Dog tails and tales from 2020

There is no denying the fact that 2020 was a challenging year for everybody, including animals.

Animals such as dogs, who ate largely from street food booths, were famished in India because there were no street cafes open during the lockdown. I was in New Delhi, my hometown, working from home like the majority of us.

During the month of July 2020, a dog near my home (who I affectionately referred to as Brownie) gave birth to seven puppies in the wilderness.

I recall looking out the balcony after work (from home) and enjoying the clean Delhi breeze (which is a miracle that Delhi has clean air) due to the lockdown and the lack of vehicular movement.. and I noticed that Brownie still did not come to eat her regular evening meal. It had been 3 days and she was nowhere in sight. I got worried as I knew she could deliver pups anytime soon, and I so wanted to step out and look for her. Like everybody else, I was petrified too, to go out as I hadn’t stepped out since months due to a discovery of a new virus.

Feeding Sessions!
(Just outside my balcony)

But I did step out. Near to my house, I’ll never forget my first sight of Brownie’s puppies, the sweetest, cleanest, tiniest ball of fur I’d ever seen in an empty, filthy land.! Because the land’s surface was uneven, they all were in different corners. The first thing that sprang to me was to arrange them all on a level surface. This was the scene after the search effort was done.

The pups were attempted to be covered from both sides with a wooden plank, so that the pups don’t roll down.

Brownie and her litter put together.

The next day, I sought help from an animal-lover person to build a temporary shed for the puppies! We came every morning and changed sheets, cleaned the surroundings and put fresh water for Brownie. I was so relieved to find a like-minded person admist the challenges.

New bed!

Me holding a 3 days old puppy!

..until..It began to rain fiercely one night, and it worried me about the shed’s ability to withstand the downpour.
The first thing the next morning was to check on the pups; fortunately, they were fine, but the entire space and their bed were soaked.

Without any second thought, the pups were moved from there to a safe house shelter as it was predicted that the rains will continue for a few more weeks owing to monsoon. Soon, 2 months went by, from observing the pups crawl over, their eyes open and to their first feeble bark, despite the struggles, it was an beautiful experience.
Brownie weaned off the pups and thus, they were ready for adoption! However, my biggest fear was, will anyone come forward to adopt them and especially during COVID where people are abandoning their own pets??

With such thoughts parallelly running through my mind, regardless, I started to post about adoption for these 7 pups.
To my greatest surprise, 5 incredible folks stepped forward one by one and agreed to give these pups a better life than they would have on the streets of India. I’ll never be able to express my gratitude to all five dog parents who chose to adopt an Indian street pup from the streets of Delhi. For opening up the space in their hearts and homes for the pups!

One of the 5 adopted pups is adopted by a person who hails from the USA, but he is currently working in India. It’s incredibly touching to see that instead of ‘buying’ a foreign-bred puppy, he chose to save an Indian street dog’s life. #AdoptDontShop :”)

The 5 Adopted Pups who now have a permanent loving family!

The adorable, “Robin”!

“Don” and his new big brother!

The naughty and handsome, “Swayze”!

First Pup who got adopted – “Pluto”

Playful and Beautiful, “Bella”!

If this isn’t perfect, I don’t know what is! God had planned loving families for them and they found it..

Meet Momo and Beesa,
2 out of the 7 pups, who are still waiting for a forever home, however, currently living with a loving foster family.

Update! The foster family, and now, my friend, Aashima, decided to adopt these two. 🙂

Now as winters are here, We arranged gunny sack bags for our street dogs. Two NGOs namely, Lotus Indie Foundation and We Exist Foundation who work Animal Welfare in India, were providing dog beds to ground volunteers. We were able to obtain a few gunny sack beds with their assistance. However, because of the weather, I also bought dog coats and put them on a few furry friends I knew. (who let me put coat on them)

Another sensitive topic is dog sterilization/neutering, which is a feasible option listed by the government for controlling dog populations and ending the suffering of street dog. In a period of six months, I was able to sterilise five dogs in my neighbourhood; the number is little, but I believe it is a good start for me as an individual. I’m satisfied when I see them now, healthier, happier, and running around without fear of being attacked by other dogs or suffering from health problems.

