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LibreCorps |
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LibreCorps is a FOSS@MAGIC initiative connecting RIT students interested in open source to humanitarian and civic opportunities. Specifically, opportunities for Co-Operative Education Placements, a.k.a. Co-Ops (full-time paid internships), that are part of graduation requirements. LibreCorps has contracted with and/or successfully placed students both in technical and community positions with organizations like:
- UNICEF Innovation and Innovation Fund
- Open APS
- Night Scout
- Sugar Labs and OLPC
- And others
LibreCorps students work in two major areas on Co-Ops. The first, not surprisingly, is technology. Particularly the technology around running FOSS process and Open communities. The second is FOSS process and Community. Many NGO and civic organizations put open-licensed work in repositories without a plan to build and maintain a community of contributors around their technology. LibreCorps worked with UNICEF Innovation this past year to do just that and examples of that work can be found in this presentation and long-term roadmap to do so.
Up until now, LibreCorps runs single instance by single instance. Our three-year plan builds it into an on-going, student-driven, faculty-managed, standing FOSS consultancy program.
RIT LibreCorps has partnered intermittently with the UNICEF Office of Innovation since 2014. In recent years, LibreCorps collaborated with projects of the Innovation Fund, a pooled funding vehicle to quickly assess, fund and grow open-source solutions that have been developed in new and emerging markets. RIT LibreCorps provides students experienced in open source development and community-building as mentors for different teams in UNICEF's Innovation Fund. UNICEF funded teams work together with RIT student employees to create and build sustainable communities around their open source projects. You can read more about this work on our Opensource.com article, LibreCorps mentors humanitarian startups on how to run the open source way.
Need help or advice on building an open source project and community? Check out the LibreCorps Resources site, a self-serve knowledgebase of information on open source best practices. You can also find templates used for open source mentorship below:
You can find out more about our past and current LibreCorps students on their LinkedIn profiles: