For the Love of Code: Three Malaysians complete global open source projects in Google Summer of Code 2008

Kuala Lumpur, November 19, 2008: - Three bright and talented Malaysian university students wrote thousands of lines of code to augment existing open source projects during their term break through the Google Summer of Code™ program, whose goal is to increase the world’s supply of open source software while providing young computer programmers with inspiring, meaningful summer jobs.

Over the last three months Raj Kissu Rajendran (21), Phua Khai Fong (24) and Devtar Singh (22), learned, experimented and collaborated with mentors from open source organizations worldwide through Google Summer of Code 2008, which matches university students with an interest in open source programming with international open source organizations.
Three young Malaysians out of 900 students globally who completed writing code for open source projects in Google Summer of Code 2008. They collectively wrote close to nearly 3,000 lines of code. Standing from left, Phua Khai Fong (24), Devtar Singh (22) and Raj Kissu Rajendran (21).

They were the only Malaysians among over 900 students globally who successfully completed their projects.

Raj Kissu Rajendran, a student of Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT), wrote code to implement BLOBStreaming in phpMyAdmin to allow for easier management of media streaming over the Internet. He was mentored by Marc Delisle of MySQL.

Phua Khai Fong, a graduate of Multimedia University (MMU) wrote code for The Squeak Project to enable 'freeCAD' (a basic 3D CAD with Motion Simulation) to function in a virtual world environment called Croquet. freeCAD/Croquet can be used as a powerful education tool that helps improve the way people teach and learn using 3D graphics. He is currently working and partnering with his mentor on open source projects such as KMZ Importer for Cobalt.

Devtar Singh, also a graduate of MMU, constructed the Umit Bluetooth Scanner to aid users in accurately tracking Bluetooth-enabled devices. He is also working on a version that will soon be integrated into the Umit Network Scanning Suite. Adriano Monteiro Marques of Umit mentored Devtar throughout the program.

Supporting open source in Malaysia

Malaysia is itself keen on exploiting the open source movement to fast-track its technology-driven, knowledge-based economy. Open source software is being adopted across major verticals such as public, technical, educational, financial, and services sectors, and even among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The government is strongly backing organizations such as the Malaysian Institute of Microelectronics Systems (MIMOS) and the Malaysian Administration Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), which have both laid out open source road maps that are currently being implemented.

All three students were inspired by their experiences participating in Google Summer of Code and shared an enthusiastic belief in the principles of open source.

“I’m very glad I could be a part of the Google Summer of Code experience as this is something students won’t normally find in a university environment,” said Raj. “My contribution to the open source community will not stop here; in fact, it is only the beginning, thanks to Google Summer of Code. This valuable experience is a great booster as I further my studies in Computer Science. I hope that other Malaysian students will apply to the program and use it to contribute to the open source community,” he continued.

“Open source is about sharing and improving and it’s really an effort of the whole community towards a common goal that helped put Linux to where it is today. I think it’s just great that people are willing to share their work and help others learn at the same time. There should be a lot more people on open source,” said Phua. “Google Summer of Code not only enabled students like me to work on projects that keenly interest us, it has also directly bolstered the open source community with these programming opportunities.”

Devtar, currently working at a global IT consulting company, said that it was great to contribute back to the open source community. “For me, the experience of working with the open source community was reward in itself, but to know my contributions are acknowledged globally is awesome,” said Devtar. “I am humbled to work alongside very talented people across the globe in improving the world’s collection of open source code. Google Summer of Code really does demonstrate Google’s commitment to the open source community.” he said.

About Google Summer of Code
With Google Summer of Code, Google aims to get more open source code created and released for the benefit of users worldwide; inspire young developers to participate in open source development; help open source organizations identify and bring in new developers and contributors; provide students in Computer Science and related fields the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits and expose students to real-world software development scenarios.

"As we conclude our fourth Google Summer of Code, we are incredibly delighted to see the program continue to grow. By our internal estimates, we calculate that our students and mentors have produced nearly 6 million lines of code," said Leslie Hawthorn, Program Manager for Google Summer of Code. "Raj, Devtar and Khai Fong in Malaysia collectively wrote close to nearly 3,000 lines of code in just a summer. We feel privileged to give back to the community that has provided us and the entire world with so much useful code."

For Google Summer of Code 2008, Google worked with open source and free software groups such as The Mozilla Project, MySQL, Umit, The Squeak Project, Wikimedia Foundation, The Linux Foundation, and Joomla over several months to select hundreds of student-proposed projects from thousands of applications. Google distributed millions of dollars in stipends to the student participants in a show of support and commitment to the open source movement.

Since the first Google Summer of Code in 2005, the program has had remarkable success. This year Google connected students worldwide with more than 170 open source mentoring organizations, including such prominent ones as the Dojo Foundation, the Python Software Foundation, Samba and Drupal. Several past participants are still contributing to their projects and many served as mentors in this year's program.

For more information on Google Summer of Code, please visit http://code.google.com/soc/. For information specifically about the Malaysian students’ projects, please see:
· http://code.google.com/soc/2008/mysql/about.html
· http://code.google.com/soc/2008/squeak/about.html
· http://code.google.com/soc/2008/umit/about.html

Students interested in applying to possible future Google Summer of Code programs should read up on the program at http://code.google.com/soc/ and watch for announcements on the program from Google on the Google Open Source Blog at http://google-opensource.blogspot.com.