I paid for the surgery for two dogs who are extremely close to me and trust me enough to go to the veterinarian with me, but to my surprise, one of my friends, Tarun, shared the veterinarian expense.

Bobo going for Sterilization with me in Auto!

Brownie coming home after Sterilization!

For the other three dogs, I had it done through Delhi Municipal Corporations, who do it for free for community dogs. You just have to call them and they’ll come with trained dog catchers and a van and drop them off in the same area, but volunteers like us have to be very vigilant throughout the process to make sure they’re taken care of.

Dogs getting dropped off after sterilization.

I am really not sure why I am I even writing this in my blog, or deep inside I do know why, it’s 6th of January and it would have been my lifeline, Picu’s 11th birthday. 🙂

Picu

In the midst of difficulties in 2020, this was my wonderful experience. I genuinely hope you all found a silver lining.

Having one person on your side for a good cause is more powerful than having five people working against you.

Grace Hopper Celebration’19, Orlando

During the first week of October 2019, I had the opportunity to attend the Grace Hoppers Conference. The 2019 GHC was held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, from October 1–October 4. It’s the greatest gathering and celebration of women and other underrepresented groups in computing and technology.

The presence of 26,000 other women and other gender minorities in technology in one space was exhilarating! GHC is filled with networking opporunities, since it took hours to get into the session rooms where keynotes and lighting talks were hosted, and even to get a photo with the stunning GHC signboard there was good amount of time to interact and network with attendees in the waiting line. I would recommend wearing comfortable shoes and carrying a small backpack loaded with energy bars and a water bottle.

It’s recommended to pick up your physical badge before the first day of the conference. I was unable to get my badge before the conference day because the badge system crashed due to heavy load, so, some of us had to rise at 5 a.m to pick up the badge on the first day of the conference. It’s all worth the wait!

Intel Women In Tech at GHC #IamIntel

With encouraging Keynote presentations and awards, the conference got off to a wonderful start. The theme for GHC 2019 was “We will…”, and you were free to fill in the blanks with your own interpretations.

One of my favorite topics of discussion was igniting the genius in every child by using technology to bring the best quality education to communities all over the world, particularly the most underserved. When this video was shown at the GHC keynote, it literally gave me goosebumps to see high school girls talking about the solutions they want to build using technology. At the same time, I was thinking about society’s craze with “growing up” and then “achieving great things,” by asking questions like “What do you want to become when you grow up?” but, by watching this motivational video, I was wondering the right question could be “what do you want to become right now, what change would you like to make right now.”

Dr. Fei Fei Lee’s keynote session was one of my favorites among the many. She talked about the comments she received from her admiring colleagues about her idea about her product image-net, which is now a key contribution to the Deep Learning revolution and the foundation for how Machine Learning projects are developed. “It’s okay to feel small, but together we can be big enough to accomplish anything,” she said, and finding your circle takes conviction.

According to one unexpected performance that made everyone shiver, women in tech have been sold a false narrative about who we are and what we can do. We’ll flip the script and change the status quo together.

I was looking forward to Aicha Evans’ keynote address. She is one of my most admired female leaders in technology. She discussed her vision and the need for Autonomous Mobility. She concluded by quoting a well-known proverb.

“If you want to go FAST, go ALONE.  If you want to go FAR, go TOGETHER.”

Some of the sessions are recorded that can be viewed here.

I had the chance to meet interns from Outreachy; we had always communicated online, so it was wonderful to finally meet in person. Maria Glukhova and I interned at Debian for the same round. (https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreachy/2016/DecemberMarch#Debian)

It was lovely meeting one of #outreachy alum under Debian and a friend @siamezzze at #GHC19. @outreachy #debian #debianoutreach pic.twitter.com/gEs6TC0DKE

— Urvika Gola (@UrvikaGola) October 4, 2019

Intel’s been a proud supporter for GHC for years and has a strong presence at GHC.

