OpenMRS Summit 2015. Not for the faint hearted!!!

As an old timer who's been there and seen that, I can tell you that every OpenMRS meeting is ALLWAYS unique - nothing goes exactly the way you planned it, or expected to see it happen. Every experience is always different; from fantastic venues to successful implementers and star contributors, you always meet someone or something that takes your breath away.

Flying into Singapore for Summit 2015, I was already very very exhausted. It didn’t matter what I would accomplish over the next few days; nothing could possibly surpass the fact that I had written a four page scientific paper and a five page research paper entirely in transit, and without a pinch of internet. I had also figured out that this would be my 'official' old timer year - this was the meeting where I was going to sit in the back row and smile at the passionate first timers, and talk about the good old days with Jeremy Keiper and the first ever OpenMRS couple, the Seymours.

Thankfully, I was also experienced enough to know that of course, this wasn’t how it was going to turn out, because that's the first rule of conferencing - nothing happens the way that you planned.

Speaking of our host country, I can say that Singapore lived up to my very very high expectations. The airport was fantastic, I didn’t need visa to get in, and everything was so so clean and orderly. And of course, everyone was so very polite, and didn’t expect tips, and gave you exact change. And don't even get me started on the internet. In many ways, Singapore was a wonderful destination to all attendees.

Summit wise, I was looking forward to meet a few folks - notably the Harshas' (ha, sorry, but that's your nickname now). Its' interesting that I had worked with Harsha Kumara for so many years, but hadn't met him in person even once! And then there was Mayank, one of our students from GSoC 2014, and Daniel Kayiwa, who I hadn’t seen in over three years. And of course, there were also the unexpected meetings- Dr. Niranjan from my home base, Sri Lanka, Hong Phuc Dang from FOSSASIA, and the good old folks from Thoughtworks.

The first pe-summit day was the usual craziness of trying to memorize roads and hotels, which conference room would be used for what, etc.

Thankfully, folks at the National University of Singapore took a lot of trouble to help us, which was greatly appreciated.

In terms of sessions, I was mostly impressed / interested by those on Clinical Decision Support (CDS) and OpenMRS Education (which I had to organize), local community forming and the Women in Technology (which I took part in).

I was also greatly impressed by the quality and turnout for the lightning talks and PowerPoint Karaoke sessions, but as the organizer, I feel that I may have been a bit biased in these choices :)

Last but not least, there were happy times spent at the Ramen Champion (kids, eat healthy, Ramen is NOT for you!) ogling things that I could not buy at various tech malls, and the joys of rooming with Joaquin Blaya, who wrote me a fantastic recommendation letter for grad school (we'll agree not to blame him for that mess ;)

 However, all said and done, the important part of a conference is, 'what did you walk away with? Why was the summit important to you?'

In my case, the summit helped me discuss a lot of work to come, and paved the way for several potential collaborations. Also, wish me luck as I start discussions on what may become my first ever implementation! (more details yet to come!)

How to be a better GSOC Student : A list of helpful tit-bits from my GSOC experience

Its been over an year since I started work on my first GSOC project. Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to get a first hand insight into how Open Source works, and how we may benefit from it.
Looking back at what i’ve learnt, I want to list down a set of helpful titbits which might improve your GSOC experience.

Here goes,

• Don’t limit your GSOC experience to your mentor and backup mentor only. Try to make as many friends as possible.

• Don’t keep your mentor in suspense. Update him regularly, even if you have not made any progress. “I could not do anything over the weekend because I was stuck with this problem” is better than hiding from you mentor until you have something positive to report. Furthermore, updating your mentor may help him resolve your problem.

• Some people are really busy, and may not respond to your emails promptly.  Keep this in mind, and plan for it.

• Document everything – user requirements, problems you encountered and solutions you used to fix them. Someone is going to be very thankful to you several year later. And after all, Open source is supposed to be ‘Open’.

• We can accept failure, but we can't accept not trying. Not trying is a definite no -no.

