Times flies so quickly! I can’t believe that I am in the 7th week of my Outreachy journey!

In this blog post, I will talk about LibreHealth for anyone who is interested in contributing to it or just interested in writing documentations.

So, I’m currently an Outreachy intern with LibreHealth, which is a collaborative community that is creating free and open-source Health IT software that is targeted towards providing fast and easy solutions for the healthcare needs of developing countries all around the world.

One of its projects is the LibreHealth EHR application which is designed to be focused on an electronically based healthcare system that is suitable for use by health practitioners, and it also focuses heavily on patient interface, to allow easy access and usability.

My project is Improving Documentation for the LibreHealth EHR Wiki, by documenting the most commonly used healthcare workflows, and reviewing any new fixes or changes that needs to be updated in the existing documentations.

But what is documentation and why it is important?

Documentation is writing up a specification of features and instructions that describes the use of a product or a software to its users.

Documentation is often divided into the following categories:

• Installation: Describes the steps required to install software, hardware, or any items that requires to be assembled.
• Quick Reference:  brief, illustrated numbered steps with minimal explanation; contain only the specific steps and information necessary to perform the described workflow correctly, with brief directions to more detailed information.
• Tutorials: illustrated steps with adequate details and explanations; should be carefully organized to keep the workflow as the primary focus with exceptions and unexpected behaviors identified and explained, in a separate appendix or external documents as appropriate.

In my first internship weeks, my task was to go through previous issues that have been fixed in order to update the existing documentation that are affected by these issues, and keep the docs clear and up to date.

After that, I had to update it in the wiki, which is a type of website whose contents can be edited from the web browser, and which keeps a version history for each editable page.

Documentation is really important because it will reach users who don’t have background in technology to understand the system with clear, simple and easy to follow instructions and helpful screenshots.

What makes me most excited to work on this project?

It is always an amazing thing to gain new & different experiences!

By contributing to LibreHealth, I’ve learned more about medical workflow and Healthcare FOSS which is a new field for me. I learned how to format the Markdown for wiki updates and learned to make both Quick Reference and Tutorial documents. I started with minimal skills, now I have a good knowledge to explain the main features of the system to healthcare professionals.

The fact that by improving LibreHealth documentation, I am helping thousands of users who use this medical system in their daily work and also improving my skills while doing so, makes me so excited.

How to Get Involved with LibreHealth?

There are two ways to contribute to LibreHealth open source projects: contributing code and contributing documentation.

The process is simple, you can start by registering in LibreHealth’s online chat and do so at the LibreHealth Forums, then introducing yourself and how you can contribute. You will find mentors and volunteers who are happy to guide you through.

My journey and experience so far with this wonderful community has been an exciting one. I encourage everyone to be part of the amazing LibreHealth community.

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

"Docker" [ Work ]

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

"Next week" [ On LibreHealth ]

What is LibreHealth

LibreHealth is the foundation of a worldwide ecosystem of open source Health IT innovation and is a place where people can come together to build tools that enhance the quality of healthcare around the world.

LibreHealth EHR

The LibreHealth EHR application is a clinically-focused electronic health record (EHR) system designed to be both easy to use “out of the box” and also customizable for use in a variety of health care settings. It builds on the strength of the LibreHealth Toolkit, and adapts many of the proven user experiences built over many years with OpenEMR. It is designed to be a modern, easy-to-use experience for health care professionals in their daily work. LibreHealth is a 100% volunteer-run organization, with all of our contributors (developers, support, and leadership) donating their time and talents. While we would love to have you join our effort, we realize not everyone is able to contribute in this way so some people support financially.

How to join the LibreHealth community

You can the join the Librehealth community by following the following links https://chat.librehealth.io/home and https://forums.librehealth.io/. Also you can join during the Outreachy participation round if your application is selected.

What You Need To Know In Other To Contribute To LibreHealth EHR.

To work with the LibreHealth EHR system, you must have the basic knowledge of web development programs like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and Database.

Also you must have the basic knowledge on how to use Git (https://git-scm.com/) and GitHub (https://github.com) in order to get the source code on your local machine and send your contribution.

How I joined LibreHelth

After being accepted in the initial outreachy (https://www.outreachy.org/) participation round, I saw that the LibreHealth EHR project was the best for me join because it has the skills which I identify my self with. LibreHealth had two projects which where on the Outreachy site open for participation “Improve Code for the EHR system” and “Improve Documentation for the EHR Wiki.”

I joined their chat forum (https://chat.librehealth.io) and from the chat I got the directive on how to clone their source code from Gitub (https://github.com/LibreHealthIO/lh-ehr).

I cloned their source code to my local machine and followed all their installation instructions ( Installation Instructions) and started my contribution process. and I got the LibreHelth EHR system on my machine.

What Have I benefited From Joining The LibreHealth community

As member of this community I have come to understand and get a clear view on how to work with a project in real world.

Also being part of an active open source community means being part of a group of people who have “been there, done that” and can share their experience, advice, best practices, and ideas.

Contributing to an open source project deepens understanding of the project and the what the project actually needs or requires. I have come to practically understand the implementation of the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and database. This is because the Librehealth EHR system is build on this.

By participating in an open source project you can contribute based on what has and hasn’t worked for your community project and reap the benefits participating in fixing a problem which gives you must experience as a software developer.

I have also benefited from this community on building my morals and reputation as a software developer. Being an Outreachy candidate is a massive opportunity for me to build my self esteem and I have gained more confidence working with codes.

Contributing to open source provides a clear view into a project, and also a chance to get to the company source code to work with experience mentors and other contributors. Being a member of the LibreHaelth community, I have been able to come across great software developers and mentors like Toni Shortsleeve, Elizabeth Ngai, Maggie Negm, Robby O’Connor, Virginia Balseiro, Mua, Htuck who have thought me a lot since I joined the community.

This is the fifth week of the Coding Period and the ninth blog of my GSoC journey. I had my first GSoC evaluation, and it went extremely well. The mentor’s feedback has motivated me even more, and they are quite happy with the progress of the project.

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

Here is the link to the project.

What progress have you made this week?

This week I finished working on the rest of the screens of the app. I also had a live demo with the mentors. There are few discussions on it being not similar to the mHBS Training App. I plan to work on it this weekend.

My mentor and I tested the app with the server, and we found out that the Evernym SDK was altered a bit and wasn’t compatible with the way the app was coded. In the meantime, I would be working with the test server.

My mentor also suggested me to document all the UI work I have done. The document would include the decisions I have taken to keep in mind the new material design UI for an Android App. This would help us get a better understanding of the app in the future. As of now, I have pushed all my code to the feature-ui branch on GitLab.

What do I plan to do next week?

I plan to work on making the app look similar to the mHBS Training app. I would be creating a new branch called feature-ui-mhbs and would make all changes to make the app look identical to mHBS. I plan to do it over the weekend.

I have the test server, which is working fine. So, to integrate scanning, connections, and notifications in the app is my next priority. My mentor has provided me with some dummy data. I’ll try to incorporate that as well.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

There was a slight change in how the Evernym SDK functioned in the server. We found out that this week, while testing. We hope to fix that soon. This isn’t a blocker for now, as I can work with the test server.

This is the fourth week of the Coding Period. I have just finished my academic work, and now the only focus is on the current project. I had planned to implement MVVM design in the app. It requires a learning curve, and I think it’s better to just get the functionality of the app going and then see about optimizing the codebase.

