 600 sovereign countries in the world.
Just 245.[*]
That doesn't make any difference, since the important thing is the
distribution of applications (if 0 applications were made from
Kazakhstan, you cannot expect any student from Kazakhstan to be
accepted).

[*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries/

Sorry again about the imprecision above.

Cheers,

Manuel.

[Chris DiBona]

Hi Eran;

You are clearly passionate about your country and the third world, I'd suggest talking with the IOSN and not us. You continue to assume soc is a program that it is not and isn't helping people that it is. It is getting annoying.You are right that google doesn't accept peruvian students, because -if you had read the faq or paid any attention at all- you would note that the open source organizations select the students. Not google. Stop spreading lies.

Chris

On 3/16/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:

http://code.google.com
Personal Weblog: http://dibona.com

[lira.lg]

> So far you are accussing Google of something without proof at all. I
> see you are from Peru. You say that "$4500 is very attractive, this is
> equal to the annual income of an peruvian engineer" and then you
> request a positive discrimination for peruvian students. I could
> easily make the claim that you are just interested in the money. It
> would be an unsubstantiated accusation, since I don't know if you are
> actually applying, or how many peruvian students will apply. Yet, it
> is more reasonable than your accussation of Google, since I cannot
> imagine any reason why Google would discriminate peruvians while not
> discriminating Brazil or China.
>
> So, please, come back when you have some hard data.
>

Dear Manuel

I am not applying because I am not a student.

And I am not interested in the money, I work for a no for profit
organzation in Peru called Cultura Libre, we are the peruvian chapter
of FreeCulture.org

I am not interested in money I am a social entrepreneur and I have
more of ten years working with social projects here in Peru.

All our projects are about no for profit, by example one of our
project Community Microtelcos will provide access to telecomunications
to rural families in their communities, this project will be
replicated in Brazil too. Other of our projects is Ceres an management
disaster systems, in Peru thousands of people dead every year because
there are not any infraestructure to dealing with disasters.

Well we have other projects, we are producing a CD to promote Creative
Commons Licences in Peru, and we want to promote OLPC project, check
our site http://olpc.culturalibre.info/

The numbers are numbers, We think there are many problems with SoC
program, 99% of selected organizations are based in the first world
and the number of student from less developing countries is nill.

You are right, there are an important number of students from Brazil,
India and China and this is very possitive but What about Peru or
Nepal.

Do you think there are not students in Peru or Nepal interested in
FOSS projects. In 2005 Nepal was one of most actives countries in the
Software Freedom Day. The last year most the winner are:

In the teams:

Best SFD event publicity

Digital Free Software Association (Tunisia)
Best SFD documentary

Melbourne Australia won this for their excellent video
contribution.

Best plan for FOSS deployment project on new server for community
benefit

Both full plans are outlined in the contestant details. UnPLUG
(Philippines) and Cultura Libre (Peru)
Best SFD event

LinuxChix (Zimbabwe)

Oh surprice, we Cultura Libre won :)

mmm where are the foos teams from USA??? France??? Brazil??? or
China???

How many organizations and students from Peru, Tunisia, Philippines,
Peru or Zimbabwe have been selected?

Do you think there are not foss communities in these countries.

Wrong the foss communities in these countries are very
actives !!!!!!!!!!!!

Is a bad idea support at least one student from these countries?

This year is one student and the next year maybe more students from
these countries will apply because this is a positive message.

[lira.lg]

> Just to be fair. There are not 600 sovereign countries in the world.
> Just 245.[*]
> That doesn't make any difference, since the important thing is the
> distribution of applications (if 0 applications were made from
> Kazakhstan, you cannot expect any student from Kazakhstan to be
> accepted).
>
> [*]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries/
>
> Sorry again about the imprecision above.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Manuel.

Dear Manuel

If the number of applications from Kazakhstan is cero, (Borat's Movie
is funny) .

Why this year dont send a positive message,

"This year Google want to encourage developers from Kazakhastan and we
have a special program, there are two slots reserved to students from
Kazakhastan, please send your application to Google"

and of course publish this note in Kazakhastan's language and send a
press release to Kazahastan's media and local press. This is a
positive message.

There are many innovatives solutions, just think out the box, well
Google is one of the most innovatives corparations in the world and
there many high talented people at google.

Why dont ask to google's employees from Peru or Nepal, maybe there
are a peruvian working at google how to promote SoC in countries with
a small number of applications.

[Manuel López-Ibáñez]

On 16/03/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:
>

> > So far you are accussing Google of something without proof at all. I
> > see you are from Peru. You say that "$4500 is very attractive, this is
> > equal to the annual income of an peruvian engineer" and then you
> > request a positive discrimination for peruvian students. I could
> > easily make the claim that you are just interested in the money. It
> > would be an unsubstantiated accusation, since I don't know if you are
> > actually applying, or how many peruvian students will apply. Yet, it
> > is more reasonable than your accussation of Google, since I cannot
> > imagine any reason why Google would discriminate peruvians while not
> > discriminating Brazil or China.
> >
> > So, please, come back when you have some hard data.
> >
>
> Dear Manuel
>
> I am not applying because I am not a student.
>
> And I am not interested in the money, I work for a no for profit
> organzation in Peru called Cultura Libre, we are the peruvian chapter
> of FreeCulture.org
>
> I am not interested in money I am a social entrepreneur and I have
> more of ten years working with social projects here in Peru.
>

That is the problem with unsubstantiated claims, they tend to be wrong.

Q.E.D.

Manuel.

[Sam Moffatt]

Lira I will put this in simple terms.

I as a mentor do not care where a student comes from. I can deal with
broken English. What I like to see is ideas. Great ideas. To be honest
a great idea with the showing of a bit of skill to back it up will
rank higher than anything. You can be first world, second world or
even third world. It doesn't matter, just as long as I can understand
what is written and it sounds like a great valuable proposal.

So concentrate in your own backyard. Work with your students to make
really awesome proposals that are going to make a mentor want to
select them not because they're from some country but because they
have the best proposal out there. You can provide support services
locally as well, and hey, it'll be awesome.

To be honest I don't think anyone here cares where you come from, as
long as you can communicate on some basic level, have some basic
skills or a good idea and passion, you will get chosen regardless.
Work towards that criteria. In the end nobody but Google has the stats
of applicants per country, accepted per country and successful per
country (remember a failure will negatively impact in future years as
well). Maybe we can ask them to share it?

Sam

On 16/03/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:
>

[lira.lg]

> I as a mentor do not care where a student comes from. I can deal with
> broken English. What I like to see is ideas. Great ideas. To be honest
> a great idea with the showing of a bit of skill to back it up will
> rank higher than anything. You can be first world, second world or
> even third world. It doesn't matter, just as long as I can understand
> what is written and it sounds like a great valuable proposal.
>
> So concentrate in your own backyard. Work with your students to make
> really awesome proposals that are going to make a mentor want to
> select them not because they're from some country but because they
> have the best proposal out there. You can provide support services
> locally as well, and hey, it'll be awesome.
>
> To be honest I don't think anyone here cares where you come from, as
> long as you can communicate on some basic level, have some basic
> skills or a good idea and passion, you will get chosen regardless.
> Work towards that criteria. In the end nobody but Google has the stats
> of applicants per country, accepted per country and successful per
> country (remember a failure will negatively impact in future years as
> well). Maybe we can ask them to share it?
>

Dear Sam

One member from PostSQL ask me to send a proposal, I send a my
proposal today maybe I become a mentor :). You suggestions are
wellcome.

I really care where a student come from, this is very important to me
and I think to most mentors from organizations based in the third
world.

I know how important are the programs which take care about
nationality, minorities, and understand the context.

When I finish my undergratuate course, I was looking for graduate
studies abroad, Well in 1995 I was not able to read in english, and
never publish a paper in a journal, my scores was averages, but I was
lucky because I was awarded with a fellowship from the spanish
government, I apply to program which support students from south
america, When I meet my tutor he saids that he know about the state of
peruvian universities, he was a visiting professor in Peru and
Bolivia. He has to options one student with good references from a top
spanish university and me. He give me a opportunity because the
spanish students have many options and opportunities but he said you
dont have any chance.
Well after my studies I back to Peru, and I am working to make the
difference.

