# Voices of Tech & Open Source Movement Across Asia | Devcon SEA

- Channel: [Devcon](https://streameth.org/devcon)
- Date: 2025-10-07
- Duration: 55:15
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-TsI7-ejb_Ig
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsI7-ejb_Ig

## Description

This panel discussion features individuals from the open source communities, developer and user groups across Asia. These figures span different decades and have witnessed various phases of the tech movement, including the rise of open source, in their respective countries. Some have been pioneers since the early days, while others have emerged as key players through recent college engagements and grassroots initiatives.

Speaker(s): Hong Phuc Dang, Mario Behling, Brianna Chang, Mishari Muqbil
Skill level: Beginner
Track: Cypherpunk & Privacy
Keywords: FOSS, regional, insights

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Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers. 
Devcon SEA was held in Bangkok, Thailand on Nov 12 - Nov 15, 2024.
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## Transcript

of tech and open source movement across Asia I am personally very interested on this because I'm personally um trying to build an open source Community back in the Philippines and so I'm very very excited to listen to our very distinguished guests and before we begin I highly recommend for you guys to open your Devcon passport and go to today's session and go scroll down to the bottom you'll see a Q&A button there so you guys can start asking questions along the way so later we will have a a dedicated time for Q&A and would love to have your questions answered by our distinguished guest now please welcome uh join me in welcoming Brianna Chang Hong fukang Mario Belling misher mukil and yeah let's all give them a round of applause [Music] please okay so hello everyone thanks for this um very friendly uh lovely introduction and welcome here um to Thailand and um Bangkok um it's really uh fantastic to be here so the session now is um voices of tech and open source movement across Asia um here and uh yeah we have three panelists and um I'm your moderator for the day my name is Mario um and um it's amazing to see so many folks here um I have to say um who are interested in decentralization and open source something that I've been passionate about for yeah more than 20 years and um a little bit about me I co-founded Force Asia together with Hong fuk who's also here on the panel today in 2009 and my journey uh to decentralized Tech began already in the '90s when I was still at school helping to build a distributed mesh networks in Berlin and that sparked a huge passion for me for decentralization it led me into experimenting with decentralized search engine alternative journalism decentralized uh social media platforms and taking me on a pretty wild ride um setting up then later MH networks in Afghanistan um organizing um jard Fest in India and uh doing projects in all parts of the world and um of course here a lot in Asia so um with that said uh let's dive here into Devcon and into our uh panelist introduce the panelists so today's panel is all about sharing voices of tech and in the open source movement here in Asia and we have an incredible lineup so let me start by um yeah introducing um mishari first yeah um and because he's the local want to also like give a bit of exposure with the local usually the ladies first but um of course there a conflict here we have the local um M Shari here with from Thailand and um you have been an incredible 30-year journey in open source um you help organizations to adapt efficient and sustainable practices through datadriven approaches and uh you have built several Tech communities here in the country um and around the world and we are thrilled to hear more from you in a moment um because you've also um been involved in the web 3 community and then I introduce Brianna here thank you and welcome um it's all about building ecosystems in Ai and web 3 with you so um Brianna is the chief of staff and um part of the founding team at virtuals protocols over the years she's worn a lot of heads product manager data consultant and she was also the director of ladies who code in Malaysia that's where you from originally and um really excited to hear more about you in this panel as well and last last but not least Hong fukang the founder of force Asia has been a major force and advocate for free and open source software and um hosting events like the for Asia Summit um leading diverse teams um you're also involved in um an AI interpretation platform for wikim media and um yeah on the other side also help to support scaling of open Hardware projects in the for Asia community so um that's not the only thing you also served on the board of major organizations like the open source initiative in the US the open source business Alliance in Germany and the Ia open so let's get into the discussion and I have my first question for you so um the topic today is the open source movement and um yeah what is the current state then in the open source movement um maybe we can begin by that Briana you're right next to me here um what do you um describe how would you describe the current state of the open source movement here in the region so um I think two front right one is I I personally also interview a couple of people who is doing open source community in the globally right now um I can see that in Malaysia is of the open source Community is growing for the in the taxite a lot of people are like contributing to open source project I think mainly is to get more exposure into projects that they never really had in Malaysia and then second is it helps them to build the portfolio for their own personal growth and also the CV and resume that The credibility that can build on that and then um from building Community perspective so we runs a women who code back in 2014 all the way until last year before it got dismissed globally and then we turn it into ladies who C we can see that a lot of people are anticipating more activities from the NOS which is non-profitable organizations and then there are also a lot of companies approaching us for those open source communities which I think is it's a good thing right uh what do you think yeah okay um yes I think that uh well I got started in open source in in Thailand right uh 30 years ago and at the time my access to the internet was a 9,600 BPS modem right um so it was a uh uh very very different world uh uh back then but we could see this uh even from that point um this uh natural conflict between uh between open source which is um and the uh the traditional enterprise software world right and at the time the uh the big guy was Microsoft and um it boiled into the uh the