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

Here is the link to the project.

What progress have you made this week?

This week I thought of spending some time on UI designing. One of my mentors had already designed the screens of the app using Proto. However, it was running on a trial period, and it got expired. I had an EDU account which would give extra benefits to use prototyping software, and I thought of designing using the Figma tool. Here is the link to the project design.

What do I plan to do next week?

My mentor and I would test the app with the server-side up and running. Check if there are any issues while interacting with the server. I also plan to implement a local auth in the app. This would ensure the safety of the app. The app would require a fingerprint or a passcode to open it.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

None as of now. 

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

This is the third week of the Coding Period. It has been a hard week, working on this project as well as preparing for the online assessments, tests and project submissions of the college. Sometimes, we just have to roll up your sleeves, double our efforts and keep going!

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

Here is the link to the project.

What progress have you made this week?

I have almost completed the UI of the screens of the app. I’ve tried to make it similar to what the mHBS app looks like.

I have now started to work on the architecture of the codebase. I would be following the MVVM design pattern as it’s a standard design pattern. It would easy to do unit testing later on. 

What do I plan to do next week?

I plan to modify the codebase with the MVVM pattern and, if time persists, work on testing the application. I still need to work on filling the app with dummy data. The app would contain the screens which let the guardian make the connection, accept the credential, and also the notifications screen.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

This week and the next week, I have my Academic Semester Exams, so I might not be able to contribute much. However, the mentors have been kind and have asked me to focus on the exams for the current week and resume the work later.

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

"Tensorflow Serving" [ Work ]

The diagram above explains how we plan to deploy our ML models. Basically, the python middleware sends images to the TF Serving and receives BBox information and then send the received data to client.

This week is the second week of the Coding Period, and so far, so good. This week has been a pretty ordinary week, with me working on the things assigned to me.

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

Here is the link to the project.

What progress have you made this week?

I started to develop the UI of the app. I need to make sure that the app has a similar visual appearance as that of the mHBS app. The color, fonts, and the language should be in context with the mHBS app.

I have also started to work on receiving the credential offer and the actual credential from the issuer. I also have to make a notification screen with the recent meet that I had with my mentor. This screen would contain all the messages of the cloud agent and would be a temporary replacement of the Push Notification feature.

What do I plan to do next week?

I plan to complete the UI development of the screen as much as possible. Place dummy data onto the app and have a workflow ready. I plan to do this week to complete the acceptance of the credential offer and the actual credential.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

As I’ve said earlier in the post, “so far, so good.” I currently do not face any issues with regards to the project.

It’s almost one month since I started my Outreachy internship as a documentation intern for LibreHealth EHR! In this blog I will tell you more about LibreHealth community and the times I was stuck!

What is LibreHealth?

LibreHealth is a collaborative community for free & open source software projects in Health IT, and is a member project of Software Freedom Conservancy.

One of those projects is the LibreHealth EHR application which is a clinically-focused electronic health record (EHR) system designed to be a modern, easy to use experience for health care professionals in their daily work. The mission of LibreHealth is to help provide high quality medical care to all people, by providing medical practices and clinics across the globe access to free of charge medical software. It is designed to save clinics both time and money, which gives practitioners more time to spend with individual patients, thereby supplying patients with higher quality care.

What is my role as an intern?

My role is to improve Documentation for the LibreHealth EHR Wiki by documenting the most commonly used healthcare workflows, and reviewing any new fixes or changes that needs to be updated in the existing documentations.

It is an opportunity to learn more about medical workflow and Healthcare FOSS which is a new field for me. I learned how to format the Markdown for wiki updates and learned to make both Quick Reference and Tutorial documents.

Everybody struggles

Everybody struggles! That’s absolutely TRUE! We are stuck most of times in every aspect of our life, it is normal! After all You must struggle through life to make life worth living.

Being a new intern to a medical system was a little bit intimidating!
My tasks as I mentioned before were to document the workflow of the application, since I didn’t have any previous medical experience, I had to learn about medical workflow and Healthcare and familiarize myself with it, but there were times where I didn’t know how this or that works, having this feeling that I was mistaking or even in sometimes I didn’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do!

At such times, first I searched and went through old documentations maybe there is something there that may help, but when I got stuck, my only way was to ask my mentors and LibreHealth community who are specialists and experts. And there we go! They always helped me in clarifying and simplifying the task and sometimes they did a new full documentation to help me in passing through the time of struggle.

Working remotely was also new for me. It was really exciting, but I faced a problem in time zone differences. There is a ten hour difference between me and my mentors, so coordinating the time of meetings and chatting is a challenge indeed! However, this is the beauty of working remotely. So, if you can’t live chat with your mentors and you have questions, just send an email or ask the question directly on the community chat, and when they are online, they will respond.

Tips for people struggling

• Write down every thought, note or problem.
• First search and read to see if others had the same problem before, if you are stuck for one hour then reach out and ask for help.
• Don’t be shy to ask simple and silly questions! Well, I’m sure I did that a lot!
• If you are not sure about something, always ask for clarification. For most of us English is not our native language.
• Being stuck doesn’t mean being a failure it simply means you lack the information needed to solve this problem.
• Remember you are not alone; you will have the support of your mentors, fellow interns and Outreachy community to guide and help you.
• Don’t forget to step out for a breath of fresh air.
• Enjoy this learning opportunity with every moment of this struggle.

Finally, we all run into technical and personal challenges. Always remember you are not alone, and it is ok to ask for help!

What Actually Got Me Stuck

As an intern working with LibreHealth (https://librehealth.io), for the LibreHealth EHR system to work on your local machine, you must have a server which runs both ‘PHP’ and ‘MYSQL’. I had already downloaded and installed a ‘XAMPP’ server and followed the installation instructions for the LibreHealth EHR (Installation Instructions). After some time I could not access the system on my machine showing an error message in ‘MYSQL.’ which indicates that port 3306 is not working. So I tried fixing it, but I kept getting same error message and could not recover the LibreHealth EHR on my local machine.

So I uninstalled the ‘XAMPP’ server and deleted. I downloaded the ‘XAMPP’ server back (https://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/).

When I reinstalled the ‘XAMPP’ server on my machine I got the error message again from ‘MYSQL’ saying, ‘MYSQL’ can not run on port 3306 which is its default port. This was an issue because the ‘LibreHealth EHR’ system runs on port ‘3306’ by default.

The Issues I Faced Trying TO Fix

I changed the ‘MYSQL’ port ‘3306’ to port ‘3307’. To change this. On the ‘XAMPP’ Control Panel I clicked on ‘Config’ in the ‘MYSQL’ row and a small popup opened, then I clicked on ‘my.ini’ where I changed the port ‘3306’ to ‘3307’ and saved the file. I then returned to the ‘XAMPP’ Control Panel and on the top right corner, I clicked on the ‘Config’ on the ‘services and port settings.’ Inside the ‘config’ I changed ‘MYSQL’ port ‘3306’ to ‘3307.’ The positions of the config files can be seen in the diagram below.

After changing the port I went to the cloned ‘lh-ehr’ on my machine and open with a text editor. In ‘libreehr/sites/default/ sqlconf.php,’ in this file I also changed the port ‘3306’ to port ‘3307’ and saved.

The installation process of ‘LibreHealth EHR’ started moving smoothly now with port ‘3307’ and again I got stuck at step three. with a message which shows ‘MYSQL’ is not connecting to the database in ‘PHPMYADMIN.’ I needed to seek the help of my mentors at this stage.

