Glory all the way
University of Moratuwa topps the GSoC 2008 Open Source Venture...
by Aravinda Dassanayake
The University of Moratuwa (UoM) ranked as the 11th best University
in the South Asian region, has made yet another significant achievement
in the international arena, to add to its glamour.
The caliber of its students enabled the University to top the
participation in the Google Summer of Code 2008 (GSoC 2008) programme,
both in terms of proposal submission and acceptance of proposals among
all participating Universities.
The Summer of Code programme which is a global software development
venture organized by the open-source promoting and search engine giant
Google for university students, has attracted hundreds of high skilled
developers from all corners of the world to take part in leading open
source projects of renowned organizations.
Since its inception in 2005, countries such as USA, India, Canada,
China and Germany which are in the pinnacle of programming expertise
have been key players in the programme.
Despite the fact that total participation seems a bit far fetched due
to the small population of the country, Sri Lanka has still managed to
be in the top ten with respect to total participation.
But the most outstanding feat is that although USA, India and China
have secured the first three positions respectively for total
participation of GSoC 2008, none of the Universities in any
participating country could boast a count to beat 93 as the number of
applicants and 24 as the number of accepted proposals from one single
University, which UoM managed to achieve surpassing other Universities
by far.
With the count of 24 accepted proposals, UoM has left the Wroclaw
University of Technology, Poland and University of Campinas, Brazil in a
shared second place with a count of 10 successful proposals each to
their credit.
The University of Campinas, Brazil with 29 applicants was the only
closest institution in terms of the number of applicants compared to the
staggering count of 93 applicants from UoM.
This has surely shown proof of what an elite status UoM can achieve
in the fields of Computer Science and Information Technology even
competing with the world at large.
Prof. Ananda Jayawardena, Dean, Faculty of Engineering, UoM with his
delight at the achievement said, “This indicates UoM is actually in the
world ranking.
It is comparable to anybody anywhere in the developed world as well.
And in fact, this is a great boost to our university both locally and
internationally which helps all the other students to compete in global
competitions and to bring honour to UoM and also contribute for national
development”.
His words are strongly backed by the statistics which show that UoM
has managed to advance 300 positions in the world ranking over the last
year and managed to enter the top 20% of Universities of the world.
Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, Founder and CEO of WSO2 has been a pioneer
in fostering the Open Source movement in the country and he has also
been the main driving force behind the first participation of UoM in the
GSoC venture in 2005.
While extending his heartiest congratulations to the students, he
said “one thing I do want to tell the students is that the whole idea of
GSoC is not to just give some money to do some work now and forget about
it, but rather to introduce you to open source development and I want to
tell all the students that they shouldn’t stop contributing to Open
Source after this summer”.
He also revealed that Sri Lanka is considered to be the country
having the highest ‘Open Source contribution per contributor’ ratio in
the world as well.
The Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) has produced 18
out of 24 successful participants and Head of Department, Mrs. Vishaka
Nanayakkara, said “while keeping the academic excellence, our biggest
challenge is getting these young undergraduate students to show their
true potential.
Competitions such as GSoC have helped us to get these undergraduate
students to push these limits, show their true potential and achieve
world class results. This has helped us in moulding these graduates to
true professionals of tomorrow.”
A significant honour of this accomplishment should undoubtedly be
with her, since she has been a livewire in encouraging students to take
part in numerous events similar to GSoC, consequent to her endless
passion to develop the programme at the department as well as the
University.
The 24 students who got their proposals standing out among the rest
have every reason to be proud about themselves since it is their
creativity, courage and undying passion for technology and Open Source
that earned the credit for themselves, the University as well as the
country.
Being collective contributors of highlighting the UoM icon in the
global, from the University perspective they are from the Dept. of
Computer Science & Engineering, Dept. of Electronics and
Telecommunications Engineering and Faculty of IT. It is notable that a
student in his first year, who is yet to select his stream of expertise,
is also among the 24.
According to Dr. Weerawarana all of them have achieved “a chance to
compete, challenge and beat the rest of the world”.
Parinda Jayasiri, the first year student is allegedly the first ever
student of UoM to take part in GSoC while being in the first year. Being
a team member at the regional competition of the ACM International
Collegiate Programming Competition - the world’s largest programming
contest - held in Kanpur last year, he has taken a step further in the
development world by being part of this year’s GSoC.
“Some of my friends suggested me for this and also advised on
choosing projects and preparing application” said Parinda who has been
having the knack for programming for a long time.
He is someone who can take part in the GSoC programme three more
times after this, since he would be a University student throughout, and
he says, “I want to continue working on the current project as far as
possible even after the GSoC 2008, and I’m thinking of applying for GSoC
in coming years as well”.
Taking part in GSoC once is so fulfilling. But, taking part twice can
be termed ‘awesome’! Gartheeban Ganeshapillai, the student from the
Dept.
of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering happens to be
running the second lap in his GSoC venture. His first constribution was
for the Drupal project - a Content Management System - and this time, he
is working for the Minix Operating System.
“Many projects look for fresh applicants, or perhaps there is a
beginners luck, which means getting selected consecutively is a lot
harder than being chosen for first time, and the program is by all means
favourable to the newbies.”, said Gartheeban expressing his views on
being selected for the second time.
He was modest to give the due credit to the University as he said
“regarding the credit that is beholden back to my University, given the
fact I am from a different field, I would say the University as an
entity did its job perfectly in providing the background for me to
interact, network with people of various interests and provided a
reasonable exposure.”