Halloween papers and uh and all that drama and a few years ago it was surprising to find Microsoft as a major sponsor of FAL Asia right wearing t-shirts that say I love open source I thought I was at the wrong conference uh but but I I say that it's a it's a it's a natural conflict it's a creative conflict right as uh opposing forces are at work to try to figure out what is the best way forward for uh for our society for uh for software and so I think that as users right as uh users of software open source has one it um it pro uh it provides the uh the fundamental building blocks of much of the technology that we use today and rely upon in Thailand right so I think that there is that is no longer an issue however there is a difference between Thailand and much of the Western countries where um piracy has always been Rife and uh licensing is uh is more of a suggestion than a uh uh than a than a than an obligation and so people basically say uh see free software as free as in beer oh more free stuff but without actually having to go to the uh Plaza and spending a few hundred bus to buy a pirated CD right um but then there is very little Consciousness as to the next level of the opportunities that free and open- Source software provides and that is through the involvement in the process of contribution and building up the community which can build up technical Excellence um that can solve other problems that we have in the country but I think that we are starting these conversations now and hopefully when Force Asia comes to uh um to Bangkok next year we will be able to have uh this conversation with a higher intensity and on a wider scale yes interesting um Hong fuk um and from your perspective um what do you see how does the um open source community and movement uh differ here in Asia compared to other parts of the world you have been also to the US to Europe um what's your experience yes so um first of all I think this is a very exciting time for open source and I totally agree with Missi that open source is a winner so it's not just something people in the west has been talking about I think one uh unique aspect that uh differ uh from um like differentiate the um open source movement here compared to the West is um the driver of the of the movement and you see here um in the region um big uh tech companies like in India like in China tenen uh BYU or hway they contributed a huge amount of um solution to the open source space and also is like driving um the shft in the industry uh similar to Country like like India also again uh the open source is driven by very big companies like INF fored or or or wind bro so um it it differ a little bit because in the west the the open source started as a Rass Group movement right a few years ago as Miss might mentioned we also have like independent contributors who got excited about open source but in order to really push the um acceleration of the the entire ecosystem I think um corporates plays a very important role in the the the the scene of of Asia today and it continue to be this way so it's it's F so they have like sufficient funding they allow the employee to contribute and also they draw an example for for people in the community to see that there are opportunities not only to do something as a hobby for fun but something that can suain a business can sustain your life and this is um um the difference that I see here so um this the community and corporate side of the world but um um all of you have been mention have been already um in open source for quite some time um now we see more and more new people also here at the web3 event um Devcon so how do you engage new people um in open source or people who are also like don't even know about open source yet um how do you do that Brianna I think in my community we host a lot of events and we also have like distribution channels that going out to tell people that projects are open source companies they are actively engaging with those open source Community but I think like in person events or even online workshops we run a lot of like Tech workshops to teach them Hand by hand on how do you contribute to open source project how do you learn the skills through those those projects I think those are like the ways that we we did to to engage the new people in the in the space at the moment but I think I think there's another point that like both of you bring out also is they are really curious on how to sustain that life with just participating with open source projects and I think that's something that I'm really excited to see how things change cuz I I think I interview quite a couple of people in the space and they are saying that they had fun maintaining the open source project and they think that they learn a lot from that but it's just that the monetary perspective to sustain their own life which just open sourcing uh which just contributing with open source project is really tough cuz there there AR a lot of like companies that's donating to it or like people that willingly putting in chipping in the donations for the people that are maintaining it so I think like for open source projects the current challenge that I see is really how to find people that's dedicated to maintain the projects or even in running in the community like even our own Community projects is very hard for us to maintain as well cuz we don't pay them so they do it voluntarily and when when things has to get prized our projects get de prized you know what I mean so I think that part of things is really something that I'm trying to figure out on how to do it yeah so um then maybe a question is also um what can we learn from existing open source project um projects that um you know run for a long time um they are sustainable like they have proven to be th sustainable and yeah I think like mishari as you have been so long in the community maybe um you have some ideas maybe also the um web 3 Community what can they learn from 30 years of experience um in open source what kinds of projects are sustainable or how to make projects sustainable um that's a uh that's a very good question but before I go there I actually have a very uh good story about uh about new people contributing to open source so many years ago I worked at a startup and uh we were doing a directory of businesses right and now I don't know if you noticed but then TI the thae language does not have spaces between words so when you are trying to get computers to understand the Thai language it's very hard because it it's very hard because it does not know where one word ends and the and another one began so uh it's a business directory and I did a search for spa you know a massage place and it came up with spaghetti house because the both had Spa in it and I thought that this is a this is a problem and