How My Mentors Helped Me to Fix the Issue

I went to the LibreHealth chat forum and told my mentors Tony Shortsleeve and Maggie Negm about the issue am facing. They gave me various ways on which I can resolve the issue and get my system back running. I tried all what they told me, like restarting my machine, fixing ‘MYSQL’ port ‘3306’ error.

From a video sent to me from my mentors, I found out that the problems I faced was because I had downloaded another ‘MYSQL’ program on the same machine which coincides with that on the ‘XAMPP’ server.

I uninstalled the other ‘MYSQL’ on my machine, then I reinstalled ‘XAMMP’ and got ‘MYSQL’ working perfectly.

I followed the ‘LibreHealth EHR’ installation instruction and got the system back.

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

The server in the above figure is a combination of 2 servers the django-server and Tensorflow servering. Basically, the Django server acts as the middleman between the Client and tensorflow serving. I have implemented the API for Django-server. I have used generic views and model serializers. The DB is sqlLite.

This week is the first week of the Coding Period, and I am excited to finally start putting the ideas, thoughts, and the discussions into CODE! 

To begin, I had to layout the project plan and milestones for the project. It is not the sort of project where everything is ready, and I only have to code. We are using Evernym’s SDK, which is not well documented and are dependent on their team to help us. So, my mentor and I decided to have a loose timeline for the current month while resolving the SDK issues and doubts. I plan to develop the UI of the app, which one of my mentors has shared. I also would prototype the flow of the app with dummy data.

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer here.

Here is the link to the project codebase.

What progress have you made this week?

I finally pushed my starting code to Gitlab, which had the feature to scan the QR code and connect with the issuer. The next step was to work on Push Notification to receive Credential Offer from the issuer. However, it was still under development, and I was informed that I had to manually poll the Cloud Agent to secure the Credential Offer. I started working on retrieving the messages from the Cloud Agent and found many issues there and was stuck on it for a day.

Soon, I received help from the Evernym Team. It was a relief for me as well as my mentor :P. From that day, I have been continuously interacting with their team on issues. They also set up a video call to go through a few of my problems and explained other parts of their SDK, which was very knowledgeable.

Since it is an open-source project and needs to be well documented, I started maintaining a WIKI for the project. I have now begun with documenting the responses received from the SDK for various interactions.

What do I plan to do next week?

One of the mentors has provided me with the design of the app. So, I plan to develop the UI for 3-4 screens of the app. 

I would also be working on the credentials in the SDK. It includes work on polling the message for Credential Offer, processing it, accepting the offer, and sending it back to the issuer. The previous step was to accept the credential offer, and the next step is to retrieve the actual Credential.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

Coding Begins!I was stuck with a few issues at the start of the week, but I received help from the Evernym Team. So far, the discussion and interactions have been really great. I believe with their continued support, there would be no blockers

Ahani Peitra Okumo.  From, Buea/Southwest Region/Cameroon.

 Where I come from                                  

      Coming from a background where education seems not to be a reality in many peoples life.

From the “Bororo” community in Cameroon. In this community the men are known for cattle rearing. Most of them lives in the forest taking care of flocks. And the main occupation of women is milking and selling of vegetables. Once a male child is 5years old or above he is taken to the forest which are hilly to start learning cattle rearing. Fortunately mother started working in the house of a non-Muslim and none-Bororo family and I always go visiting in her job site. Meeting the children of my mother’s employer who were always on their computers, some playing games, and others using it for other purposes. I started loving to know how to manipulate a computer at the age of about 7years, but it couldn’t be possible and sounded so funny to them because at that age I have not even started grade one in primary school. I could only sit and watch them manipulate the computers. From there I got the drive to follow my friends to school. My mother’s employer loved my push for education an insisted of sponsoring me through school. I grew up in his yard and went through primary, secondary and high school. I became more passionate about computer studies after high school and I enrolled into an institute of information technology (I.T.) where I graduated as software engineer.

My Love to Learn

 I love to learn new things, particularly in my field of studies. I always love to join small communities where I can improve on my knowledge, share ideas and develop my career. I came across a friend who told me about contributing in an open source. I was so excited and I really wanted to know more about open source and I found out the benefits of joining it.

  How I Knew About Outreachy

Since I knew about open source contribution I researched online and also asked some few friends who are more exposed to open source contribution. A friend told me about Outreachy and I went straight to their web page(https://www.outreachy.org/) and read what it is all about.

Wow I was amazed what actually Outreachy is all about and their objectives. I also realized Outreachy also included the under-represented people around the world which really suits my status.

I registered for Outreachy  on the 8/02/2020 which is the mid year May to August 2020 round to get updates and be part of the community.

I was so excited when the next application process started and hurriedly applied. 

The Outreachy Initial Application period 

I waited for the email of those selected in the participation round and finally got an email on the 5/03/2020 that my initial application for Outreachy was accepted. This is how I got motivated and joined Outreachy.

My core values are “loyalty, learning and success”

Being loyal is my drive in life. This gives me the chance to acquire knowledge from those that know more than me. It also gives people the mind to help me get through difficult tasks in life particularly, in my field of studies.

 I also value learning. I like to know every new thing I come across. The love to learn gives me a good push in life and my field of studies. I always feel like there is a vacuum in my head which needs to be filled with knowledge, this makes me want to learn more.

 Success is also a core value in my life. I always want to succeed in the things I do. That is why I stay loyal to learning so I can achieve success in my career and life in general. The hunger for success always makes me to put effort in my actions.

 Peitra Ahani Okumo.  From, Buea/Southwest Region/Cameroon

My core values are “loyalty, learning and success”

Being loyal is my drive in life. This gives me the chance to acquire knowledge from those that knows more than me. It also gives people the mind to help me get through difficult task in life particularly in my field of studies.

 I also value learning. I like to know every new thing I come across. The love to learn gives me a good push in life and my field of studies. I always feel like there is a vacuum in my head which needs to filled with knowledge, this makes me to learn more.

 Success is also a core value in my life. I always want to succeed in the things I do. That is why I stay loyal to learn so I can archive success in my career and life in general. The hunger for success always makes me to put effort in my doings.

   What Motivated Me to Join Outreachy

– Where I come from

– My love to learn

-How I knew About Outreachy.

-The Outreachy Initial Application Period                                      

 -Where I come from                                  

      Coming from a background where education seems not to be a reality in many peoples life.

From the “bororo” community in Cameroon. In this community the men are known for cattle rearing. Most men lives in the forest taking care of flocks. And the main occupation of women is milking and selling of vegetables. Once a male child is 5years old or above he is taken to the forest which are hilly to start learning cattle rearing. Fortunately my mother started working in the house of a non-Muslim and none “bororo” family and I always go visiting in her job site. Meeting the children of my mothers employer who were always on their computers, some playing games, and others using it for other purposes. I started loving to know how to manipulate a computer at the age of about 7years, but it couldn’t be possible and sounded so funny to them because at that age I have not even started grade one in primary school. I could only sit and watch them manipulate the computers and also read their books. From there I got the drive to follow my friends to school. My mother’s employer loved my push for education an insisted of assisting in sponsoring me through school. I grew up in his yard and went through primary, secondary and high school. I became more passionate about computer studies after high school and I enrolled into an institute of information technology (I.T) where I graduated as software engineer.