Intel’s Hiring Booth at GHC

Intel Tech Showcase at GHC

I was assisting attendees at Intel’s VR demonstration.

Intel is committed to advancing the uses of AI that most positively impact the world. The hardware, software, and algorithms that we create and utilize on a daily basis can help identify children at risk of exploitation, improve medical diagnosis, and protect our natural resources. Intel is passionate about equalizing AI resources, capabilities, and services to benefit all. Source – AI4Good

Few products we put out there as a part of Technology Showcase at GHC:-

Intel’s AI TrailGaurd Camera

• TrailGuard AI camera uses Intel-powered artificial intelligence technology to detect poachers entering Africa’s wildlife reserves and alert park rangers in near real-time so poachers can be stopped before killing endangered animals.
• As per stats, 25k – 35k elephants killed annually for their ivory, every day a Rhino is poached for its horn. Lions have lost 43% of their population over the past 20 years. While many of these animals live on protected reserves, the areas are vast, the infrastructure limited and park ranger resources spread thin that it is difficult to stop poachers before they kill.
• TrailGuard AI builds on anti-poaching prototypes funded by Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and National Georaphic Society.
• This was a personal favorite project.
• Find more details here -> https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-ai-tech-stops-poachers/#gs.dmnt3o

Intel’s Volumetric Capture

• Since Intel has moved its dial from PC-centric to Data-centric, Intel continues to position itself as the leader in immersive media across key segments including sports and entertainment.
• Scenes inside the dome from all directions at once, a technique called “volumetric capture.”
• Data captured by each camera is shaped into voxels (think 3D pixels), which render the virtual environment in multi-perspective 3D.
• It allows audiences to view a scene from any angle – even the middle of the action.
  This Grease piece was captured at the world’s largest volumetric stage – Intel Studios.
• Find more details here -> https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-studios-volumetric-video-gives-grease-new-life-40-years-later/

At the end of it, attending GHC was truly an extraordinary experience. I felt grateful to be a part of the celebration. Thanks to my employer – Intel and my manager for the opportunity.

I volunteered for the next GHC conferences by revieweing student scholarships, revieweing call-for-proposals for the open-source track at GHC. You can find various kinds of volunteering opportunities as well.

Attending SREcon’19, Brooklyn

It was my first time attending the SRECON series and also one of the big step into learning about Site Reliability and Engineering. The conference had jam packed sessions on site reliability, Chaos engineering, Code reviewing culture, Incidents, SLOs and much more.

Resilience Engineering Mythbusting at #srecon
Adding a functionality is adding complexity into our systems.
Systems will fail for all sorts of reasons, always practise best practises (misnomer) one of them is NOT to deploy on a friday. pic.twitter.com/2h7pv0ePZM

— Urvika Gola (@UrvikaGola) March 27, 2019

My notes would be redundant because there is nothing better than a comprehensive  write up about the conference by Tanya Reilly, you can read it here -> https://noidea.dog/blog/srecon-americas-2019.

Thanks to the organizers for putting up such an overwhelming, knowledgeable and fun conference! 🙂

Attending ReactConf’18 in Henderson, Nevada

I recently attended React Conf hosted in Henderson, Nevada.

                 View from the conference venue – The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort

The conference started keynote by people who were working on the React Core team at Facebook. The very first keynote was “React today and tomorrow” where they talked about popularity of React – how npm downloads are going up and installation of chrome react dev tools are increasing!

React.lazy was announced recently. React.lazy helps to lazy load the components (components let you split the UI into independent reusable pieces and think about each piece in isolation) without breaking the internet!

To build great UIs using React, a few common factors are generally considered:-
-Suspense – Simplifying hard things, Idea about data fetching, code splitting, async data dependencies.
-Performance – Time Slicing, making sure that important components are rendered first.
-Developer tooling – for developers to debug and understand their app for example, by providing developer friendly warnings

Now with React DevTools extension one can inspect and debug trees and Profiler helps in understanding what’s going on internally with the application.

