Dickson Ukang'a TSC Application - 2019-01-10

Community
1

Name
Dickson Ukang'a (@Ukang_a_Dickson)

Organization
Ona

What contributions (e.g., issue triage, tech support, documentation, bug fixes) have you made to the ODK community?

  • Been part of the ODK 1 TSC for a year
  • Been a pyxform maintainer for over 3 years - https://github.com/XLSForm/pyxform - and worked on features, bug fixes and releases.
  • Been part of a team that has implemented an alternative ODK aggregate server - https://github.com/onaio/onadata
  • that is used by a lot of users in the ODK community.
  • I cheer on Martijn of Enketo web forms, in very few instances supported Enketo development.

How do you believe your contributions have benefited ODK?
It has made easier for users of ODK to author really complex forms in a simple way using spreadsheet software. Encouraged more contributions from Ona on
tools like pyxform, Enketo, Open Map Kit and ODK Share.

Ona working with international organization who use ODK on their projects has had a positive impact especially in health and provision of services in hardship areas.

What do you believe the top priorities for ODK are?

  • More technical contribution to the development of ODK suite of tools
  • Adoption of tools like Enketo and pyxform under the ODK banner.

How will you help the ODK community accomplish those priorities?

  • participate in technical discussions by reviewing roadmap issues and discussions, documents
  • whenever possible, encourage my organization to provide resources to work on some of this issues
  • close more issues on pyxform, work on having pyxform adopted into ODK

How many hours a week can you commit to participating on the TSC?
2 - 3 hours a week

What other mobile data collection projects, social good projects, or open source projects are you involved with?

Please share any links to public resources (e.g., resume, blog, Github) that help support your application.

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@Ukang_a_Dickson, thanks for your continued work on pyxform! It's been a joy to see long-standing issues get fixed and updates shipped so regularly.

What have you found has been the most effective strategy to attract contributors (at Ona and elsewhere) to pyxform? And what do you think is the limiting factor in attracting more?

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:smiley:

Are there any big functionalities that you feel are missing from the ODK suite of tools? Or is mostly maintenance and minor improvements that you think are needed right now?

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What have you found has been the most effective strategy to attract contributors (at Ona and elsewhere) to pyxform?

  • It is easier to get contributions when the organisation/person implementing them sees value in functionalities they want and have a challenge or use case they want to address.
  • Seeking out those who are looking for opportunities to contribute to open source software and learn at the same time.

And what do you think is the limiting factor in attracting more?

  • Time. Less time spent in looking for more contributors.
  • Clearer roadmap/vision for the project. I hope I can spend more time on these aspects this year.
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Are there any big functionalities that you feel are missing from the ODK suite of tools? Or is mostly maintenance and minor improvements that you think are needed right now?

I would consider Case management. In field statistics on certain indicators without an internet connection - ODK Share is a good start in this direction. I think these two are the big ones for me, it would be desirable to be able to have a custom look for specific campaigns without forking and skinning ODK Collect.