–My Love to Learn

 I love to learn new things, particularly in my field of studies. I always love to join small communities where I can improve on my knowledge, share ideas and develop my career. I came across a friend who told me about contributing in an open source. I was so excited and I really wanted to know more about open source and I find out the benefits of joining it.

 – How I Knew About Outreachy

Since I knew about open source contribution I researched online and also asked some few friends who are more exposed to open source contribution. A friend told me about outreachy and I went straight to their web page and read what it is all about. Wow I was amazed what actually outreachy is all about and their objectives. I realized outreachy also included the under-represented people around the world which really suits my status. I registered for outreachy  on the 8/02/2020 to get updates and be part of the community. I was so excited when the next application process started and hurriedly applied.    

 –The Outreachy Initial application Peoriod

I waited for the email of those selected t in the participation round and finally got and email on the 5/03/2020 that my initial application for outreachy was accepted. This is how I got motivated and joined Outreachy.

 Peitra Ahani Okumo.  From Buea/Southwest Region/Cameroon.

My core values are “loyalty, learning and success”

Being loyal is my drive in life. This gives me the chance to acquire knowledge from those that knows more than me. It also gives people the mind to help me get through difficult task in life particularly in my field of studies.

 I also value learning. I like to know every new thing I come across. The love to learn gives me a good push in life and my field of studies. I always feel like there is a vacuum in my head which needs to filled with knowledge, this makes me to learn more.

 Success is also a core value in my life. I always want to succeed in the things I do. That is why I stay loyal to learn so I can archive success in my career and life in general. The hunger for success always makes me to put effort in my doings.

   What Motivated Me to Join Outreachy

– Where I come from

– My love to learn

-How I knew About Outreachy.

-The Outreachy Initial Application Period                                      

 -Where I come from                                  

      Coming from a background where education seems not to be a reality in many peoples, the “bororo” community in Cameroon. In this community the men are known for cattle rearing. Most of them lives in the forest taking care of flocks. And the main occupation of women is milking and selling of vegetables. Once a male child is 5years old or above he is taken to the forest which are hilly to start learning cattle rearing. Fortunately mother started working in the house of a non-Muslim and none “bororo” family and I always go visiting in her job site. Meeting the children of my mum’s employer who were always on their computers, some playing games, and others using it for other purposes. I started loving to know how to manipulate a computer at the age of about 7years, but it couldn’t be possible and sounded so funny to them because at that age I have not even started grade one in primary school. I could only sit and watch them manipulate the computers. From there I got the drive to follow my friends to school. My mother’s employer loved my push for education an assisted sponsoring me through school. I grew up in his yard and went through primary, secondary and high school. I became more passionate about computer studies after high school and I enrolled into an institute of information technology (I.T) where I graduated as software engineer.

-My Love to Learn

 I love to learn new things, particularly in my field of studies. I always love to join small communities where I can improve on my knowledge, share ideas and develop my career. I came across a friend who told me about contributing in an open source. I was so excited and I really wanted to know more about open source and I to find out the benefits of joining it.

 – How I Knew About Outreachy

Since I knew about open source contribution I researched online and also asked some few friends who are more exposed to open source contribution. A friend told me about outreachy and I went straight to their web site and read what it is all about. Wow I was amazed what actually outreachy is all about and their objectives. I also realized outreachy included the under-represented people around the world which really suits my status. I registered for outreachy  on the 8/02/2020 to get updates and be part of the community. I was so excited when the next application process started and hurriedly applied.    

 –The Outreachy Initial application Period.

I waited for the email of those selected t in the participation round and finally got and email on the 5/03/2020 that my initial application for outreachy was accepted. This is how I got motivated and joined Outreachy.

“Congratulations on being accepted for the May 2020 to August 2020 Outreachy internship round!”

With these amazing words which I received on May 4^th, and after a month of contributions, I have officially become a LibreHealth EHR Documentation Intern for the Outreachy 20^th round!

I am Ruba Awayes, a Palestinian girl with a B.Sc. in Computer Information Systems, who is currently working as computer lab instructor at An-Najah National University.

I am an active member of several communities. I am the vice president at ArabWIC Palestine chapter aiming to inspire and support women in computing in the Arab world and create links with the global tech ecosystem. Moreover, I am an active volunteer at Palestine Tech meetups (a youth initiative that aims to create a voluntary and independent tech community). I participated in Techwomen program in 2017, and was hosted at Mozilla San Francisco for a month. Since then, I have been an active contributor for the Mozilla Localization team (L10n) and SUMO (Mozilla Support).

I value my COMMUNITY, and I am always willing to offer new ideas that may help change the society for the better. I love helping people and I’m sure that by doing good things we pay back to our community that was very generous with us in many ways.

I value ADVENTURE because it leads to exploring new things in the world and having fun while doing it, where you challenge yourself to push the limits! Despite that 2020 limited the travel adventures due to current COVID-19 crisis and lockdown, I was really blessed that I was awarded with this very special new adventure and have been selected as an Outreachy intern.

I believe that learning never stops! All those different opinions and perspectives are opportunities to learn, that is why I value CONTRIBUTION and volunteering to both the community and to Free and Open Source projects. This can be a rewarding way to learn, teach, find mentors, meet people and constantly search for different ways to make a bigger impact!

I look forward to the next few months and can’t wait to see what I will accomplish!

My next blog will have more about the process of becoming an Outreachy Intern.

Stay tuned!

Searching CMS Data for Hospitals

This week I found CMS Data which contains inpatient & outpatient procedures & charges of 3000 Hospitals. I will use these datasets , but these don’t contain complete data. They have only about 150 procedures per Hospital.

Inpatient Data (Link)

Outpatient Data (Link)

Preparing Project Plan for Coding Period

I have made a detailed project plan with milestones in it. I have discussed it with my mentors. I will be making UI of complete App with Dummy Data in the first two weeks.

I have planned to scrap 2000 Hospitals Data, for which I have to save link to each hospital’s CDM to my web crawler & then process the data.

My Detailed Project Plan (Link) , I have to make some changes in it.

Analyzing CDM

I have analyzed after reading cdm of few hospitals that after processing, CDM will have three columns,

• Description [Description of Procedure or Drug]

• Charge [Price of Procedure or Drug]

• Category

◦ DRG (Diagnostic Related Group)

◦ Pharmacy (It will contain medicines),

◦ Standard (if no category is provided I will name it default as Standard)

What do I plan to do next week?

I will start making App UI with dummy data in next two weeks, I will also scrap Hospitals CDM of California State next week.

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

In the fourth week of the community bonding period, I had a test server to work to test the sample app. I had a bit of traveling in the week, due to which I wasn’t able to code much. So, I ended up looking into the play store for some inspiration for the app’s UI. I have to admit that there were pretty good apps out there.

I have coded the sample app in Native Android using Java. My initial plan was to build the app in Flutter. So, I tried to do a similar prototype of the sample app in Flutter and ended up working almost 10-15 hours on that particular thing only to see it not work :(. So, I hope to keep trying until I get some success in it. If I’m unable to get it done, I can always go back to native Android to develop the app.

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

What progress have you made this week?

I had the test server to communicate with the sample app. The test server would provide a QR code for the app to scan to make a successful connection with one of the instances. I added the code in the sample app to scan the QR code and make a successful connection, and I was successfully able to make a connection.

I have also looked into UI/UX guidelines for the app. Looked into play store for apps related to the project and have got some idea on UI of the app.

What do I plan to do next week?