They also talked about the downside of React such as:-
-Reusing logic – the logic is split across different life cycles, classes, which are apparently difficult both for humans and machines.
-Giant components.

These are not separate problems but symptoms of one problem and the problem is react does not provide simple light weight stateful primitive simpler than a class component.

The sessions also talked about Declarative Animation, a declarative API – Pose which seemed really cool to implement. To differentiate a Declarative and Imperative code could be somewhat understood as:-

Declarative code is quite descriptive, it’s often an abstraction. In Imperative code understanding what something is doing is same as understanding what something is doing, step by step logic. If you want to make any contribution towards an imperative codebase, you would need to understand how different components are wired up.

Sooo. What’s new in v2?
-Support for PostCSS, previously there was only autoprefixer, which wouldn’t compile new CSS features but now you could use modern CSS features without worrying about legacy browser support.
-Added Babel Macros – Can be used to import graphQL files which in turn could be transformed for Apollo to consume at runtime. Can use relay Modern, it will run the relay compiler against GraphQL files. Import MDX as a JSX component and can be run in the application.
-Sass support and CSS Modules and a lot more!  – https://reactjs.org/blog/2018/10/01/create-react-app-v2.html

Day 2 of React Conf, started with talking about how performance is integral to UX. Code Splitting, a concept were instead of sending the whole code in the initial payload, we send what’s needed to render the first screen and later, lazily loading the rest based on subsequent navigation. A most common problem while implementing code splitting can be ‘what do you display to the user if the view hasn’t finished loading?’ Maybe a spinner, loader, placeholder…?? But lot of these degrades the UX. Then came Concurrent React into the picture, Concurrent React can work on multiple tasks at a time and switch between them according to priority. Concurrent React can partially render a tree without committing the result and does not block the main thread.

Two major components of Concurrent React.
-Time-slicing
-Suspense

Let’s consider a scenario in Synchronous React, if any user event triggers in between the execution of the existing thread, it will wait for the rendering to get completed in a single uninterrupted block. Whereas, in Concurrent React, React is going to pause the current render, switch to complete the user blocking task and resume. So basically, Concurrent React is non blocking, so you can render large amount of data without getting blocked.

Later, learnt about SVG in my favorite talk! –https://twitter.com/UrvikaGola/status/1055878157830504448.
i.e Scalable Vector Graphics Instruction on how to draw an image in a markup file.
but…why use SVG?
Scalable – Scales from small to big without loss of fidelity.
Vector based image – File size is smaller as compared to others.
Modifiable – Change with CSS and JS.

In React world, to use SVG inline can be done by:-
-Importing as a react component. (No HTTP requests cos you are not calling the image)
– Convert to JSX (No HTTP requests as well but difficult to update the SVG design)

Apart from all the technical learning there were outdoor activities like paddle boarding organized for conference attendees, board games, lawn games & karaoke etccc!

In the end, a big Thanks to React Conf Team and Facebook for the opportunity – learnt a lot about React, met some great developers and explored a new State! 🙂

BOB Konferenz’18 in Berlin

Recently attended Bob Conference in Berlin, Germany. The conference started with a keynote on a very interesting topic, A language for making movies. Using Non Linear Video Editor for making movies was time consuming, ofcourse. The speaker talked about the struggle of merging presentation, video and high quality sound for conferences. Clearly, Automation was needed here which could be achieved by 1. Making a plugin for non linear VE, 2. Writing a UI automation tool like an operating system macro 3. Using shell scripting. However, dealing shell script for this purpose could be time consuming no matter how great shell scripts are. While the goal to achieve here was to edit videos using a language only and let the language get in the way of solving this. In other words a DSL Domain-Specific Language was required along with Syntax Parse. Video (https://lang.video/)is a language for making movies which integrated with Racket ecosystem. It combines the power of a traditional video editor with the capabilities of a full programming language.

