Meet the 2010 Google Summer of Code Mifos Interns
This year we’re excited to announce a class of 7 rock star Google Summer of Code interns who will be part of the Mifos team this summer. In now our second year participating in Google Summer of Code, we look to build off the successes of Udai Gupta and Johan Hilding, last year’s interns, by taking on a larger team that will help us to bring participation to a new level.
Our 7 students from around the world bring a diverse set of skills, interests, and perspectives that will help to extend the Mifos platform. Once again we had an incredibly impressive pool of applicants making it difficult to narrow them down to this group. We’d like to thank all for applying and the dedication you’ve shown in wanting to help end poverty through writing code.
The community bonding period is underway with our interns kicking work off on May 24. We wanted to share with you a brief look at each of our interns – who they are, where they’re from, and what they’ll be doing.
Stay tuned, I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of each one on our mailing lists and IRC throughout summer. Welcome them to the team and let’s get prepared for another Endless Summer of Code, helping to build open source technology that accelerates microfinance.
Mohammad Shahiduzzaman (Shahid)
- Project: Increase Mifos modularity by refactoring business objects out of UI layer
- Mentor: John Woodlock
- Location: Victoria, Australia
- IRC nickname: maveriick
Shahid received his Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. From there he worked around three years in TherapServices,LLC. While completing the 2008 Summer of Code, Shahid passed his Masters and managed to maintain a full time job as well. In March 2009, he came to Australia to do a research masters at Monash University. His current research is focused on natural scene image classification.
Frankly speaking, Shahid didn't know about Mifos before Summer of Code and would have probably skipped over Mifos if he’d not seen the organization name, Grameen Foundation. With Bangladesh as his home country, he was greatly familiar with the Grameen Foundation and microfinance after Dr. Yunus had received the Nobel prize. After passing some time browsing the Mifos website, he started to love it, recognizing Mifos as a good match for both his personal interest and skill set.
Shahzada Hatim Mushtaq
- Project: MifosNG
- Mentor: Udai Gupta
- Location: Sweden
- IRC nickname: geoaxis
Shahzada HatimMushtaq is currently a graduate student of Software Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg (second largest city in Sweden). Like many of his peers, his hobby is the work he does every day which includes designing and coding software, studying other people's software design and code, and reading/istening/watching to tech articles/talks. Hatim is an avid follower of current news events and is a die-hard trekkie. He tries to reboot himself every year by traveling to of historical and cultural interest.
Dhanushka Kottegoda
- Project: Spring managed entity persistence and transactions| Speed up unit & integration automated test suite
- Mentor: Udai Gupta
- Location: Sri Lanka
- IRC nickname: dhanushka
Dhanushka Kottegoda is a 23 year old from Sri Lanka currently completing his undergraduate studies at the Informatics Institute of Technology- Sri Lanka (in collaboration with University of Westminster-UK). Working towards a Bachelors of Science Degree in Software Engineering, he is presently in his industrial placement year. Prior to this, Dhanushka had his education at Ananda College, Colombo 10. Aside from programming, his interests include playing bass guitar and sketching. Dhanushka is looking forward to successfully completing GSoC 2010.
Kojo Gambrah-Sampaney
- Project: Enhanced automatic acceptance test suite
- Mentor: Jeff Brewster
- Location: Accra, Ghana
- IRC nickname: kgambrah
Kojo Gambrah is 22 years old and is very passionate about open-source technologies and social entrepreneurship especially in emerging economies. He is in his third year at the Ghana Telecom University College studying Information Technology. He first discovered programming in BASIC in 6th Grade on a V-Tech laptop and that was enough to shift his interest from automotive engineering to computers. He is interested in quality assurance and software development best practices. These are skills that will prove useful to starting a software house to serve emerging markets later on. This interest is well aligned with the Mifos goal of delivering quality software for MFIs.
Vishnu vardhan Pasupula
- Project: Mifos front end prototype using Groovy, Grails, and a CSS Framework
- Mentor: Van Mittal-Henkle
- Location: Hyderabad, India
- IRC nickname: Vishnu
Vishnu, a student at KMIT, Hyderabad is currently pursuing a Bachelors in Electronics and Telecommunication degree. Whether it is technology, places he visits, or nature, he loves exploring. As a passionate problem solver, math was one his favorite subjects. Although rather silent and more introverted, Vishnu enjoys listening to people. Vishnu’s hobbies include reading, playing chess, and playing football.
His experiences with Mifos to date have given him a chance to learn about new technology like Grails. His goals for being a part of the community are to learn a lot and raise his confidence level by contributing to Open Source. He thanks the amazing Mifos team for accepting him and hopes that all new students can get mentors like the Mifos team.
HariPriya K
- Project: Mifos front end prototype using Groovy, Grails, and a CSS Framework
- Mentor: Van Mittal-Henkle
- Location: Hyderabad, India
- IRC nickname: haripriya
HariPriya is a student from KMIT, Hyderabad, studying in the electronics and telecommunication department. She chose to work in the R&D department of her college because technology, especially when it is applied somewhere is exciting and can give wings to your imagination. She loves reading books, meeting people, listening to soft music and traveling.
Mifos got her attention when she was googling around for GSOC 2010. She never intended to work on it initially but was blown away by the amazing TEAM who are so "helpful, kind , encouraging, and above all believed in her". The trust and appreciation of her work from the Mifos team, motivated her to apply. Haripriya wishes that her work after college can be on a team like Mifos.