And I am not the only member of my family who has been awarded with a
fellowship to study abroad, my young sister was awarded with an ALBAN
fellowship to study in France. ALBAN program is making the difference,
they have a number of fellowship to support students from the poorest
countries in south america: Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. This is not the
same if the student come from Chile, the level of poverty in Chile is
very different from Peru, today Chile is one of most sucessful
economies in the region. This is a positive action.

I am not saying dont support to chilean students. Support Chilean
students, the last year only one student from Chile was selected, he
was working with OLPC project, today he is a member of OLPC developer
team and the only man in Chile who own a OLPC machine :). Well there
are very talented students in Chile.

If this year you recieve an application from a chilean student please
give to these students an chance.

What is the problem if we accepted a student because he or she is from
a poor country?

Why everyone is scared about this?

[Prasanna Gautam]

I am from Nepal. Does that mean I have a better chance? Yet I'd rather not get selected at all than being selected for being "Nepali" or a person from "third world country"
I've had to struggle for resources here but then I'm taking chances for google summer of code because I believe that I'm developer enough to survive google summer of code. I sincerely believe that people should be judged on the basis of the opportunities they have got and how much they capitalized on them.
I'm currently working for OLPC Nepal, Drupal and volunteering for FOSS... apart from casual python, C# or flash hacks....
Most people in the "third world countries," in my view, are intimidated the google brand... and fear taking such chances.
It's not matter of why-don't-they-get-in problem but belongs to a broader why-don't-they-apply complex.
Most people in these countries grow up with an inferiority complex imbued to their psyche.... so anything US seems to be rather hi-fi.... (not sure abt other countries, this is quite true for nepal at least)

I believe that such places should be given  maybe a lil more weight but not "preference."
I'd rather like to see good talents (maybe 1-2 ppl from these places) than anything else.

On 3/16/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:

[lira.lg]

>
> I believe that such places should be given maybe a lil more weight but not
> "preference."
> I'd rather like to see good talents (maybe 1-2 ppl from these places) than
> anything else.
>

Dear Prasanna

You have a good idea. One solution is given a liltle more weight to
students from third world.

I know foss community in Nepal is very active, SFD team at Nepal was
one of the most successful teams in 2005, there are a lot of pics in
the SFD site.

OLPC initiative at Nepal was our inspiration to start OLPC initiative
at Peru,

Our page is http://olpc.culturalibre.info/

[Prasanna Gautam]

On 3/16/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:

Thanks. I still miss that day... had to  stay home  because i was soo sick... I'm working at olpc too...  and drupal..
we have a workshop for FOSS enthusiasts (students and professionals) for 2 days.. saturday and sunday
I have a presentation/training on drupal on sunday...
Everyone is older than me but that's the only place i've fit in so many years....

[sheeri kritzer]

On 3/16/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:

> This is not charity this is justice, this is equality.

Actually, I disagree. Google, Inc. is *not* a public not-for-profit.
It's their choice what they do with their money, whether it's paying
Leslie a salary of 1 zillion dollars a year, donating to charities,
buying hardware, or giving out grant monies.

The only people who decide where Google's money goes are the
designated employees of Google.

Therefore, Google can place any restrictions they want on the money.
They can restrict the money based on school status (which they do. I
don't complain that I can't be a part of the summer of code because
I'm not a student!), they can restrict the money based on where you
live (I would think the Vietnam question might be because the United
States and Vietnam only started diplomatic relations in 1995).

If Google wanted to, they could restrict the money based on gender or
race -- if they wanted a Summer of Code for women, or a Summer of Code
for white people, they could do that, because it's their money, and
they only have to answer to themselves.

Now, of course some restrictions would be bad customer relations' moves.

However, all these discussions are saying "you don't do this and you
don't do that." Well, yes. You have to draw the line somewhere.
There's never been a Peruvian student? How many qualified ones
applied? It's already been said that the mentoring organization
chooses students.

I would think long and hard about the point you're trying to get
across. I could argue that the state of the world's water is more
important than programming, so why is google spending millions of
dollars on programming when their money could go to clean water for
all? Nobody's disagreeing that there should be more people of more
cultures in the Google Summer of Code.

Honestly, if i were the team of Google employees choosing mentoring
organizations, I would not be inclined to pick an organization with
such vocal complainers in the group -- I wouldn't think they'd be good
mentors. Are they going to look at a student's code and be very
negative about it if there's one thing out of place?

Consider the message you're sending, not just to Google, but to all
the people on this list (and all the people who are reading the blog
post you make). Would I want to volunteer with your organization if
that's your attitude?

I can say that I was disappointed that my organization did not get
selected. But that's what happens. That's life. It means that I
have more time to do other things, like the MySQL podcast I mentioned;
like my fulltime job. I also know folks at organizations that HAVE
been selected, and I could certainly offer to do code reviews for
them; I also have ties to universities where I could offer the project
up as a Master's Degree project or Senior Honors project.

I'm one of 4 kids, and the one thing my parents said over and over
that I hated as a kid was a response to whenever one of us whined
saying, "but it's not FAIR!" The answer was "Life isn't fair." While
that's kind of harsh, it's absolutely true.

I think Google is doing great work. It's hard enough to turn down
organizations; harder to turn down good organizations, and it's
extremely difficult to read these messages, knowing the work they put
in, and not feel pangs of empathy. We (as in this list) complained
that the list wasn't there, that the list was too short, and that we
weren't on the list.

How about some kudos for the good work? I hope that I will learn that
the people behind Cultura Libra can be good sports about this. I'll
take an organization with no awards any day over an organization that
wins awards but treats hardworking people like this when they aren't
accepted to a program.

There's always next year, and I intend to apply again.

-Sheeri

-Sheeri

[Prasanna Gautam]

good spirit Sheeri..

[Sam Moffatt]

On 17/03/07, lira.lg <lir...@pucp.edu.pe> wrote:
> What is the problem if we accepted a student because he or she is from
> a poor country?
>
> Why everyone is scared about this?

I have no issues with picking people from any country as long as they
are the best choice. I'm not going to let a student who is better lose
a position to someone who isn't in my opinion as deserving on
technical merit than someone who isn't just because that person is
from another country/race/gender/religion. That is discrimination of
the highest level, I thought that we were trying to stop the whole
discrimination thing in the world. Sure I can understand giving people
a better chance, but how wouuld you feel if someone said "you only got
that because you're from a third world country" when you believed it
was your own merits that got you there. I'd much rather know and be
sound that the reason I was doing said task was because of my own
values not because I'm a different gender/race/country/religion. There
are other programmes that do this, I believe SoC should not and it
should definately not be shoe horned into this sort of a goal.

Sam

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>

[Sam Moffatt]

Just realized a part of it didn't quite make sense

I'm not going to let a student who is better lose
a position to someone who isn't in my opinion as deserving on
technical merit than someone who isn't just because that person is
from another country/race/gender/religion.

should be

I'm not going to let a student who is better lose
a position to someone who isn't in my opinion as deserving on

technical merit just because that person is
from another country/race/gender/religion.

Apologies for any confusion,

Sam

[djaz...@gmail.com]

Allow me to interject a bit of an advertisement here:

You should check out the OpenMRS project (http://soc2007.openmrs.org),
and mention it to any developing country GSoC applicants you know.

OpenMRS is an electronic medical record system, built for use in
developing countries. We're looking for top-notch coders from
everywhere, but this is a particular instance where a Peruvian or
Nepalese applicant could have better knowledge of the technical
challenges posed by lack of infrastructure and resources, or a more
intense personal motivation to work on the project.

Darius Jazayeri
Lead Developer, Medical Record Systems
Partners in Health
(wearing my OpenMRS hat)

On Mar 16, 2:12 pm, "Sam Moffatt" <pasa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just realized a part of it didn't quite make sense
>
> I'm not going to let a student who is better lose
> a position to someone who isn't in my opinion as deserving on
> technical merit than someone who isn't just because that person is
> from another country/race/gender/religion.
>
> should be
>
> I'm not going to let a student who is better lose
> a position to someone who isn't in my opinion as deserving on
> technical merit just because that person is
> from another country/race/gender/religion.
>
> Apologies for any confusion,
>
> Sam
>

> On 17/03/07, Sam Moffatt <pasa...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Prasanna Gautam]

ohh yeah...

On 3/17/07, djaz...@gmail.com <djaz...@gmail.com > wrote:

Allow me to interject a bit of an advertisement here:

You should check out the OpenMRS project ( http://soc2007.openmrs.org),