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During OpenJS World, which was held virtually June 2-3, we heard from many inspiring people involved in all areas of technology. In this keynote series, we will highlight the key points from the keynote videos. We hope to get a highlight of the speakers in a way that allows for people to hone in on the part of the talk that interests them the most.

Cian Ó Maidín, President and Founder of Nearform, covered how Nearform built a popular exposure notification app. Nearform designs, builds and operates web mobile and cloud platforms at scale. They are firm believers of open source and have been contributors to the Node.js and React ecosystem.

Early last year, Ó Maidín developed a chest infection and flu after returning from a trip. Shortly after, his wife began displaying similar symptoms. He remembered having a discussion with his wife where he predicted that this coronavirus would be soon labelled as a pandemic. A few weeks went by and he received a call from the health services executive in Ireland asking for Ó Maidín’s help to build an exposure notification application. He brought his team together and they built the Covid Tracker.

When building the app, the development team agreed on empowering people, prioritizing privacy, and creating trust and transparency as core principles. Plus make it user-friendly. The app itself helps track the number of people with symptoms and contact tracing. 

In his concluding remarks Ó Maidín mentioned how the success of the app has led to more organizations approaching Nearform, and so they wanted to make it open source and to roll out the technology as quickly as possible. He also stated how this has made them better equipped and ready to face the challenges that may come with the next pandemic.

Full video here

Broken down by section:

Panel introduction 0:14

What is Nearform 0:47

Story of building the exposure notification app 1:46

The call 6:03

Developing Covid Tracker 6:50

Principles 7:11

Journey from March 22nd – July 6th 8:50

What the app looks like 10:11

Scaling 12:58

Covid Green 14:51

Milestones 16:07

Summary 18:05

Closing thoughts and call to action 18:51

During OpenJS World, which was held virtually in June, we heard from many inspiring people involved in all areas of technology. In this keynote series, we will highlight the key points from the keynote videos. We hope to get a highlight of the speakers in a way that allows for people to hone in on the part of the talk that interests them the most.

During the OpenJS World Keynote Panel, Joe Sepi spoke to leaders in the tech world to hear their insights on the best Open Source practices and steps to make open source a more collaborative environment.

Joe Sepi, an Open Source Engineer and Advocate at IBM, spoke with Michael Dawson, Node.js lead for IBM and Red Hat, and Beth Griggs, Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat. They kicked the discussion off by talking about transparency, accessibility and the open governance model of Node.js. 

In terms of collaboration, Griggs mentioned how accessibility is key to Node.js. In an effort to lower the barriers to entry, being a part of Node.js is as simple as people turning up by clicking on a Zoom link to contribute and join the discussion. She further added that to help make Node.js a more collaborative space, mentorships programs have been set up. For example, she blocks off a couple of hours a week to shadow the process on the release working group. Dawson shared that getting many people together to share ideas requires coming to a consensus; his personal view is that sometimes challenges should be hard as it is better to spend more time in discussion before finalizing a big decision.

In their concluding thoughts, the panelists mentioned ways to get involved: taking a look at the projects hosted by the OpenJS Foundation, looking through the GitHub repos, analyzing your experience and interests and then just joining a call!

Full video here

Broken down by section:

Panel introduction 0:10

Node.js experience 1:03

Accessibility 4:30

The flipside 7:53

The Success of creating the OpenJS Foundation 10:43

Advantages of contributing to open source 13:25

Hiring in open source 15:46

Closing thoughts 18:51

During the OpenJS World Keynote Panel, Robin Ginn spoke to Jenny Toomey to hear her insights on the role the Indie Rock DIY revolution has had on technology and conversely how technology helped transform the music industry. 

Robin Ginn, Executive Director of the OpenJS Foundation, spoke with Jenny Toomey, International Program Director of Technology and Society at the Ford Foundation. Toomey shared her thoughts on the digital music revolution scene in the 90s and explained how Washington DC had many high-performing globally focused individuals; “…it felt like you were at the center of the place where you could change the world.” 

Toomey worked for seven years trying to find a balance between openness and control of records between the artists and record labels. That’s when she realized the way technology was changing the world – she explained that the early challenges of the portfolio included people not realizing ways in which technology was transforming their lives – and the systems that protected them. 

People in positions of power back then thought of technology as transactional as opposed to systemic. 

The Ford Foundation tackles problems of openness by building a field of experts who are concerned about net neutrality. Toomey feels optimistic seeing an enormous shift (which open source people always knew): the way you design something determines if it is rights protecting or rights undermining. She emphasized that competing models are key to transparency and honesty.

In her concluding thoughts Toomey mentioned the importance of bridging the gap between the public and private sector when it comes to matching skills to meet the needs of the public. She also explained how so much of the web is dependent on the invisible toiling of the open source community and how it is necessary for the health of the tech ecosystem. 

Full video here

Broken down by section:

Panel introduction 0:50

Washington DC music scene 0:54

Technology changing the music scene 6:07

Early Challenges 9:45

Strategies and solutions 12:23

Voice of the musician being lost in policy 16:37

Advice for those interested in working for the government & public interest tech 24:17

Concluding thoughts and favorite musician 32:19

During the OpenJS World, held virtually in June, we heard from many inspiring people involved in all areas of technology. In this keynote series, we will highlight the key points from the keynote videos. We hope to share highlights of the speakers in a way that allows for people to discover what parts of the talk interest them the most.

In a recent Keynote Speech, Charlie Robbins and Jonathan Keslin talked about how Open Governance at GoDaddy’s organizational structure mirrors their communication structure, known as Conway’s law. GoDaddy supports internal groups in an effort to push the decision process to the engineers and content experts. They only use those outside their field when necessary. 

This technique has been successful for GoDaddy (GD). This process went on for a few years before a pattern emerged. Once they were motivated, volunteers stayed engaged because of interest in the mission of their group.

As GoDaddy’s internal and external communities have grown, so did the need for structure and governance. They created GoDaddy {open}. This is GD’s name for its open governance structure, a nexus of technology and community. It is extensible and repeatable and fostered by leadership. GD {open} groups are bodies meant to drive business outcomes or policies. They are formed across disciplines both technical and non-technical. It gives visibility to other parts of the company through shared goals.

Guilds are another form of open governance used at GoDaddy. Guilds are groups of people formed around a specific topic, such as a programming language. Individuals rally around a technical topic, sharing best practices and forming a community. One thing that guilds are not is a group that talks about standards or infrastructure. They are communities that come together to learn and grow. GoDaddy also participates in trade groups such as OpenJS, Domain Name Association, and Node.js. GD open lets them coordinate these across the company. GoDaddy also is an open-sourced supporter, and have many different projects released to open source and communicate these efforts with their engineering blog. GoDaddy doesn’t have all the answers, but they do support them whenever they can. 

Full link here

Broken down by section:

Conway’s Law 0:44

Open Governance for internal groups 1:10

Application of Open GoDaddy 2:35

GoDaddy Open Governance 3:40

Organizational Structure 4:00

Model of GoDaddy open 4:16

Application of Open Governance Groups 4:54

Guilds 5:40

What is a guild? 6:54

GoDaddy Participation 7:24

Open-source Supporter 7:36

GoDaddy External Support in Open Governance 8:16