Changes

== What's new ==

== What's new ==

This page is updated every few weeks with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list, blogged at [http://walterbender.org/ walterbender.org], and [[Archive/Current Events|archived here]].) If you would like to contribute, please send email to [[User:walter|walter]] at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit <span class="plainlinks">[http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet.sugarlabs.org].</span>)

This page is updated every few weeks with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list, blogged at [http://walterbender.org/ walterbender.org], and [[Archive/Current Events|archived here]].) If you would like to contribute, please send email to [[User:walter|walter]] at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit <span class="plainlinks">[http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet.sugarlabs.org].</span>)

== Sugar Digest ==

== Sugar Digest ==

1. One of my favorite Marvin Minsky stories took place in the mid 1990s. Marvin and I had to meet someone at the bar at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in downtown Boston. Marvin, as was his habit, was wearing a vest&mdash;one with large, useful pockets. As we started to walk into the bar, we were stopped and told that we needed neckties in order to enter. Marvin told the doorman that we had to go in for a meeting, but that we did not have neckties. The doorman very graciously offered to lend us neckties. He momentarily stepped into the cloakroom and returned with two ties; he offered one to each of us. Marvin took a tie, said "thank you", wrapped it around his waist, and walked into the bar.

It has been a long time since I last wrote a Sugar Labs community new blog. I got tied up with my day jobs: starting a new design college from scratch and launching a new research center at MIT. (And, frankly, I was a bit depressed following the deaths of Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert.) I have a breather on both fronts and given all of the Sugar activity of late, I am inspired to do some writing.

2. Help me in welcoming our six summer interns from the Google Summer of Code program: Yash Agarwal, Vikram Ahuja, Abhijit Patel, Hemant Kasat, Jeremie Amsellem, and Utkarsh Tiwari. Yash will be working on a Font Editor Activity under the mentorship of Dave Crossland and Eli Heuer. Vikram is working with Tymon Radzik and me on a GIT Backend for activities. Abhijit is working with Sam Parkinson on a "Journal Rethink". Hemant is working with Devin Ulibarri on adding some new widgets to Music Blocks. Jeremie is working with Lionel Laské and Michaël Ohayon on Sugarizer. Utkarsh is working with Tony Anderson and Sebastian Silva on "Sugar on the Ground", a series of enhancements to Sugar in support of small and off-line deployments.

1. A footnote from Google Code-in 2015. Ezequiel Pereira, one of the grand-prize recipients from Sugar Labs was recently acknowledged by Google for discovering a security bug. He got some nice press, e.g., [https://thenextweb.com/google/2017/08/10/highschool-security-research-google-data/#.tnw_5BETRGWT][https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/10/schoolboy_google_bug_bounty_http_host/1]. In one article [http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/google-awards-uruguay-high-school-student-10k-finding/story?id=49249604], he was quoted as saying: "Homework is boring. Looking for bugs is fun.” Ezequiel is one of a generation of children in Uruguay who grew up with Sugar. It is nice to hear the occasional word about their accomplishments.

We'll be meeting as a group on Fridays at 12:00 UTC beginning in late May on irc.freenode.net, #sugar-meeting. Feel free to join us.

2. We just wrapped up Google Code-in and Outreachy 2017. We had 9 interns supported by Google and 1 Outreachy intern. You can read about their accomplishments in their [[Summer_of_Code|blogs] and in the meeting logs [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings] (every Monday from May through August). Highlights from the summer include a new, easy-to-maintain activity portal and a new www.sugarlabs.org, both going live soon. Also of note: a new Sugar image for Raspberry Pi, some new apps, GTK3 ports, a Sugarizer dashboard, and a major overhaul of Music Blocks.

We had many more quality proposals than slots. I'd like thank everyone who applied this year and hope that even if you were not among the selected projects, you will continue to contribute to the Sugar Labs community.

Tip of the hat to our mentors: Abhijit Patel, Cristina Del Puerto, Devin Ulibarri, Hrishi Patel, Ignacio Rodriguez, José Argüello, Lionel Laské, Matias Baez, Michaël Ohayon, Samson Goddy, Samuel Cantero, and Tony Anderson. Lionel help me administer the program again this year. It is nice to note that many of the mentors are former GCI participants.

=== In the Community ===

Cristina, Michaël, and Samson will be representing Sugar Labs at the annual mentor summit at Google in October. (For those of you who have been following the saga of Samson's visa, I am happy to say that he was approved!)