I have received guidelines from the mentors regarding the aesthetics of the app. I will go through that and discuss it with the mentors in the coming week. I also plan to propose a UI for the app and start implementing it after the approval. 

Since it’s a three-month process, I’m going to put the timeline and milestones for the project and discuss it with the mentors at the start of the week.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

It’s not a blocker now, but I’m facing issues in linking the SDK into the mobile app. It’s taking the time, and that’s the only hard part of the project. This linking process has not stopped and is only seeing growth, but it’s a slower growth so far.

Learning About CI Pipeline in GitLab

I have read documentation of GitLab CI (Continuous Integration) pipeline which I will use to update CDM stored in GitLab periodically. The pipeline will scrap data from the stored links & then process the data using a process script which I will make to process it to standard columns. Then the pipeline will push the changes to the GitLab Repository.

I have created a pipeline here

I need to make changes in it to also process the data. I will read documentation of it carefully

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines/

Changed UI of Home screen & Search Screen of App

I have changed only home screen & search screen UI . Now, I have used flutter gradient in home screen toolbar.

I have also forked the repo from LibreHealth GitLab Repository

I have scrapped data of few hospitals & tried to use CI Pipeline to update them & the pipeline is working correctly.

I have searched the web for US govt data which contain all hospitals of state. I got New York & California Hospitals CDM ,for rest of state I manually have to save links.

What do I plan to do next week?

• I will give my mentors Detailed project plan with Milestones for my coding period.

• Analyzing CDM of hospitals & reading documentation for flutter Sqflite package

• Preparing up the development environment for start of coding session.

My Entire discussion with mentors can be seen here

https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-develop-an-android-mobile-application-to-show-patient-friendly-costs-of-care/3685/25

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

"The frontend"   [ BBoxes ]

The frontend here is actually doing a lot here. It is the drawing bounding boxes on the imgs, these bound boxes can be moved/resized by the annotators. now, I'm sure there must be a library for this but in my case I had to get the co-ordinate of the bboxes to later send to the backend, so I wrote my own custom react component to do this.

How did Do it:

Step 1) made the bbox element draggable.

Step 2) Listen to when the onDragStart and onDragEnd is fired.

Step 3) Get the co-ordinates of the place where dragging ends and update the transition wrt where dragging started

Step 4) You save the co-ordinates of the bbox in your react state.

Step 5) Your bbox moves. Now for resizing, give css prop resize:'both'

Step 6) Now for getting the size listen to mouseup on bbox.

Step 7) onMouseup get offsetWidth and offsetHeight and save it in the react state.

Boom you have a moving and resizable bbox.(Of course the code is in gitlab)

"Next Week"   [ Plan ]

The plan is simple, make an ugly version of the frontend that works completely without breaking.

In the third week of the community bonding period, I had to read up a lot of information that helped me understand the project’s needs. I became more familiar with the mentors. We had frequent and short meetings regarding the project. We decided to work on the native Android Application, and then to proceed with Cross-Platform FLutter Application. This week was more of a theory week. I understood the need for the project, how it could affect people’s lives. I would be updating this blog with more information on the report I read.

To see more of the conversation concerning the project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

What progress have you made this week?

I went through the sample Android app of the mobile SDK. I understood and debugged the code which was present. I read a report on Birth Registration, which is well documented by Plan. I read an article of the New York Times that talked about the current concerns with Kenya’s new national ID program. There is this article that I went through that talks about the possible threats to human rights that biometric systems pose. These resources justified the need for the project and how it would be useful to society.

What do I plan to do next week?

I have received a link to a server to test the app. I plan to complete the app, as mentioned by the mobile SDK’s wiki. I would then be testing the app with the server and see how it communicates.

I also plan to discuss with the mentors regarding the design of the app. It includes a discussion on the UI/UX of the app, work related to User Stories of the app.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

None as of now.

"Previously on LibreHealth GSOC 2020" [ Recap ]

pip install django-allauth

Signup with a smtp service provider and get the credentials.

Modify your settings.py

First the installed apps:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
...
'rest_framework.authtoken',
'rest_auth',
'django.contrib.sites',
'allauth',
'allauth.account',
'rest_auth.registration',
'allauth.socialaccount'
...
]

SMTP server keys:

EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp-relay.sendinblue.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_USE_SSL = False
EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'singh.kislay.kunal@gmail.com'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = os.environ.get('EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD')

Modify your urls.py

url_pattern = [
...
re_path(r'^rest-auth/registration/account-email-verification-sent/', views.null_view, name='account_email_verification_sent'),
    re_path(r'^rest-auth/registration/account-confirm-email/(?P<key>[-:\w]+)/$', ConfirmEmailView.as_view(), name='account_confirm_email'),
    re_path(r'^rest-auth/registration/complete/$', views.complete_view, name='account_confirm_complete'),
    re_path(r'^password-reset/confirm/(?P<uidb64>[0-9A-Za-z_\-]+)/(?P<token>[0-9A-Za-z]{1,13}-[0-9A-Za-z]{1,20})/$', views.null_view, name='password_reset_confirm'),
    re_path(r'rest-auth/', include('rest_auth.urls')),
    re_path(r'^rest-auth/registration/', include('rest_auth.registration.urls'))
...
]

 Easy, you have your authentication server setup. Don't forget to make the migrations.

"Paper...s" [ Reading ]
There were several papers that were mentioned to be read and one of them a had a public code repo, so can you guess which paper I started with? I started with "Deep Neural Networks Improve Radiologists’Performance in Breast Cancer Screening" This is simply a beautiful paper, the idea of getting heat maps by sliding window over 224*224 chunks of image and then sending these heat maps directly in to a different neural nework that accepts 4 images, each image being the image(grayscale), heatmap of  the malign and heatmap of the benign area for making 3 channels is amazing. mind == blown. I loved reading the paper, right now I'm working on porting there code to tensorflow 2.1 as it is in tensorflow 1.13. Why you ask? well, new is always better.

"Next week" [ Plan ]
Port the model to tf 2.1. I have never ported a tf script to a different versions, this will be new and fun. Right now I just feel like I can do it.

In the second week of the community bonding period, I was able to get access to the Evernym Mobile SDK and started working on it. This time, in the weekly meet, there were 4 mentors, and we had a great discussion on the project and how it would impact the world. We plan to build a proof-of-concept of the application with a minimalistic UI and present it to the respective stakeholders. This project is going to revolutionalize the way the world treats personal identity!

To see more of the conversation concerning this project, refer https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-android-application-to-show-birth-registration-newborn-health-data/3684

What progress have you made this week?

I got access to the Evernym mobile SDK. I read their wiki, cloned the repo, and went through their sample project written in both Java and Kotlin. It was hard for me to figure out the code and what precisely each single Java file does, which requires a technical background that I lack.

I’ve also proposed to develop the application in Flutter. However, the SDK works on native Android and iOS code with the help of AAR file and Cocoapods, respectively. So the main work is to have my Flutter app communicate with the SDK running on native Android or iOS. This communication happens with the help of Platform Channels in Flutter.

Platform Channels provide a simple communication mechanism between the Dart code and the platform-specific code of our host app. I have also read a few articles regarding this and understood the working of it. Links:

https://medium.com/flutter/flutter-platform-channels-ce7f540a104e

https://flutter.dev/docs/development/platform-integration/platform-channels?tab=ios-channel-swift-tab

What do I plan to do next week?

