Name
Waylon Brunette (@W_Brunette)
Organization
University of Washington CSE
What contributions (e.g., issue triage, tech support, documentation, bug fixes) have you made to the ODK or ODK-X community?
I am one of the founders of Open Data Kit and I have been contributing to the project for more than a decade (10+ years). During this time, I have been involved at all levels of the project and have helped design, build, deploy, and provide support for both the ODK Tool Suite and ODK-X Tool Suite. I have contributed code, tech support, vision, issue triage, documentation, bug fixes, code reviews, reports, etc. The last couple of years my focus has been on 1) developing the ODK-X Tool Suite and 2) transitioning the ownership of the Open Data Kit project from the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering to a self-governed open-source project. I also currently serve on Open Data Kit’s Project Management Committee and have worked on tasks ranging from organizing two Open Data Kit Convenings to helping to draft the Mission and Values statement.
How do you believe your contributions have benefited ODK or ODK-X?
I believe my early contributions helped establish the Open Data Kit project as a domain-independent platform for mobile data collection with an ecosystem of compatible tools that follow open standards. My personal commitment, along with many others, helped keep the ODK project viable and working for the last 10+ years. This commitment from core developers and leaders has allowed the ODK and ODK-X project to blossom. These commitments helped influenced organizations to adopt ODK and ODK-X by providing stability and enabling organizations to trust that the ODK and ODK-X projects would be supported and continue to grow for many years to come.
What do you believe the top priorities for ODK-X are?
- Expand the overall number of contributors to ODK-x to balance the workload better.
- Expand the number of part-time contributors with different skill sets to increase the diversity of contributions to ODK-X.
- Simplify the configuration and setup processes for the ODK-X Tool Suite.
How will you help the ODK-X community accomplish those priorities?
I believe the TSC can help improve contributions by lowering the barriers to people making contributions with following improvements: 1) improving the documentation and demos to help people get started more quickly with ODK-X; 2) communicating a future vision; 3) building a road map and schedule enabling people to better plan their ability to contribute to a common vision; and 4) participate in fundraising for ODK-X project resources. Additionally, by prioritizing a development goal to simplify the configuration and setup for the ODK-X Tool Suite, I believe we can lower the barriers for contributors to get started. I also plan to help recruit contributors by continuing to engage with organizations to find ways for their employees to participate on a part-time basis.
How many hours a week can you commit to participating on the TSC?
Between 3 to 12 hours depending on the week.
What other mobile data collection projects, social good projects, or open source projects are you involved with?
Open Data Kit (including both ODK and ODK-X) has been a my primary open source focus for the last 10+ years. My commitment to the project has led to the majority of my time being spent on the Open Data Kit project.
Please share any links to public resources (e.g., resume, blog, Github) that help support your application.
https://github.com/wbrunette