So I watched the videos on OpenStax and democratizing access to education. From, what I’ve learned I gathered that Open source educational software like OpenStax can be a great way to make education acessible throughout the world. It also adds a layer of customization that is not possible with premium licensed software that is close-gated and cannot cater to specific needs of specific students. With open source, these software can be modified for their specific usage. I found OpenStax to be quite amazing in that the creators say they implement machine learning and editable textbooks to make the experience more customized for the student and tailor the textbook experience to the students need. I think OpenStax also helps in that students who are not able to afford 100-200 dollar textbooks can now readily access legal textbook of similar caliber that is constantly checked by open source collaborators.

During class, I got to learn about some of the other group’s videos like that big data video on the clay pot making town in Chile and how open source data software is helping them. Open source in agriculture is also a industry I didn’t expect open source to be so prominent in. It seems like a lot of social good is generated doing these activities and with the average age of farmers in America going up, this can be a great resource for younger and older alike to get into agriculture to make it easier. I was genuinely surprised when I heard that average age in class in America being around 58 and agriculture is absolutely vital to the economy as quite literally everyone relies on agriculture to get food (even processed food).

Overall, from what I gathered, I think open source software is key to creating a more democratic (in every sense possible) society and making things more accessible without discriminating against any group. As a computer science student and hopefully a computer scientist in the future, I think I need to contribute to this community as a form of giving back and creating more social good. With this many open source projects that I’ve relied on in my education and in my personal projects, I can now see why open source projects get contributions. People are passionate and learning more about this makes me very passionate too about open source.

Currently, I am working on contributing to a couple of open source projects like Wikipedia and Open Street maps. I added several features in openstreetmap with adding new restuarants and updating general information on a location. For Wikipedia, I was able to add a couple of citations, add more sections to a page, and change formatting on several pages. I think the biggest trouble definitely with these more active websites like Wikipedia and OSM in terms of contributing is that people are very ACTIVE and I really mean it. There are people double checking you constantly to verify your information and there is definitely a learning curve to understand the styling required for these websites especially Wikipedia. I am definitely currently most proud of the revamp I did last week on Astor Pl between Broadway and Lafayette which I realized was super unmaintained last week. I added all the shops on the street, fixed all the alignment issues, and deleted the shops that do not exist. I am also proud that I made my first non citation wikipedia contribution to my high school’s page editing it’s “In popular culture” section to include a couple of more shows.