One of my mentors gave me a report on birth registration in general. It includes information on the birth registration process in Kenya, and the impact of being unregistered has on children’s wellbeing. I would be going through that report, make points, and get back with the mentors on the meet next week with a few questions or doubts.

I am new to Blockchain and Evernym’s SDK. So, I’m taking the time to figure out how exactly it works. I plan to work with the Evernym team, communicate with them regarding the technical aspects of the project in the coming week.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

None as of now. I feel that the interaction with the mentors is excellent, and the project has decent progress considering it’s still the community bonding period.

"Automatic labeling of radiology images" [ Project ]

Hello!

I’m Ruba Awayes from Palestine.

Yeah i didn’t blog for a very long time!!
But Now it’s the time to come back!
I’m going to blog in the next three months about my Outreachy internship with LibreHealth .

So stay tuned

P.s My last blog was on February 3, 2014 !

Reading Documentation Of Flutter Packages

In the second week of community bonding, I read documentation of Flutter packages such as flutter_map (Link) which I will use to display OSM (Open Street Map ) in the app. I read its implementation from examples shown.

I read about Flutter GeoJSON package which I will use to read geojson output from the Overpass API response.

location package (Link) It is another package which I will use to get current location of User.

I will get latitude & longitude of user which I will use in Overpass API to get Nearby Hospitals

Using Overpass API to retrieve Nearby Hospitals

I learned to use Overpass API to show nearby Hospitals, I have used Overpass turbo to test my API calls.

Overpass API uses a Query Language to get data from its Server. I read its documentation carefully. (Here)

I read its various examples, I will summarize my points here

Base URL

https://lz4.overpass-api.de/api/interpreter

Around

Around allows you to get all nodes near one or more given nodes.

Example

;\);%20/*end%20of%20auto%20repair*/%20out%20body;%20\>;">around:1000 in area of 1 Km.

Need to pass current location coordinates

;\);%20/*end%20of%20auto%20repair*/%20out%20body;%20\>;">(around:1000,39.435200,%20-74.605448)

Amenity

“amenity”=”hospital” , For searching hospitals

I also discussed with my mentors my approach to scrap Hospitals Data & how I will store it on Github.

Discussion

My entire discussion can be seen here

https://forums.librehealth.io/t/project-develop-an-android-mobile-application-to-show-patient-friendly-costs-of-care/3685/14

It is the first week of the GSoC. By the time I woke up on May 5th, a ton of mails had just dropped off into my inbox from Google. It was probably the first time that I was happy, going through all the mails. It included various information on GSoC like roles and responsibilities, stipend, linking my bank account, acceptance letter, and a whole lot more, which I’m not able to remember at the time of typing this sentence. I had a call with mentors, who were living in various parts of the world and 

What progress have you made this week?

I had a video call with the mentors, and we discussed in brief about the project in terms of technicality and practicality of the app. Some of the discussion was on the requirement of the internet connection to the app, the size of the app after the SDK is integrated.

Also, developing a Flutter app with Evernym mobile SDK is very ambitious and has not been done before. So, we decided to be flexible in terms of the stack in which the app would be built. I also went through youtube videos on SSI principles.

What do I plan to do next week?

I have recently got access to the Evernym mobile SDK and I would go about seeing how it could be integrated with Flutter framework.

Have you had any blockers or issues that are impeding your project?

Yes. I am not sure whether integrating Evernym SDK with Flutter would be feasible given the time constraints. However, the alternative plan is to develop a native Android application that can have the SDK integrated.

It was around mid-February when I decided that I want to participate in GSoC 2020. Since I was confident in Android App Development, I went about looking for organizations that had projects on Android, and there I found LibreHealth. They had great topics on App Development and Health Care topics. I noticed that very few people had approached the mentors of LibreHealth regarding the projects, and it was good to be part of the discussion at the early stage of GSoC. Out of the lot of projects they had, I chose 3 projects which I found interesting and in my range of skill set. I started pitching in points about the projects, discussing with mentors, and taking their feedback. I contributed to one of their open source project even though I did not choose that particular project for my GSoC Application. 

However, when the GSoC opened their application portal on March 15, I was stuck in the middle of the pandemic. I had to move to my home from my hostel in college, and it took me a week to get back to my work on GSoC. I did not give up! I firmly believe that efforts are more important than the results. So I started working on my proposal for my GSoC application. The last date to apply was on March 31, 11:30 PM IST and I had not submitted the draft proposal until the penultimate day. Usually, the draft proposal gets reviewed by mentors, and they give feedback. In my case, I had submitted the draft proposal so late that I was unable to receive feedback from the mentors. So, I sent the final PDF of my proposal in the portal, hoping that everything was up to the standards.

From April to May, I couldn’t do much except hope for the best. However, I was interested in the project that I decided to work on the project irrespective of my selection in GSoC and that I didn’t want to let my momentum go down. So I started researching the project and got in contact with a few other individuals who had worked on a similar topic.

I had made decent progress on the project, and by the end of April, I had lost my hopes in GSoC. But, Destiny had other plans. It was around 11:10 PM IST, May 4th, and I was lying on the bed thinking about GSoC. I couldn’t handle the tension. So I decided to watch an episode of my favorite Netflix show ‘Shark Tank,’ which was about 25 mins. By the end of the show, it was already 11:31 PM, and I slowly closed Netflix and swiped towards the home screen of my Phone. I had my Gmail Widget on the Home Screen of my Phone. To my surprise, I saw the first mail which mentioned ‘GSoC: Congratulations, Your prop..’. For a second, I couldn’t believe it and opened the letter. I was finally selected for GSoC 2020. The news hit me really hard. I was so excited that I couldn’t tell my friend about the news, who was sitting right next to me. My mouth was half-paralyzed. The only thing that I spoke in the first 5 seconds after reading the email was ‘Goo… Goo. Google’. It was a special feeling!

To all those who read this article, It’s always the efforts that matter, not the result. Do not give up on your goals. Have a goal and work towards it.

I am very much Thankful to LibreHealth & Google for selecting me. I will narrate my story , how I got to know about GSoC , how I prepared for getting selected & my progress till May 8.

What is GSoC?

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that matches students up with open source, free software and technology-related organizations to write code and get paid to do it! .The organizations provide mentors who act as guides through the entire process, from learning about the community to contributing code. The idea is to get students involved in and familiar with the open source community and help them to put their summer break to good use.

Getting Ready for GSoC

There is big hype of GSoC in India. Well, it is the dream of most of students to participate in GSoC, I also have this dream in my mind, from my first year in BTech . I got know about this program , I was really excited about Android Development, I learned it from Udacity free courses & Youtube Videos. Then I did two internships in Android App development & gained a lot of knowledge, I felt confident about my skills.

Applying for GSoC

I get to know about LibreHealth Organisation on Feb 22 for an Android Project to show patient friendly costs of care. From that day I started developing the app, I made all Webscrapping Scripts & Flutter App & Submitted my proposal after a lot of conversation & feedback from my mentors.

May 4 ( The Result Day )

During the period from 31 March to May 4, I was really anxious about my results, I daily open LibreHealth & GSoC website to check if any update. On May 4 I was eagerly waiting to see results, Although I have 50 % hope of getting selected, then at 11:31 PM , I got mail from Google that I am selected.I was really happy & showed it to my parents.

Community Bonding Period

• Community Bonding Period in which you get to know your community and get familiar with their code base and work style.

• Ask for resources, required by you, to gain your knowledge for the parts of your project you don’t know.

• Discuss and plan your GSoC work with your mentor.

