Librecorps: an organization that connects student free/open source software developers with humanitarian NGOs


Librecorps is a program based at the Rochester Institute for Technology's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) initiative that works with UNICEF to connect students with NGOs for paid co-op placements where they build and maintain FOSS tools used by nonprofits.


The organization and its participants have created a library of CC-licensed code and training documents, available on Github and RIT's Center for Media, Arts, Interaction & Creativity, which hosts the FOSS initiative.

It's exciting to see projects that expressly connect the ethical basis for FOSS with other projects based on humanitarian values.


The roadmap template is a resource that gets hands-on and personal to a specific open source project. There are five tracks within the roadmaps with different tasks to gradually ramp up the areas of focus for community management.

The first track includes milestones like writing a mission statement, choosing a free software license, and establishing a code of conduct, and provides a set of open source tools or frameworks for users to learn more about. The second track includes gradually more advanced milestones like documenting how to set up a development environment, learning the pull request workflow, choosing a project hosting platform, and more. Further tracks include milestones like implementing continuous integration (CI,) organizing community events, and gathering user testimonials.


LibreCorps mentors humanitarian startups on how to run the open source way [Justin W. Flory/Opensource.com]


(Thanks, Stephen Jacobs!)