Namal Seanrathne, a final year student of CSE who has made way to
create an interactive communication establishment protocol for the SIP
Communicator project, stated that the experience he gained during the
industrial training period was beneficial in preparing the application
for GSoC.
This vouches for the fact that the industrial training programme
which students of UoM have to undergo can have many advantages rather
than merely gaining technical expertise.
He eagerly says, “I’m hoping to wear the Google Summer of Code
t-shirt in three months”, referring to the t-shirt provided by Google
for the participants at the successful delivery of their projects, which
is considered to be a precious token in the Open Source world.
Tharindu Mathew, another final year student of CSE who managed to
prove himself to the Apache Software Foundation with his proposal
regarding the Harmony-Demo-1 project, is one who is inspired by the
entire GSoC process.
“ Personally, by this application process alone I learnt a lot about
how the processes work and why Open Source is popular and also why it is
rising in popularity” he said.
Another achiever, Senaka Fernando who has impressed the evaluators
with his proposal for the Apache Harmony project, expressed his aim
saying, “I hope to make the opportunity I get through GSoC a fruitful
one that would increase my visibility within open source as well as
become a part of various new open source communities”.
He recalled the support extended by the University, mentioning “CSE
has been supportive throughout our stay at the university in one way or
another in motivating us to take part in extra curricular activities
which includes competitions such as the GSoC.
The help and support, and the encouragement I’ve got from the CSE
community, especially the senior students who been a part of this event
is superb”. He who looks forward for a hectic schedule ahead with the
programme, kept a final word of remark as, “What is expected is your
commitment rather than your knowledge in programming”.
Nuwan Sameera from the Faculty of IT, UoM said “this is a world class
competition and being selected to such a competition gives me a great
moral boost, recognition and self delight” sharing his joy of getting in
to this programme.
“Not only that, but also this is a good chance to sharpen my skills
as I am working with a vast community of software developers. I am proud
to say that our faculty also shares a part and I am glad that I could
take part in this glory” he added modestly.
With all that said, it is noteworthy to realize the numerous benefits
GSoC can bring to its participants. Hiran Ganegedara, who is currently a
Software Engineer at Eurocenter DDC (Pvt) Ltd. is also one of the few
who got the ‘awesome’ opportunity of “working with an international
software community which is not an experience every undergraduate would
get”, twice during his days at UoM.
“Working with the open source community was a really valuable
experience. It’s a global community and I had to interact with members
from various cultures like US, UK and New Zealand.
All the members were very friendly and helpful. Learning open source
etiquette was another very important aspect”, he elaborated on the
benefits of being part of such a programme.
In addition, the participants are believed to go through a certain
level of rigor in a real-world scenario, which pays off well at the end.
Hiran said, “No one was there to spoon-feed me. I had to go through the
existing source code and model my component according to their
practices.
During the three months I had to plan my work on the project so that
I could deliver a good product at the end” Gartheeban expressed share of
benefits as “apropos what I got from GSoC, except for the certificate,
free book, t shirt and money I was able to make a lot of contacts and
create networks with people in and out GSoC, where my former mentors are
still in touch with me. Also it opened me the door into a totally new
professional world, where I am still involved in.”
UoM took part in the first GSoC venture which kicked-off in 2005 with
a participation of the four students - Thilina Gunarathne, Dinesh
Premalal, Chathura Ekanayake and Indika Kumara of the Dept. of Computer
Science and Engineering.
Thilina, who is currently pursing higher studies at the Indiana
University said, “All four of us became Committers of the Apache
Software Foundation, All four of us made it to Project Management
Committees of various Apache projects and indeed all four of us went to
careers in Open Source Software”, sharing his views on behalf of all
four, highlighting to which heights the programme can get its
participants.
Apart from the experience and monetary benefits, the participants go
through a tremendous value addition process for themselves. Thilina
believes “it surely helped in my grad school application” and it is “a
chance to get in to Open Source development and create a global name for
yourself while gaining some credit to our country”.
Participating in GSoC is really an exceptional opportunity. But, all
those who went through this amazing programme vouch for the fact that it
is a possibility beyond doubt. “All it takes is your effort. But
remember to do your homework.” says Hiran.
Preparation for next year’s GSoC can be started right now by
searching for open source projects listed under the GSoC programme and
getting savvy with them. According to Thilina “the rapport which you can
build with the developers early hand” can be a huge opportunity to
construct a successful proposal and create a better impression during
the evaluation process of proposals.
With all this, it is evident that UoM is a fountain for
opportunities, knowledge and true professionalism. Days will pass, the
sun will shine and clocks will always tick.
But, with this feat regarding GSoC, UoM has added one more
unblemished tautology for the rest of the future.
That is, the high calibre of its students geared by the inspiration
of the energetic staff will keep on adding more world’s firsts to the
UoM icon in the days to come by.
The 24 achievers...
Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering (Batch 05’)
Thilina Mahesh Buddhika
Tharindu Mathew
Hiranya Jayathilaka
Manjula Amarabandu Weerasinghe
Senaka Fernando
Viraj Edirisinghe
Inshan Haniffa
Harsha Halgaswatta
Namal Senarathne
Thaminda Karunanayake
Lahiru Gunathilake
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering (Batch 04’)
Rajika Kumarasiri
Asiri Rathnayake
Milinda Pathirage
Janandith Jayawardena
Malaka Ekanayake
Charith Paranaliyanage
Thilina Somadasa
Faculty of IT
Buddhika Laknath Semage
Nuwan Sameera Hettiarachchi
Dept. of Electronics
and Telecommunications Engineering
Gartheeban Ganeshapillai
Level 1
Parinda Jayasiri |