• Discuss and plan your time-table for your summer.

• Plan weekly calls/meetings, to submit your weekly report, with your mentor.

  1. My Project

I am selected for project to develop an app to which can compare prices of procedures of nearby of hospitals form user’s location.I will use Flutter to make app which will work on both Android & IOS devices. I will use scrapy python Library to scrap CDM’s of hospitals & store it to github .App will use OpenStreetMap Overpass API to search nearby hospitals & will download CDM using Github API’s

More details about my project can be found here

https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/projects/?sp-search=Darshpreet#6196773883740160

Progress (May 4 to May 8)

I am very much Thankful to LibreHealth for selecting me. During these days of community bonding I have cleared some doubts about using API to get Nearby Hospitals,I will use Open Street Map for this. I will make a detailed plan (week by week) for coding period & will share with my mentors soon.

I have read documentation of Scrapy ( Open Source Web Scrapping Library in Python ) because I need to use it for scrapping hospitals CDM.
I will develop a great app by the end of this program which will be really helpful to humanity.

My Outreachy internship has officially ended. It’s a bittersweet ending to a great beginning.

What I Have Accomplished During My Internship

My internship tasks centered around bug-fixing and updating documentation for the LibreHealth EHR application.

I worked on troubleshooting existing and newly discovered bugs in the LibreHealth EHR software that existed in the front-end and back-end through the submission of GitHub Issue Reports and Pull Requests (PRs). I also rewrote and updated the Reports Wiki document and updated the included screenshots to properly display each component and guide users to perform certain functions. While doing so, I tested each component to make sure it was working properly, and reported and fixed any bugs that were discovered.

What I Learned

• When you’re fixing a bug: focus on finding the root cause, then create a solution to fix the root cause.

I learned this lesson the hard way, but keeping this in mind helped me solve bugs faster.

• Software and software documentation go hand-in-hand.

It’s important to remember that documentation needs to be updated when a correlating software feature is changed or added. Otherwise, the documentation can become outdated quickly.

• Remote work is all about communication.

I had to learn how to effectively ask for help and in a timely manner. When I was stuck, I reminded myself of the issue and retraced the steps I took to solve the issue. If I was still stuck, I would then ask for help by explaining the issue thoroughly and what I have done to solve the issue. This gave me the opportunity to learn from my mentors. Asking for help is just another opportunity to learn from other great developers!

• “Underpromise, overdeliver.”

This was advice I read in an article that included tips on how to become a successful software engineer that has stuck with me. During my internship, I was always so excited and eager to start new projects, especially ones where I could learn a lot. What I didn’t account for was time. I would sometimes promise results in an intended amount of time that turned out to be underestimated. I’ve learned that being able to effectively determine how long a “project” will take to complete comes with more developer experience.

What’s Next

Contributing to FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) started as a way to prove to myself that I was meant to be a developer. Now, I contribute to FOSS, because I am more confident in my skills and enjoy contributing to FOSS. More specifically, I’m proud to be a part of the LibreHealth community as if is doing amazing work in the Health IT field!

I could not have made it here without the immense support I received from my mentors. Toni Shortsleeve, Elizabeth Ngai, Mua Rachmann, Harley Tuck, Virginia Balseiro, and Robby O’Conner, thank you all for your guidance and encouragement throughout my internship. Your words have helped me believe in myself when I was questioning my skills and further cemented that I’m meant to pursue this career path. I’m so excited to work alongside you as we mentor the next interns.

I started as a volunteer for LibreHealth around this time last year, and now, one year later, I’ve successfully completed my Outreachy internship and will be a mentor for the upcoming LibreHealth Outreachy interns. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

My current career goal is to find a full-time position as a full-stack developer. I equally enjoy both front-end and back-end development and have experience in both.

Before my Outreachy internship, I interned at a small start-up as a developer intern and graduated from college with Bachelors in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, through which I’ve learned the basics of computer science and OOP (Object Oriented Programming) and gained teamwork and communication skills through technical group projects. Since then, I’ve taken various online classes regarding different topics of programming and contributed to open-source.

Currently, I’m interning through the Outreachy program, in which I’m working remotely with LibreHealth to improve one of their open-source software projects LibreHealth EHR. My work has taught me how to create and maintain good documentation and effectively troubleshoot software issues by finding the root cause and then coding up an efficient solution. I have also gained more experience with the tech stack being used: HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Knockout.js, PHP, MySQL, and Apache. It’s been a great learning experience!

Once my internship is over, I will begin job-hunting. I’ll be looking for remote or in-person jobs in Virginia. While job-hunting, I’ll be spending my time improving upon and learning new developer skills by continuing to contribute to LibreHealth and working on a side-project with one of my close (developer) friends.

I can’t wait to take this next step within my tech career. Wish me luck! Yallah, bye!

I attended FOSDEM this year for the first time ever. In fact, it was my first conference ever, so it was very exciting. Brussels is a lovely city and relatively close to where I live, so I decided to take the opportunity to go.

FOSDEM is one of the biggest Open Source conferences in Europe. It is usually held during the first weekend of February at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. 

The conference is free and no registration is required, which is great, but it also means it gets really crowded. If you’re a person who suffers from anxiety particularly among crowds like me, this can be intimidating, but there are ways to still have a great experience.

The talks are held in different rooms simultaneously, so you can choose between the Keynotes, Main Tracks, Developer Rooms and Lightning talks. The majority of the talks are held in the Developer Rooms, and there are a lot: JavaScript, Internet of Things, Go, Python, Community, and many, many more. 

I enjoyed all the talks I had the chance to attend, but my favorites were in the Community Devroom. Here are some links to the videos in case you are interested:

Building Ethical Software Under Capitalism

The Ethics of Open Source

Cognitive biases, blind spots and inclusion

All the talks are available here: https://video.fosdem.org/2020/ 

There are a lot of food trucks with different food options, and I was able to easily find vegan options. Of course, these spots are usually crowded so if you don’t like crowds, plan to get your meals during less busy moments. 

If you’re thinking of attending next year, here are some tips:

• Plan ahead which talks you want to see. This will help you plan your day. 
• When the rooms are full, the doors close, so you might want to be there 15 minutes before the talk begins.
• If you’re anxious in crowds or closed spaces, like myself, make sure to stay close to a friend or someone you know 
• If you’re not feeling well or you feel unsafe, talk to the volunteers, they will help you.

Overall it was an amazing conference, but it also made me realize how truly unbalanced representation is in tech. Although there were some non cis-male people of course, particularly in the JavaScript and Community Devrooms, in general the crowd was overwhelmingly male. 

While this is not news to anybody, to actually see it in real life with a live sample of people was an eye opener, and a little unsettling. This is why Outreachy exists.

Outreachy is a paid internship program for people typically underrepresented in tech to work in open source and free software. I got involved with open source as part of my internship with Outreachy, and because Outreachy provides a travel stipend to interns to travel to conferences and events, I was able to attend. So if it wasn’t for Outreachy, I wouldn’t have been in FOSDEM in the first place. I would have probably never even heard of it.

I am definitely planning to go again next year, so if you’re going too, feel free to reach out – maybe we can meet there!

It’s hard to believe that I’ve reached the halfway point of my Outreachy internship with LibreHealth. I’m not ready for this experience to end.

Since my internship doesn’t consist of a specific project, I started my internship with these two project goals outlined: 1) fix issues within the LibreHealth EHR software and 2) create new and update existing documentation that are affected by such bug fixes to keep documentation clear and up-to-date as possible.

