Star Contributor of the Month for February - SunGard
Each month we're going to honor one of our top volunteer contributors from around the world. Volunteers commit countless hours of their time, energy, and knowledge into building and extending the Mifos platform to make it accessible to microfinance institutions serving the poor. For the month of Feburary, we're showcasing the entire team at SunGard Technology Services in Bangalore, India who have been working closely with the Mifos team for the past year helping to strengthen the core Mifos platform, dramatically increase the performance of Mifos for our customers, and providing direct implementation services to our community.
SunGard Technology Services - Bangalore, India
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and IT services companies, serving more than 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries. Their SunGard Technology Services unit provides full software development lifecycle support for SunGard's products across the financial systems, higher education and public sector businesses. Over the past year, we've worked closely with SunGard on a number of key technology projects. Over the next year we look forward to a deeper engagement with a dedicated full-time team at SunGard to help extend scalability in Mifos to support millions of clients.
Contributions:
- Scalability improvements for Grameen Koota including database schema enhancements and improvements to collection sheet entry module to improve speed of processing for thousands of transactions.
- Performance Testing for Mifos 1.4 Release which provided a controlled lab environment where Mifos could be stressed to simulate heavy production load scenarios. This testing led to measurable improvements to collection sheet entry, loan creation, and client creation.
- Reproducing a long standing Collection Sheet issue in the performance testing lab and providing a means for testing and validating those fixes.
- Enhancements including client age validation and additional client family details to better support delivery of microinsurance services at Grameen Koota
- Technical consulting work supporting Mifos community customers including data migration and building reports for Adhikar in Orissa, India.
Here's a bit more on the entire team including Parthasarathy, Aravind, Chandan, Rajesh, Raghavendra, Rajesh, Maheswari and Lakshmi, Sreevani, Prabaharanand Prachi:
Parthasarathy T
Educated to be a mechanical engineer, but chose to be a software engineer. 8+ years of coding most of them in one or other of the languages that compiles inside MS Visual Studio. Current passions: content management, workflows and RIA.
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: J2EE, Hibernate, MySQL, Performance Engineering
Parthasarathy's Impact: "I believe our performance fixes for GK and our work at Adhikar helped them scale faster and serve more poor. I believe our impact/role is kind of indirect (we enable MFIs to run efficiently and they in turn help more) – hoping to identify the MFIs that will have the maximum impact on the society and channel SunGard’s efforts/energy towards helping them succeed."
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "The satisfaction of being able to do something useful to the society with whatever skill set we have."
Advice for others in the Community: "The technologies we use, the processes we follow are just the means to solve client problems, not the end. We should focus on the latter."
Fun Facts about Parthasarathy
Favorite Food: Dosa
Favorite Open Source Project: Mifos
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: I would prefer travelling back to the past – can set certain things right :)
Interesting fact/tidbit: "An incurable cricket-addict. Formed a team in ’92 to compete in a local tournament only to get thrashed (our team scored 34 chasing 200 odd) – realized that the best place for me in cricket is in front of the TV box or in the stands."
Aravind Deivendran - Software Engineer and Project Lead at SunGard with 7 years experience.
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Project management, Java/J2EE development, testing, release management
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "Self satisfaction, new learning and interaction with diversified kinds of people.
Fun Facts about Aravind:
Favorite Food: Continental
Favorite Open Source Project: Mifos
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: Istanbul, where east and west meet.
You can catch Aravind on almost every social network: Twitter | Facebook | Google | LinkedIn
Chandan Rao - Software Engineer for past 8 months, previously undergraduate student at National Institute of Technology, Surathkal
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Java, C++, Windows, Unix
Chandan's Impact: "Through mifos I understood microfinance. I can see why it is required and how it is helping everybody. I hope to utilize my skills in making Mifos more customizable, more efficient and more useful.
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "This is one of the few projects that is free and that reaches the grassroots of our society and that makes a difference in the lives of millions of people."
Advice for others in the Community: "Keep up the good work."
Fun Facts about Chandan:
Favorite Food: Indian
Favorite Open Source Project: Firefox
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: Ladakh
Interesting fact/tidbit : Chandan has read every book written by Terry Pratchett
Visit Chandan's LinkedIn profile to learn more about him.
Raghavendra Bhandari - Software Engineer at SunGard with Masters Degree in Computer Science
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Java, Jsp, Servlets, Struts, Hibernate, Mysql, JavaScript, HTML, CSS
Raghavendra's Impact: Worked on finding Collection sheet entry bugs, and found the open source testing tool for doing the performance test.
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "It’s very nice to work with mifos, because it’s an open source project and especially built for social work."
Advice for others in the Community: "Best is to prepare the proper documents of Mifos work, so that the new mifosian’s can easily understand."
Fun Facts about Raghavendra
Favorite Food: Lemon Rice
Favorite Open Source Project: Java
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: Kanyakumari
Rajesh Kollam - Senior Software Engineer at SunGard with a Masters Degree in Computer Science
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Java, Struts, Hibernate, JavaScript, Maven, SVN, Portlets
Rajesh's Impact: "Worked on finding Collection sheet entry bug, and also worked on collecting family details of the client."
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "Satisfaction, my work is going to be used by many people and this is my first chance to contribute to an open source project."
Advice for others in the Community: "Try to have a proper documentation on whatever we develop."
Fun Facts about Rajesh
Favorite Food: South India dishes
Favorite Open Source Project: All Apache Projects
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: To Mauritius, maybe
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: Kanyakumari
Sreevani Nagendran - Technical Architect at SunGard
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Design and development in Application software; Programming languages proficiency in Java/J2EE, Python, ExtJs, C++, VC++/COM, C; Good Knowledge in UML,OOPS and Design Patterns, SQL and DICOM; Agile- SCRUM methodology
Sreevani's Impact: "Effectively guided the design for Jasper reports, Database Archival, solved showstoppers for the insurance enhancement(s)."