• Don't come up with problems. Come up with potential solutions. Don’t say “I’m getting this exception”. Say “ i’m getting this exception which I think can be solved via the following changes...” Having a potential solution in mind tells us that you’ve done your homework.

• Never assume anything. Always ask and confirm.

• let's admit it, a lot of you (myself included) initially applied for GSOC because of the money. The financial rewards are attractive, but never ‘work’ for the money. Work to impress people. Think of the money only as an additional benefit.

I’ll wrap up my ‘insights’ with something really important my mentor Glen McCallum said. ToQuote,

“In my opinion, successful working code is not the only objective (of GSOC). Integration to the community is the primary objective with the students having a positive real-world experience.

Is it possible to have a project that meets all functional objectives but I still consider the project unsuccessful? Definitely, yes.

Is it possible to have a student project that does not accomplish the functional objectives but still I consider the project a huge success? Yes, absolutely.”

Some of you may be worried about the progress of your project. If so, don't forget that your coding output may amount to only a part of the evaluation. The remainder of the evaluation goes into how well you have worked with others, and become part of our community !

I'm on the Google blog !!!

Well, I'm on the Google opensource blog again.

My article can be seen here,
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2012/02/road-not-taken-adventures-of-post.html?spref=fb

This is the second time I was featured in this blog, and I consider it a rare privilege to have made it here.

My first appearance on the Google blog was right after my visit to last years OpenMRS implementer meeting.
The second (and latest) item chronicles what I've gone on to do since that time.

The aim of this item is to encourage more students to continue with their mentoring organizations once the GSOC summer is over. Hopefully, my article will (in its own little way) encourage more student participation.

Of course, all the credit should go to my dear old supporters, Dr. Burke, Glen McCallum, Ben Wolfe and of course Michael Downey, who introduced me to GSOC Program manager Carol Smith and Stephanie Taylor (also of Google) in the first place.

Thanks everyone, I wouldn't have been able to make it this far without you !!!

I'm in the latest edition of the FOSS USER LK magazine !!!

The title of this post says it all. :-)

An article I wrote on FOSS and community involvement has made it to the latest
FOSS user mag edition.

To download it, go here,
to read it online, go here,

In this article, I argued the following viewpoints,

1. Most Asian students consider GSOC as a 'get rich quick' scheme.
2. When a majority of Asian students say that they are involved in FOSS, they
really mean that they have taken part in GSOC.
3. Many Asian students consider FOSS as a 'seasonal' event which revolves around
the GSOC Summer period
4. vary few GSOC students actually continue with their projects once the summer
is over
5. Some Asian students will keep on doing GSOC projects year in and year out,
and wont care to take up a bigger community role no matter how experienced they
become.

I feel that these are major faults of many of our students. I highlighted them
in my article to our own Sri Lankan students.
I hope that my message will help improve their own involvement, and encourage
them to take up more community responsibility :-)

Making Progress !

Its been almost six months since I started writing this blog, and I feel that I've made much much progress during this time.

To start off, my knowledge base has really improved. There used to be times when I didn't understand most of the conversations the big guys were having. Things have changed very much for the better since then.

Right now I can not only understand what being said, but I can also provide some sort of contribution to these conversations as well.

I can also say that attending all these conferences have greatly improved my professionalism. I'm not a newbie anymore. Of course, some people out there think that conferences are an excuse for free food, travel and naps while someone else does the talking.

However I've learnt that conferences are one of the MOST important things that help you gap the bridge from amateur to professional.

I'm not trying to say that i'm the total professional now (still a long way to go before I can say that). But I feel that I've made tremendous progress. I'm no longer shy around people, and I've built up the knack of paying constant attention to the speakers. I've also become quite good at asking meaningful questions. In fact, I was one of the most prominent question guys at the last two conferences.

Back at the home front, I also seem to have made some progress in the work I've been involved in. For starters, I've become more involved in implementations (AMPATH) and of course, my favorite, patientmatching.

