Coming up with original ideas for Systers Open Source
This post is intended for anyone who wants to propose original ideas for Systers Open Source. It can be within the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) context or not, since this community does not do Open Source only during this program.
What I’ll say here is based on my experience within Systers Open Source community, from participating on Community Open Sessions, Projects Brainstorming sessions, conversations on Slack and so on.
My personal advice
It can be hard looking into other people’s problems and try to solve them. First I would advise you to try to look into your own experiences, just like I did. If you think about your experiences, you can see problems you want to solve. By coming up with an idea from problems you experience and understand, it is much easier to brainstorm features, look into edges cases and ways to solve a problem. Look for something you care about. You can also look at your surroundings, problems your friends or family experience.
What about projects that tackle or bring awareness and shine a light on social issues. For instance, I’ve seen someone start a discussion on how to create a project related to child abuse issue in a Community Open Session. You can think of projects that have a social impact, these are always welcome in my opinion.
When you do come with a new idea, do your research, for instance, look for similar solutions and think about: how are you proposing something better than what already exists? What is the main goal of the project?
Also, think if it fits Systers community mission. If you have doubts about the fit of the idea, share with the community anyways so that you can receive proper feedback.
If you check Systers Open Source website, you can understand more about what kind of projects the community welcomes. Here are some highlights from the website that can help you reflect:
We are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, work experience, or religion (or lack thereof).
(…)
Our projects focus on impacting users and communities by improving their lives with technology.
Examples of original projects from Systers
I’ll summarize 3 projects that started within the community, which you can find on GitHub.
PowerUp
PowerUp consists of female empowerment educational mobile game app that aims to teach young girls about reproductive health, conflict resolution, and self-esteem by navigating the life of their avatar. It works as a choose-your-own-adventure game with different scenarios to navigate through. This project started in GSoC 2015.
An interesting fact is that this originated other project ideas for GSoC 2018, consisting of tools to help create scenarios and content for story sequences for the Power Up mobile application. The GitHub repositories are systers/powerup-scenario-builder and systers/powerup-story-designer respectively.
You can learn more about this project on its GitHub wiki documentation.
Here are the links to the repositories of this project on GitHub: systers/powerup-android and systers/powerup-ios.
Mentorship System
I proposed Mentorship System for GSoC 2018. I came up with this idea based on my own experiences, from mentoring first-year students in my college, from mentoring friends or other people I found that needed some sort of guidance, on career development topics. I wanted to do something from scratch that I identified myself with, so I thought about experiences I had, what could help me with the goal of reaching people that I could mentor outside of my circle of friends. This was something I wanted to solve for myself that gladly aligned with Systers mission and the minimum functional product was doable for Google Summer of Code 3 month duration.
Initially, I only proposed an Android application because that’s what I wanted to do and was comfortable with. Only after feedback from mentors that reviewed my proposal, I started thinking about the backend that was needed.
You can learn more about how I came up with this idea through “Mentorship System by Systers” blog post.
Here are the links to the repositories of this project on GitHub: systers/mentorship-backend and systers/mentorship-android.
Sysbot
Sammy proposed Sysbot project for GSoC 2018. This project goal is to streamline the Open Source workflow of Systers community. Some of the functionalities are label issues, approve issues and PRs, allow contributors to claim and assign issues both from GitHub or Slack, guide newcomers with resources related to Open Source and the community.
Here is the link to the repository of this project on GitHub: systers/sysbot.
Special advice for GSoC proposals
When proposing an original idea make sure to explain well what you intend to do during the whole Google Summer of Code 3 month period. Consider these factors:
- If you have a lot of proposed features, think about which ones are required or a “nice to have”? Point them out.
- How will your project idea benefit the community?
- Which tech stack are you planning to use? If you’re proposing a game explain the idea, the tools you want to use. Is it for mobile? Is it for the web? Do you plan to use Unity?
- Are you implementing a backend? Think about the system design and how you want to structure your data. Can you present UML diagrams, ER diagrams for the database?
- If your project has visual components as a mobile or web app has, do present some user interface examples with mockup screens. I did a wireframe for Mentorship System.
- If you have an idea to improve an already existing Systers project (even if archived), be detailed on what improvements you plan to for the project, and how you want to execute them.
- Is your idea something you see yourself working on during 3 months or more? For instance, why am I still so involved with mentorship system? Because I want the project to have success! It’s a project that I care about, and I really liked bootstrapping the project and thinking about it from scratch.
Whichever idea you choose, be clear about the technical requirements and aspects of your project idea. Be as complete as possible in your proposal’s timeline, project description, mission, etc.
Here’s my GSoC proposal for Mentorship System as an example. This was initially created by me, although throughout the application phase, I improved this constantly according to mentors and the community’s feedback.
Thank you for reading this post!
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This first image credits goes to the amazing initiative #WOCinTech Chat photos.