I was searching for libraries and tools that can uh that can help me solve this problem none existed in Thailand uh there was one by a research um Institute but it was available uh under license and so I looked at the other countries in the region and apparently they for them it's um it's it's a national um it's a national level issue so they will have plenty of code out in the open uh to solve this problem and you know uh the tooling was all there there were many Papers written etc etc but very little existed in Thailand and so I I had a uh I was L lucky during that time that uh I was at an event where the minister uh the ICT Minister was there and I went up to him and explained to him look this is a problem can you uh can you please do something about it um that went nowhere and well my my project collapsed right um but then after a while I heard that there's a someone had started writing uh pie Tai NLP uh natural language processing toolkit and I thought wow this is very interesting and a lot of the data science folks in Thailand were very interested in this right um so they um um so I uh went around to figure out uh who the initiator of this project is and it uh and at the time I believe he was a ninth grade student by the name of of Wong that's his uh that's his GitHub ID and so the fate of the entire Thai uh language related ecosystem uh rested on the shoulders of a um of of a ninth grader right um and and so the the the entire country has him to thanks uh to uh to thank for and I asked him uh I why why did you initiate this right he said oh well because I didn't want the thae language to disappear from the internet just because the computers didn't understand it you know so uh I think it's back to this uh issue of uh scratching and itch right he had an itch I didn't um and so did I but I didn't have the skills to do it he had the skills the motivation and he decided to uh sit down and do something about it and I think that that's one of the beauties of open source for people who understand it um they can solve their problems for themselves but they can also solve it for a billion people right and I think that that is uh one motivation for people to come in to uh uh to join the open source and then the other one is uh is community so we have a lot of people who are not really Tech related but uh but enjoy the uh the social aspect uh the community aspect enjoy the the intellectual challenge of being with other like-minded people solving uh similar problems um so when I was very young um I was involved in the distributed cryptographic Community back in 97 we solved the RSA Challenge and uh you know I wasn't um my knowledge about cryptography wasn't that high but I enjoyed the community I enjoyed being part of a challenge I enjoy being a a coordinator and uh helping to make this problem a uh uh sorry uh to solve this challenge to make this a success and um so those are two examples but people are complicated right um I mean the probably economics economists will not be able to understand why people will uh will join projects like this without renumeration but uh also at the same time um economists don't really understand why we tip either so I think that there is a lot of uh um studies uh that probably needs to be done here about uh what motivates people why would people uh contribute to uh um uh to open source and probably we should be building um on that which leads me to sustainability right uh in terms of uh uh open source um I think that the um one of the biggest uh drivers of of sustainability well there two parts to it as far as I can see right one um is an anchor so a group of people who have been there are dedicated um and who are able to sustain this uh one way or or the other either as a as a hobby or through their companies their organizations through government grants um the economics factor is a strong incentive to continue working on um on on on open source but also the other um factor that makes an open source project sustainable I believe is the ability to handle churn people coming and leaving because people who are don't get paid for open source they are driven purely by um uh interest interest uh through a sense of uh intellectual curiosity you know uh they want the challenge but they cannot sustain it for uh you know often you can't sustain it very for for very long so you come and maybe you you hang out for a few years and then you find other challenges uh that you would like to uh work on and that's okay but to have a system where people can come and leave and then if they enter Then There is a pathway for them to reach uh um higher levels of trust um and respect in the community I think uh also helps a lot and this is in addition to all the other factors that would make an open- Source uh project sustainable yes um what about the question of um welcoming new people because if some people um like they can't sustain their involvement their engagement over time um is uh welcoming new people also a factor how how big is that factor and um yeah new people and sustainability what what do you think H folk yeah so uh welcoming new people definitely important and M mentioned right the turn overrate yeah so people come people go all the time so how do we make sure that there continued flow of new contributors into uh our projects I think uh it should start with uh education yeah so we um the soon now we introduce open source to the younger destination the better chance we have of future contributors so um therefore we are very happy that Force Asia also plays a grow into this uh Journey um for many years engaging with um uh people and network of user group and also different University in in the region we continuously um connecting with uh education institution even like on the high school Secondary School level so we offer like online program where PE programs where people can participate um solving very small task you don't even you know you don't need to develop a huge um system like a website application in order to participate so we try to break out um like issue into smaller smaller Tas so that we can engage uh uh people with um like lower beginning uh level and uh one point that was mentioned earlier so open source is not only about writing code there there are so many different different ways um that uh contributors can participate uh writing a Bo report or making a desire for um for uh for logo or engaged by talking about open source to other student or to the uh communities around you so of course it's you know there's different way people can do but in order to get a how how to make it faster yeah so everyone can do something and um the um Community can roll step by step but I think the biggest chance that we have is how we can uh collaborate with education institution around the world as as well as