3. We have a Sugar Labs oversight board meeting on Friday, 6 May, at 16:00 UTC.

3. I was invited to represent Sugar Labs at the Plan Ceibal 10th anniversary in Montevideo a few months ago. It was great to see children still using Sugar 10  years after the first deployment in a small school in the Florida Department. It was also an opportunity to catch up with many old friends and Sugar contributors, including Ignacio, Andres, Alan, Jose Miguel, Guzman, etc. I am not sure if my talk is on line, but I wrote a paper based on the talk which is available for [http://www.um.es/ead/red/54/bender.pdf download].

4. Lionel just announced a new release of Sugarizer (v0.9). See [http://sugarizer.org] for all of the details.

* Motion to pay for laboratoriosazucar.org domain (See [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2016-May/018096.html]);

* Proposal to make GSoC mentor payments to the mentors.

* Motion to adopt [[Vision proposal 2016]].

Please join us on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting.

5. James Cameron is working towards the release of [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2017-September/054631.html Sugar 0.111], our first new release in nearly one year. It is mostly planned as a maintenance release.

4. I was busy with Music Blocks workshops in April: at the Boston Coding Camp; the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester (with Mariah Noelle Villarreal) and the Walsh Middle School in Framingham, MA (with Pascal Chesnais).

6. There are only a few more days left (15 Sept.) to register as a candidate for the Sugar Labs oversight board. Please consider joining the board as we need some fresh voices and perspectives. See [[Oversight_Board/2017-2019-candidates]] for details. You also have until 27 Sept. to register as a member in order to be given a vote in the election. See [[Sugar_Labs/Members]] for details.

5. Dave Crossland has organized a WIKI gardening party for the weekend of May 14-15. Those who are in the Boston area will meet together at my office at MIT, W31-302. We'll see more of you on line as well as we attempt to prune deprecated pages and ensure the content is up to date. We'll also be migrating some content to www.sugarlabs.org.

7. One of the first decisions the new board will be making is whether or not Sugar Labs should apply for GCI 2017. I am hopeful that the board will see the merits of the program and give a green light to apply again this year. If we do apply, I will be looking for mentors, project ideas, and a co-administrator. Please contact me if you are interested.

 

 

 

 

== Community News archive ==

== Community News archive ==

==Sugar in the news==

==Sugar in the news==

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|align=right valign=top|09 Feb 2016||'''www.montevideo.com''' &ndash; [http://www.montevideo.com.uy/auc.aspx?299096 DOS URUGUAYOS ENTRE GANADORES DEL CONCURSO GOOGLE CODE-IN]

|align=right valign=top|09 Feb 2016||'''www.montevideo.com''' &ndash; [http://www.montevideo.com.uy/auc.aspx?299096 DOS URUGUAYOS ENTRE GANADORES DEL CONCURSO GOOGLE CODE-IN]

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|align=right valign=top|06 Feb 2013||'''el Observador''' &ndash; [http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/242936/joven-uruguayo-gana-la-competencia-google-code/ Joven uruguayo gana la competencia Google Code] (Also see [http://people.sugarlabs.org/aguz/gci-press-interviews.html GCI press interviews])

|align=right valign=top|06 Feb 2013||'''el Observador''' &ndash; [http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/242936/joven-uruguayo-gana-la-competencia-google-code/ Joven uruguayo gana la competencia Google Code] (Also see [http://people.sugarlabs.org/aguz/gci-press-interviews.html GCI press interviews])

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|align=right valign=top|07 Sep 2012||'''NDTV''' &ndash; [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/laptops/news/one-laptop-per-child-initiative-a-hit-in-rural-india-263867 One Laptop Per Child initiative a hit in rural India]

|align=right valign=top|07 Sep 2012||'''NDTV''' &ndash; [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/laptops/news/one-laptop-per-child-initiative-a-hit-in-rural-india-263867 One Laptop Per Child initiative a hit in rural India]

|align=right valign=top|06&nbsp;Aug&nbsp;2008||'''OLPC News''' &ndash; [http://www.olpcnews.com/people/leadership/23_questions_on_technology_education.html Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education]

|align=right valign=top|06&nbsp;Aug&nbsp;2008||'''OLPC News''' &ndash; [http://www.olpcnews.com/people/leadership/23_questions_on_technology_education.html Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education]

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|align=right valign=top|18&nbsp;Jul&nbsp;2008||'''Bill Kerr''' &ndash; [http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2008/07/evaluating-sugar-in-developed-world.html evaluating Sugar in the developed world]

|align=right valign=top|18&nbsp;Jul&nbsp;2008||'''Bill Kerr''' &ndash; [http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2008/07/evaluating-sugar-in-developed-world.html evaluating Sugar in the developed world]

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==Press releases==

==Press releases==

[http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press See our Press Page]

http://www.sugarlabs.org/press

[[Category:General public]]

[[Category:General public]]