The next session was about Reactive Streaming with Akka Streams. Streaming Big Data applications is a challenge in itself by ensuring there is near to real time processing, i.e there is no time to batch data and process later. Streaming has to be done in a fault tolerant way, we have no time to deal with faults. Talking about streams, they are two types of streams Bounded and Unbounded! Bounded streams basically mean that the incoming stream is batched, processed to give some output whereas an Unbounded streams just keeps on flowing… just like that. Akka Streams make it easy to model type-safe message processing pipelines. Type-safe means that at compile time, it’s checks that data definitions are compatible. Akka streams has explicit semantics, which is quite important.
Basic building blocks for Akka streams are Sources (produce element of a type A), Sinks (take item of type A and consume A) and Flow (consume element of type A and produce elements of type B). The source will send data via the flow to the sinks. There are situations where data is not consumed or produced. Materialized values are useful when we, for example want to know if the stream was successful or not, result of which could be true/false. Another concept involved was of Backpressure. When we read things from file, it’s fast. If we split that file based on \n, it’s faster. If we want via http from somewhere, it can be slow due to net connectivity. So what backpressure does is that, any component can say ‘wooh! slow down, I need more time’. Everything is just as fast as the slowest component in the flow, which means that slowest component in the chain would determine the throughput. However, there are situations when we really don’t want to/ can’t control the speed of source. To have explicit control over back pressuring we can use buffering. If many requests are coming and reaches a limit, can set a buffer after which the requests can be discarded or we can also push the back pressure upstream when the buffer is full.

Next we saw a fun demo on GRiSP, Bare Metal Functional Programming. GRiSP allows you to run Erlang on bare metal hardware, without a kernel. GRiSP board could be an alternative to raspberry pi Or arduino. The robot was stubborn however, interesting to watch! Since, Pranav Jain and I have worked on a Real Time Communications projects we were inclined towards attending a talk on Understanding real time ecosystems which was very informative. Learned about HTTP, AJAX polling, AJAX Long polling, HTTP/2, Pub/Sub and other concepts which were relatable. Learned more about protocols/ layers in the last talk of the conference, Engineering TCP/IP with logic.

This is just a summary of our experiences and what we were able to grasp at the conference and also share our individual experience with Debian on GSoC and Outreachy.

Thank you Dr. Michael Sperber for the opportunity and the organizers for putting up the conference.

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, Austin

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, North America took place in Austin, Texas from 6th to 8th December. I stumbled upon this great opportunity by Linux Foundation which would make it possible for me to learn about cloud computing, containers and all things cloud native!

Firstly, I would like to thank the diversity committee members – @michellenoorali ,  @Kris__Nova, @jessfraz , @evonbuelow and everyone (+Wendy West!!) behind this for making it possible for me and others by going extra miles to achieve the greatest initiative for diversity inclusion. It gave me an opportunity to learn from experts and experience the power of Kubernetes.

After travelling 23+ hours in flight, I was able to attend the pre-conference sessions held on 5th December. The day concluded with amazing Empower Her Evening Event where I met some amazing bunch of people! We had some great discussions and food, Thanks to the sponsor @nutanix!

With diversity scholarship recipients at EmpowerHer event 

On the 6th of December, I was very excited to attend Day 1 of the conference; when I arrived at the venue, Austin Convention Center, there was a massive hall with 4100 people discussing all things cloud native! The sheer number of people and their zealousness astounded me. It’s a memory I’ll never forget.

It started with informational KeyNote by Dan Kohn, the Executive Director of Cloud Native Computing Foundation. He pointed out how CNCF has grown over the year, from having 4 projects in 2016 to 14 projects in 2017. From having 1400 Attendees in March 2017 to 4100 Attendees in December 2017. It was really thrilling to know about the growth and power of Kubernetes, which really inspired me to know more about this project.

Dan Kohn Keynote talk at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon

It was difficult to decide which session to attend because there were so many interesting sessions running concurrently!! I primarily attended beginner-level sessions. I missed out on the ones that required technical expertise that I don’t yet have! Curiosity piqued, I made a point of visiting all sponsor booths and learning about the technology they are developing.

