10,579
edits
Walter
Joined 8 May 2008
→Walter Bender
== Sugar Stable/Sugar Future ==
Sugar Labs has been pulled in two directions the past few years. On the one hand, it is getting much more stable, much more robust, and easier to maintain. The maintenance itself is being provided in large part by a dedicated group of youths and a small handful of professional developers. On the other hand, the world of educational technology continues to move in directions that make it more difficult for the typical individual or school to adopt Sugar as their core platform. While OLPC still stands behind Sugar -- indeed, FZT has launched a program for Sugar development at a university in Managua, the growth potential outside of OLPC for a GNU/Linux-based platform is smaller than it was a few years ago. I do think that the "tablet" meme has been discredited and increasing momentum behind the Maker movement has shifted things somewhat in our favor. We need to be aggressive in reaching out to potential new user communities. At the same time, it is also clear that mobile devices and the Web are going to be the predominant points of access to technology for much of the world, so we are also obliged to try to bring some of our ideas (if not our entire platform) to those worlds. We have some momentum there as well, with the Sugarizer platform and the various JavaScript initiatives underway, e.g., [http://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks Music Blocks]. I don't see any way to avoid splitting our efforts between these two worlds -- GNU/Linux desktop and Web/native Android. Not ideal, but we have things to contribute to both worlds and an opportunity to learn and grow as a community going forward.
As a member of the Sugar community, I have been active as: (1) a developer -- more on the activity side than the platform side; (2) a liaison to the SFC; (3) the coordinator for both Google Summer of Code and Google Code In; (4) promoting Sugar within academic circles -- most recently a [[MusicBlocks.pdf|paper]] that Devin, Yash, and I wrote for the Constructionist 2016 conference on the work we did together during GSoC; (5) raising funds for internationalization and workshops; and (6) running the monthly SLOB meetings. I don't need to be a member of the oversight board in order to be a developer, but for the other activities, it is important to have a voice within the community. If I am returned to the board, I hope to hand off responsibility for running meeting to another board member. And the role of liaison to the SFC. I think continuity within the Google programs is important, and I plan to continue in that sphere. I will also continue to manage the Trip Advisor grant, which has been really helpful for outreach -- most recently I was able to get some new Arabic translations done and we are great in roads in places like Jamaica through that grant.
One final note: I am in the process of launching a new college for industrial design. I am instilling Free/Libre Software as a core principle of the college and I hope to be able to make Sugar be at the core of the educational technology section of the school. More on that effort soon.
==Walter Bender==
==Walter Bender==
I was at OLPC for several years and now I am a volunteer on the project. My home page can be found here: [http://www.media.mit.edu/~walter]
I was at OLPC for several years and now I am a volunteer on the project. My home page can be found here: [http://www.media.mit.edu/~walter]