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "It gives a good feeling when one can give back to the society."
Fun Facts about Sreevani
Favorite Food: Vegetarian food
Favorite Open Source Project: Python
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: Switzerland
Interest fact/tidbit: "Not many would have just a day difference between one’s wedding anniversary and birthday!"
Prabaharan Gopalan - Software Engineer at SunGard with 3 years IT experience
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Java, JPA and Flex
Prabaharan's Impact: "Worked on performance enhancement for the Meeting Schedule Batch Job. Improved performance by a factor of 36 times."
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "Challenging."
Fun Facts about Prabaharan
Favorite Food: "Anything edible!"
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: "My native place."
Interesting fact/tidbit: Prabaharan is an industrial biotechonologist by education who had known only a single programming language till he joined SunGard.
Lakshmi Simha - Technical Lead at SunGard with 9 years experience
Relevant Skills/OS Experience: Database expertise
Lakshmi's Impact: "Worked on SQL tuning, Index creations for improvement in performance making it so that the MFI clients' requests are processed quickly."
Currently Working On: Omni Core Development
What’s rewarding about working on the Mifos: "You can see your work impacting somebody."
Fun Facts about Lakshmi
Favorite Food: Chinese
Favorite Open Source Project: Mifos
If I could travel to one place in the world, it would be: Peru
News Log
- Community Spotlight (12)
- ThoughtWorks HSP Team Invigorates Mifos X Community
- First Mifos Deployment in Latin America
- Hugo Technologies
- Outreach on the Ground - May 2012
- FINA and MFC launch Mifos in Laos
- SolDevelo
- Profamilia Goes Live with Mifos in Mozambique
- SolDevelo: Nimble Java Ninjas Fighting Poverty from Poland
- Conflux Mifos Roadshow
- Kongalend Deployment Kicks off in Namibia
- Mifos Specialist pushes forth in Mozambique
- Father and Daughter bring Mifos Technology to Senegal
- Company News (19)
- Global Launch of the Mifos Initiative - June 11 at Pivotal Labs
- Mifos at LinuxFest Northwest
- Mifos X on FLOSS Weekly
- Ready for New Heights at the FI2020 Global Forum
- Conservancy and COSM announce the Mifos Initiative
- 2013 Mifos Community Choice Awards - Honoring our Finest
- Take 3 = Triple the Impact
- Mifos Summit Day 2 Reflections
- 2013 Mifos Summit in Jaipur has Begun!
- How You Can Get Involved
- Remixing Microfinance
- OSCON's about to Kick Off!
- Mifos Transition Plan Finalized - Next Phase of Mifos Begins
- Grameen Foundation to Transition Mifos to Community-Led Effort
- Grameen Foundation Expanding Technology for Microfinance Initiative
- Scaling the Pyramid of IT Adoption
- Grameen Foundation and CGAP Host Tech Roundtable in Kenya - Advancing Back Office Systems for Microfinance
- Grameen Foundation and Microsoft Join Forces to Accelerate Impact of Technology for Microfinance
- Collectively Advancing Technology for the Industry with CGAP
- Mifos at ACCESS Microfinance India Summit
- Industry News (2)
- Open Source Community (36)
- A Light-hearted Look at our 2014 GSOC Interns
- Google Summer of Code 2014
- Meet the 2014 Google Summer of Code Class of Interns
- Volunteer with Mifos in 2014
- 2013 Mifos Summit Recap
- 2013 Mifos Graduating Class for Google Summer of Code
- 2013 Summit in Photos
- Optimizing UX for Mifos X
- A Team
- Google Summer of Code - We're Halfway Home
- Google Summer of Code 2013
- End Poverty. One Line of Code at a Time.
- Aligning Volunteer Passion with User Pain
- GSOC Mentor Summit 2010
- Building a Better Community Experience
- Enabling Social Change through Software Development
- Leila E Translations - The Final Push!
- User Meeting - a Big Success!
- Summer of Code 2010 - A Journey Well-Traveled
- Meet the 2010 Google Summer of Code Mifos Interns
- End Poverty. One Line of Code at a Time.
- Mifos FLOSS User Manual Sprint
- Uncovering the DNA of a Great Team
- Adam Feuer on the PayPal X Developer Network
- Mentors Meet in Mountain View, Manifest Mastery of Mentoring
- Widespread Reach of Open Source Community
- Building a Local Technology Ecosystem
- Product Announcements (22)
- COSM Ships Mifos X Platform 1.0
- mLite Demo on Mifos X
- Mifos 2.5 (Samiha J) Ships!
- Mifos 2.2.3 Released
- Mifos 2.4 is Live!
- Mifos X API
- Samiha J Release Announcement
- Mifos Android Client
- Mifos 2.6 - Esha K is Live
- Esha K Release Announcement
- Vinolia I Release Announcement
- Mifos X - The Next Generation
- Mifos 2.2.2 Ships
- Community Ships First Mifos Release Post-Transition
- Margaret H: Mifos 2.3 Ships!
- Margaret H Release Announced
- Mifos 2.1.6 Released & SolDevelo to Extend Mifos 2.2
- SunGard Releases Data Migration Toolkit
- Mifos 2.1.5 Released
- Mifos 2.0 and 2.1 - a Closer Look
- Mifos wants to Hear your Voice
- Mifos Earns High Ratings in CGAP Software Review
- Star Contributor (15)
- Technical Topics (1)