Open Source University Meetup (OSUM)

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Once considered a passing trend, open-source software is proving to have enduring value in corporations and universities worldwide. Sun Microsystems, an open-source pioneer, has played a major role in promoting and demonstrating the inherent power and potential for innovation in open-source systems. One way that Sun has done this is by building an ardent open-source community on college campuses around the world.

It began in 2005, when Sun initiated its Campus Ambassadors Program. College students who were proficient Java developers and possessed strong leadership skills were chosen to champion the open-source cause at various universities around the world. In these paid positions, campus ambassadors sparked enthusiasm for open-source systems and brought together students who were already passionate about developing open-source software.

Following the huge success of the Campus Ambassadors Program, Sun established the Open Source Community Meetup (OSUM) community in September 2008. Like other extracurricular clubs, OSUM groups hold monthly meetings on college campuses. Student members learn about the latest trends in open-source software, get project ideas for club activities or academic course credit, and learn résumé writing and interviewing skills. Sun provides many resources, including free Web-based training and substantial discounts (more than 85% off) for Sun certification exams.

Campus ambassadors plant the seed of interest, but it is OSUM’s leaders — all student volunteers — who keep local OSUM communities thriving. In exchange for heading up local groups, leaders receive specialized training and exceptional leadership opportunities from Sun. “It means a lot to these students to be recognized and designated by Sun as our trusted leaders,” says Gary Serda, global manager of Academic Communities at Sun. “It’s the ultimate affirmation. It’s more than a pat on the back or a paycheck. It’s community recognition.”

Sun often shows its appreciation by sending outstanding student leaders to annual conferences such as JavaOne 2009, which was held in San Francisco, California. Angad Singh, a veteran campus ambassador from India, received some notability after reporting his JavaOne conference experiences on a Sun-sponsored blog. “Other companies would never give a student that kind of platform or visibility — that’s unique to Sun culture,” says Singh.

Campus ambassadors and OSUM leaders have rightfully earned the recognition they get. As of July 2009 — just ten months after the program began — they have formed more than 1,800 OSUM groups at campuses worldwide with an incredible 100,000 student members. Carlos Alejandro Aguilar, a Sun campus ambassador at Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City, grew his OSUM club to more than 1,000 members in just two months. “The growth and interest in OSUM have been phenomenal, and the accomplishments of some of the ambassadors and leaders have been extraordinary,” says Serda. The following successes are noteworthy:

• Two campus ambassadors, Avinash Joshi and Sham Pavan, developed the School OS that was adopted by the Central Board for Secondary Education in India as part of its curriculum for Fundamentals of Computing, migrating from Microsoft-specific products to open-source technologies. This change will affect 10 million students in India."
• Sun Campus Ambassadors in China have played an important role authoring important books on open source technologies for academia. Vincent Ding and Lu Yao wrote the OpenSolaris Red Bible. Lu Yao and Wang Zhen of Chongqing University along with Lan Ke of Southwest University of Science and Technology wrote a book about JavaFX and Hu Yaodong from Renmin University of China authored a book on Project Sun SPOT. These books were all published in Chinese and are being used by professors in their courses across China.
• Students from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in India started a business based on an OSUM club project in which they developed a back-end administrative system for their university.
• In June 2008 at Fórum Internacional Software Livre (FISL), Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who wore an OpenSolaris hat as he was photographed with two Sun campus ambassadors — expressed his government’s support for open-source software.

Like Brazil, many countries around the world are embracing open source — and with good reason. “Support of open source is good public policy, not just because it makes technology affordable, but also because it actually enables indigenous innovation,” says Serda. The typical economic development model for many governments — especially in emerging markets — involves awarding public resources in exchange for private-company investments. “At Sun, we’re promoting a completely different development model,” says Serda. “By giving people our technology through open-source licenses, we actually enable governments to create their own economic-development programs. When students enter the workforce, there is a substantial transfer of intellectual property that they can use to start their own businesses and boost the local economy.”