Video Response

Delving into Red Hat’s Open Source Stories, particularly those focused on agriculture and technology, was genuinely intriguing for me. As a computer science student, it’s easy to get engrossed in developing technology that companies would use, yet these segments overall showed me ways open source development can create true technology that would better the world without the corporate monetization and distribution of such technology. I don’t really think about ways I could change the world with development, I have always felt I lack those skills to really change the world in which it matters. The “Food Computer” piece was especially compelling to me because of this. It introduced the concept of precision agriculture in a controlled environment, using technology to optimize growing conditions for crops. This method not only promises to maximize efficiency but also addresses critical issues like food scarcity and environmental sustainability. It makes me think that my skills learned in computer science could one day directly contribute to solving global challenges like World Hunger.

“Democratizing knowledge” opened up a whole new perspective for me on how technology can break down the barriers to education and information. It’s wild to think about the power of open-source platforms in this context. They’re not just tools for developers to collaborate but can actually be a gateway for anyone, anywhere, to learn something new or gain the skills they need to improve their lives. This concept isn’t entirely new to me, but seeing the tangible examples and hearing the stories of how it’s being implemented today made it hit home in a big way.

Contributions

First, I want to say that the greatest challenge is actually setting the time as a senior to make true contributions to open source. I thought that this was the largest challenge overall because all of which require tedious work for small contributions. It is truly searching for information for both Wikipedia and OpenStreetMaps. I am going to contribute a lot more as I have gotten more of a handle on my schedule and priorities.

I found that the contributions I was best able to make were Wikipedia and Open Street Maps contributions. Open Street Map is easy, but repetitive and tedious for me. I thought that the best places to enter was the places that were closest to me, and places that I frequently visit. The only challenge with OpenStreetMap lies in finding places that are not yet identified. Many places in New York City has already been put into Open Street Map.

Wikipedia contributions I have found very satisfying and am proud of. I was able to rewrite an article’s beginning completely so that it followed the tone of Wikipedia. I am proud of this because the original article felt very incomplete. I thought that my changes would allow someone else to build off and continue building that page. I think though I am going to edit the rest of the pages another day. I also enjoy contributing to Wikipedia as it allows me to learn from topics of interest, as opposed to writing about something I don’t care about.