On December 7th, there was a diversity luncheon, and I had some really interesting conversations with people about their technology challenges and stories. I made some great friends at the table, and I’d like to thank them for voting my story as the best story of getting into open source, as well as Samsung for sponsoring this event.

Thanks Cloud Native Computing Foundation for hosting this. It was fascinating to learn how cloud native technologies have grown alongside the community! Thank you Linux Foundation for providing me with an opportunity to be a part of KubeCon + CloudNative Con! 🙂

Keeping Cloud Native Weird!

Open bar all attendee party! (Where I experienced my first snow fall)

Goodbye Austin!

Hack4Climate – Saving Climate while Sailing on the Rhine

Last week in Germany, a few miles away from the meeting in COP23 Conference of political leaders & activists to discuss climate there was a bunch, (100 to be exact) of developers and environmentalists participating in Hack4Climate to work on the same global problem – Climate Change.

COP23, Conference of the Parties happens yearly to discuss and plan action about combating climate change, especially the Paris Agreement. This year, it took place in Bonn, Germany which is the home to United Nations Campus. Despite the ongoing efforts by the government, it’s the need of the hour that every single person living on the Earth, contributes at an personal level to fight this problem. After all, we all have, including myself, somehow contributed to the hike in climate change either knowingly or unknowingly. That’s where role of technology comes in. To create a solution by provide pool of resources and correct facts such that everyone can start taking healthy steps.

I will try to put into words explaining all about the thrilling experience Pranav Jain and I had in participating as 2 of the 100 participants selected all over the world earth for Hack4Climate. Pranav was also working closely with Rockstar Recruiting and Hack4Climate team to spread awareness and bring more participants before the actual event. It was a 4 day hackathon which took place in a *cruise* in front of the United Nations Campus. Before the hackathon began we had informative sessions from the delegates  of various institutions and organisation like UNFCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and MIT Media Lab, IOTA, Ethereum. These sessions helped us all to get more insight into the climate problem from a technical and environmental angle. We focussed on using Distributed Ledger Technology – Blockchain & Open Source which can potentially help to combat climate change.

Venue of Hack4Climte – The Scenic Crystal Cruise stopping by the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany  (Source)

The 20 teams worked on creating solutions which could be fit into areas like identifying and tracking emissions, carbon pricing, distributed energy, sustainable land use, and sustainable transport.

Pranav Jain and I worked on Green – Low Carbon Diamonds through our solution, Chain4Change. We used blockchain to track the carbon emission in the mining of the mineral particularly, diamond. Our project helps in tracking the process of mining, cutting, polishing for every unique diamond which is available for purchase. It could also certify a carbon offset for each process and help the diamond company improve efficiency and save money. Our objective was to track carbon emission throughout the supply chain where we considered the kind of machine, transport and power being used. The technologies used in our solution are Solidity, Android, Python & Web3JS. We integrated all of them on a single platform.

We wanted to raise awareness among the common customers by putting the numbers (carbon footprint) before them such that they know how much energy and fossils were consumed for the particular mineral. This would help them make a smart and climate friendly and a greener decision during their purchase. After all, our climate is more precious than diamonds.

All project tracks had support from a particular company, who gave more insights and support for data and business model. Our project track was sponsored by EverLedger, a company which believes that transparency is the key to ensure ethical trade. 

Project flow, Source – EverLedger

Everledger’s CEO, Leanne talked about women in technology and swiftly made us realize how we need equal representation of all genders to tackle the global problem. I talked about Outreachy with other female participants and amidst such a diverse set of participants, I felt really connected with a few people I met who were open source contributors. Open source community has always been very warm and fun to interact with. We exchanged what conferences we attended like Fosdem, DebConf and what projects we worked on. Outreachy current round 15 is ongoing however, the applications for the next round 16 of Outreachy internships will open in February 2018 for the May to August 2018 internship round. You can check this link here for more information on projects under Debian and Outreachy. Good luck!

Lastly and most importantly, Thank you Nick Beglinger, (CleanTech21 CEO) and his team who put up this extraordinary event despite the initial challenges and made us all believe that yes we can combat climate change by moving further, faster and together.