There are some more projects in the pipeline, but I wont talk about them until they get moving.

And also, I've just realized that I had stopped being the smallest guy at OpenMRS some time ago. There are more new people coming in, so I'ts beginning to look like i'm not a newbie anymore :-)

One more interesting fact. I was talking to Joaquin a few days back, and we were joking about conferences and papers etc. etc.

I told Joaquin that I was catching up with him. He has published about 100 or so papers, so with my two already published, I only need 98 more to beat him  ! :-D

The Third International eHealth Conference 2012, Pakistan

I presented my first ever research paper at the Third International eHealth Conference 2012 organized by the eHealth Association of Pakistan.
It was extremely fitting that Dr. Burke was the co-author of my first paper, since I wouldnt have got to do any of these things if not for him anyway.
The entire effort was spearheaded by Glen McCallum, who is a great source of inspiration, and always gives me excellent advice.
The conference website can be found here.
Basically, this was the third eHealth conference to be held.
It was held at the city of Lahore on the 21st and 22nd of January. I travelled to Lahore via India.

My flight plan was something like this -
Colombo -> Delhi -> Amritsar
From Amritsar take the bus across the border, and arrived at Lahore.
The return journey was also similar (with a few hiccups)

Planning the journey was quite daunting, as I had to secure both Indian and Pakistani visas.
Fortunately, Dr. Burke funded my journey, so that was a major load off my back. In fact, I would not have been able to attend the event if not for him.
If I got to Pakistan thanks to Dr. Burke, then I returned thanks to Glen, because he stepped in to solve a sudden emergency (flight problem) that I faced. If not for him, I'd probably still be stranded in Pakistan.

However, i'd say that the entire conference was an outstanding success, and totally worth the effort. I learnt many things on regional healthcare services / informatics. In fact, it was a real eye opener.
I also made very many friends from the Aga Khan University (Karachi) during my stay.

How did I present two papers in just under a week ?

I guess that many people are wondering how I did this, so here goes,

Firsly, I identified the need to publish papers following conversations with my good friends / advisors / mentors Glen, Dr. Burke and Joaquin of HST.
Professor Szolovits also recommended that I do so, as many people tend to do a lot of hard work, but fail to publish on anything that result from their efforts.
I always like to set targets to what I do, and in the case of research papers, Joaquin  (or more correctly, Dr. Joaquin) was my target. If you look at his CV (see here) you'll see that he has published an incredible number of top quality papers.

So one day I saw a mail on the OpenMRS mailing list calling for sumbissions for the eHealth conference 2012 (Pakistan) and so I jusmped at the chance to have a go.
I co authored a paper with Dr. Burke on FOSS solutions for healthcare. The paper studies why FOSS healthcare solutions can fail, and proposes a series of guidelines for implementors who are planning to take up FOSS helthcare. It was a very detailed research paper, and took up a lot of time, effort and dedication.


However, even as I was working on this paper I had the worry, 'ok, lets say that this paper is acepted. Even so, how can I actually make it to Pakistan to present it ? I don't have any money'.
I contacted my personal think tank, ex- Oracle manager and vissionary Glen McCallum. His advice was, 'think of that later, funding opportunities may be available. Focus on the paper for now.'

Naturally, I took his advice.

However, one week later I saw on a notice board that Sri lanka is going to have our own tech conference soon, and that there has been a call for papers. Of course I'll definitely be able to attend a local conference, so I quickly decided to work on another paper as well.
Of course, it was not quite that easy. I had to come up with a good topic.
Well, as luck would have it I realized that there was some quality research I had done a few months back, which was extremely suitable for publication due to its novelity as well as its relevance to a Sri lankan context.
So I wrote the paper, and submitted it as well.  Dr. Kulari Lokuge,one of my old teachers (currently with Swinburnne University, Aussie) was my co-author.
It was very hard work, writing two papers with such short notice, and I had to really push myself, but I finally managed to get it done.

But enough for this post. The rest of the selection process and other news will go into another post....