I was able to jump right in on my first day, since I was already familiar with LibreHealth’s workflow. My first assigned task was to solve a series of existing issues – bug fixing. I wasn’t given a deadline by my mentors, so I gave myself one: one month. I was able to meet this deadline. (Yay!)

My second, and current, assignment is to revise and update the Reports Wiki documentation, which is a series of smaller documents. The Reports section in the LibreHealth EHR software allows users to generate reports to help improve their daily tasks within a clinical office. Since the Reports Wiki was written, the Reports section within the software has changed, but the documentation hasn’t been updated. That means if current users of LibreHealth EHR go to the Reports Wiki, they will be viewing an out-of-date and incomplete document. This may lead to confusion, which we don’t want!

Once again, I wasn’t given a specific deadline, so I gave myself one: three weeks. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to meet this deadline. I spent the first week a bit unsure about the requirements until I asked for clarification to put myself at ease. Thank you, Harley Tuck! I have also found that it is going to take me longer to finish due to its large size. Now, I will continue to revise and update the Reports Wiki document, while testing out the forms within the Report modules to report any bugs. My goal is to finish it within a few more weeks – by early or mid-February – in the hopes that I will be able to work on another assignment before my internship is over in early March. Only time will tell!

Until next time. Yallah, bye!

Hi readers! As some of you may know, I am currently interning with LibreHealth through the Outreachy program. When I first started contributing to the LibreHealth EHR project, I didn’t know much about LibreHealth, but have learned much more since then. Hopefully, this blog post will give you a better insight into LibreHealth and motivate you to contribute!

What is LibreHealth

LibreHealth is an online community that is creating free and open-source Health IT software that is targeted towards providing fast and easy solutions for the healthcare needs of developing countries all around the world. More specifically, LibreHealth is an umbrella organization that currently oversees three main open-source projects: LibreHealth EHR (Electronic Health Records), LibreHealth Toolkit (API and data model software for building Health IT apps), and LibreHealth Radiology (customized LibreHealth Toolkit software for Imaging and Radiology practices). The LibreHealth EHR project is also being used in academia settings to expose and help train future clinical students with EHR software. However, what makes LibreHealth stand apart from other similar organizations is their main focus in creating an open and collaborative community between the users and developers.

What am I doing exactly with LibreHealth?

I started as a volunteer with LibreHealth and spent my time writing new and improving old documentation of the LibreHealth EHR software, while reporting any bugs I discovered. Because I wanted to spend more time working on this project, I then became an intern with LibreHealth last December. My internship work consists of improving LibreHealth EHR’s current code and documentation. Currently, I am doing bug fixing!

How to Get Involved with LibreHealth

There is more than one way to get involved with LibreHealth as a developer. Whether it’s through Outreachy or as a volunteer, you can contribute to the code and/or documentation of one of LibreHealth’s open-source projects. You can start by first joining LibreHealth’s online chat and forums, then introducing yourself and how you’re interested in contributing. From there, one of the volunteers or mentors can guide you.

There’s so much more to learn about LibreHealth, and I’ve listed some resources below if you’re interested in learning more. As always, until next time. Yallah, bye!

Resources:

LibreHealth Website

LibreHealth Forums

LibreHealth Wiki Docs

“An Interview by Andy Oram with Open Source Health IT Project: LibreHealth” Video

Let me paint a picture for you.

In 2018, after a year of little time spent programming and constantly debating whether I was “good enough” to work in tech, I wrote down a New Year’s goal: to find and contribute to an open-source project. I figured this would help me, once and for all, determine if I was meant to pursue a career in tech.

Once the new year rolled around, I started researching anything and everything related to “open-source.” This led me to discovering Outreachy.

Outreachy, Take I

The Outreachy program is an organization that is committed to increasing diversity in tech by providing mentored, remote internships with partnering free and open-source projects. Unfortunately, I had discovered Outreachy too late in their application process. During this application period, there was no separation between the initial application and contribution rounds, as there is now. So I submitted my initial app and tried to make some contributions all in the last two weeks of the application period. Although my initial application was accepted, I had no time to make any substantial contributions. Trust me, I tried!

I then decided to go with my initial plan and became a volunteer with the project I had chosen to apply to, LibreHealth.

Volunteering

LibreHealth is an organization that is creating free and open-source Health IT software. I initially chose LibreHealth because it aligned with two of my interests: health and tech. It was also being developed in web languages that I was familiar with. However, their welcoming community became my deciding factor. The mentors were encouraging towards applicants and genuinely wanted to help. I spent the next few months working on LibreHealth EHR’s documentation and reporting bugs. (To read more about my experience, check out my last blog post about it.) I had the best time volunteering and would 10/10 recommend for others to do the same!

Outreachy, Take II

I wasn’t planning on applying to Outreachy again, but I quickly found myself looking for more time in the day, outside of studying and responsibilities, to volunteer with LibreHealth. This time around I was prepared. I had signed up for email notifications for reminders and news about the Outreachy program. I read past blog posts from previous Outreachy interns. I started early in each round. I did everything I didn’t do the last time I applied.

My initial application was once again accepted. Then began the contribution period. I had already known what project I was applying to, which saved me some time during the application period. I consistently made contributions. For LibreHealth, it was in the form of creating documentation that adhered to LibreHealth’s established documentation guidelines, reporting bugs, and submitting PRs.

Although I came in knowledgeable this round, I still encountered many moments of doubt. This round, LibreHealth was only choosing one intern. There were many other qualified people also applying for a chance to work with them. However, I think my volunteering experience really helped me gain confidence in myself and my skills. I just kept going and refused to let fear and doubt stop me.

A month after the application period closed, I found out that I got accepted!

Advice for Future Outreachy Applicants

I’d like to think that I have some substantial advice for future Outreachy applicants. (After all, I did apply twice!) So here it is:

• Research, research, research.

It’s better to come prepared for most things in life, including Outreachy. The good news is that Outreachy has numerous resources to help prepare future applicants. Check out Outreachy’s Applicant Guide, Outreachy’s Blog, Outreachy’s Twitter, and past interns’ blog posts. You can even reach out to Outreachy organizers and past interns with any questions.

• Start early.

Outreachy outlines their application deadlines on their website. Be aware of these and use them to your advantage! You can also sign up for their email notifications.

Once the contribution period starts and you’ve chosen your project(s), start engaging with the community and mentors. Make contributions. Technically, you only have to make one contribution to be eligible to apply for a project. However, the more contributions, the better.

• Believe in yourself! Let go of the fear and negative thoughts of not being good enough.

This is something that I have struggled with and still struggle with sometimes. However, I always remind myself that these feelings of inadequacy have no positive purpose in my life and can actually hinder me from amazing opportunities and experiences. The power of believing in yourself is real.

• Don’t give up.

If you give up, you may miss out on life-changing opportunities. If you ever feel like giving up during the application period, just remind yourself why you’re applying in the first place and what you’ll gain if you’re accepted.

• Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Asking questions can help you learn and grow. If you have any questions about contribution guidelines or anything programming-related and cannot come up with an answer on your own, ask! The project mentors are there for a reason. They want to help you. You can also reach out to other interns.

Whether you decide to apply for Outreachy or not, contribute to open-source! I cannot stress how much confidence and excitement for software and programming I have gained by contributing to the LibreHealth EHR project this past year.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need some encouragement!

Until next time. Yallah, bye!