Thank you Debian, for always supporting us:)

A few pictures…

Pranav Jain picthing the final product

Scenic Crystal, Rhine River and Hack4Climate Tee

"Further, faster, together" 🙂 #hack4climate #COP23 https://t.co/BGNhQwqMWZ

— Urvika Gola (@UrvikaGola) November 23, 2017

#Hack4Climate starts tomorrow! 100 hackers + #climate experts will meet to build innovative solutions to #ClimateChange https://t.co/SJxEyPCtHz #COP23 @Hack_4_Climate pic.twitter.com/mdKaXLv3cP

— UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) November 11, 2017

(I feature in the video at 0.22 🙂 )

Chain4Change Team Members – Pranav Jain, Toshant Sharma, Urvika Gola

Thanks for reading!

Much awaited.. DebConf’17 in Montreal.

On 5th August I got a chance to attend, speak and experience DebConf 2017 at Montreal, Canada. The conference was ‘stretch’ed from 6 August to 12 August .

Seasons of Debian – Summer of Code & Winter of Outreachy

Pretty late for me to document my DebConf fun-learning-experiences, thanks to my delaying tactics.. I need to overcome.
But better late than ever, I had amazing time at DebConf. I got to meet and learn from my Outreachy Mentor, Daniel Pocock! 😀

Picture of Daniel and me captured by : Dorina Mosku

One thing about DebConf I loved was the amount of Diversity in Debian family!

As a beginner, I got to get a big picture of what all projects are there. Daniel helped me a lot in getting started with packaging in Debian. I really appreciate the time he took out to guide me @DebConf and Pranav, remotely.

One specific line I liked about Daniel’s talk on Open Day, 5th August  – “Free Communications with Free Software and Debian” while talking about free RTC (Real Time Communication) is that,

..Instead of communication controlling the user, the user can control the communcation..

I talked about free RTC, my Project Lumicall and about my journey being an Outreachy Intern with Debian. I also covered my co-speaker’s project work on Lumicall being a GSoC 2016 student.

Picture captured by – Aigars Mahinovs 

 

Managing Debian’s RTC services – Daniel Pocock

Meeting the Outreachy family feels amaazzing! Karen Sandler, executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy gave a talk on the Significance and Impact of Outreachy and Debian’s support for the programme.

with Karen Sandler and Outreachy alumini

DebConf 2017 has been a wonderful conference with the community being very welcoming and helpful 🙂

Outreachy Progress on Lumicall

Lumicall 1.13.0 is released! 😀

Through Lumicall, you can make encrypted calls and send messages using open standards. It uses the SIP protocol to inter-operate with other apps and corporate telephone systems.

During the Outreachy Internship period I worked on the following issues :-

• White Labelling – https://project.freertc.org/issues/54

I researched on creating a white label version of Lumicall. Few ideas on how the white label build could be used..

1. Existing SIP providers can use white label version of Lumicall to expand their business and launch SIP client. This would provide a one stop shop for them!!
2. New SIP clients/developers can use Lumicall white label version to get the underlying working of making encrypted phone calls using SIP protocol, it will help them to focus on other additional functionalities they would like to include.

Documentation for implementing white labelling – Link 1 and Link 2

 

• Adding Silent Mode Functionality – https://project.freertc.org/issues/55

Since Lumicall is majorly used to make encrypted calls, there was a need to designate quiet times and the phone will not make an audible ringing tone during that time & if the user has multiple SIP accounts, the user can set the silent mode functionality on one of them, maybe, the Work account.
Documentation for adding silent mode feature  – Link 1 and Link 2

 

• Adding 9 Patch Image 

Using Lumicall, users can send SIP messages across. Just to improve the UI a little, I added a 9 patch image in the message screen. A 9 patch image is created using 9 patch tools and are saved as imagename.9.png . The image will resize itself according to the text length and font size.

Documentation for 9 patch image – Link

You can try the new version of Lumicall here ! and know more about Lumicall on a blog by Daniel Pocock.
Looking forward to your valuable feedback !! 😀