in Asia so we have so many schools so many University here how can we talk to people on the ministry level that um encourage them to bring open source into education so open source is not only about talking about the the idea the definition but about also the technology what people should learn in school that make them relevant for for the market these days so this is something uh we at for Asia together with um uh like um people in the community um in Thailand in in Malaysia we we are all driving forward so try to make open source as part of the curricular as part of the um education learning journey of um student from a very young age yeah so Partnerships are important um Partnerships with government with companies schools um um now I'm a new uh contributor I want to start my own uh open source group in the University or in school or just like with France and um I want to establish Partnerships or I want to join organizations so um I don't know how how to do that yeah and uh um you have experience with um um the ladies who code um and you had a lot of Partnerships I know it's like a huge organization and could you give us some advice yeah so for new contributors or for new people in open source how to establish Partnerships how important are Partnerships and please tell us more about that I think partnership is is very important because as a when we when you start off as a small community right usually it was driven by you say interest or like a similar topics that people are highly interested so so that forms like a community that have great minds inside there and then they start doing things right there's like a focus group there's like a weekly hacking hours that people will just start doing it then then there has to be like a group of dedicated people to go out and start growing this community by growing this community is it starts from actually believe like words of mouth are the most effective way of growing this community so when you grow this community there has to be some way that you can massively grow first right which it involves events it involve opening up putting up your products or even putting up your open source project somewhere that's more visible by the crowd and all and being endorsed by bigger group of communities is so important so that's why Partnerships comes in right whereby if you can get endorsement or like you can get like some of partners that can agree with the topics that you talk about or like endorse the projects that you are working you recruit more talents into this community you recruit people that really want to know to join this community and with different Minds you get to grow these projects in a different way right so usually in um within the Malaysia when you want to start a community or you have started a community we sort of know that there's this new projects coming out and then we will offer help so it goes by like people that already very experienced in the space and then they will know that who you should be talking to and we will start helping each other out in that sense and we will also do co- collaborations between different communities so that you can reach out to other group of people and that people will be able to introduce you to different Partnerships and stuff like that um sometimes we also offer some services that other corporates or even Enterprises are looking forward to for example maybe we can have some of your people to be speaking in our community so that it it Taps into their their objective as well right because it's like a two-way thing whereby we want their funding or we want their endorsement but at the same time they need something from us as well as a community so we give them like this free advertisement slot for them to do it but we try to also filter out companies that don't that does hard selling cuz Community does don't like it right so we try to balance this out in two sense and I think if you're new to communities if new to like starting off a new project um one thing really need to learn to me personally is really how you socialize your project out and how do you pick the right partner to get on board into the projects yeah okay so Partnerships but I also hear about mentorships here what you're doing so um mishari huk um how um um do you provide mentorships how do young people um new bees um find mentors um how do they is there like a step-by-step guide uh for Partnerships and mentors or how do I do that I'm young I want to um be involved in open source and web 3 so how do you do it well um I think that uh in East Asia one of the biggest challenges that we face um is getting youngsters to start asking questions right um because it is uh for those who are not from around here it's seen as being deeply embarrassing uh to uh to uh to ask a question because it is a sign that you may be stupid right and but then that is usually where it starts right um either through the um uh through the process of asking for help right in fact this is um how I used to screen people um at my last company um so anyone who walked through the door we will give them a chance right but we will have a challenge given to them when the trick of the challenge the way to solve the problem is that you have to ask question of the team and they will give you that secret that will unlock the challenge and you will solve it in no time at all but then if you do not ask questions you will keep banging your head against the wall and you will never be able to of it and sure enough we got some amazing people uh through just this process alone where we filtered for people who are willing to ask questions now through the mentorship um as well I think that this is the biggest challenge for us there are people there there's in the forums uh mailing list other channels right and they are willing to um to answer questions right and help provide guidance but uh getting people to in uh to come in and have the the um and taking the brave step to admit that they need help and to ask for it and to accept mentorship um I I think that that is challenging that being said um East Asian Society being a deeply hierarchal um is also conducive to me to a to a mentorship relationship right so once that uh that relationship has been formed and there is a trust established it tends to uh stay and and and last uh a long time there are good points and there are bad points about this uh but uh that's just how it is yeah so um mentorship program uh just to mention that uh their program like Google Su code where for Asia also part of as a mentor organization so we uh do offer um uh student and Developers opportunity to work on real open source projects and uh get connected with um the uh network of mentors from for Asia community so this is one example there also a lot of um many uh haon events and on programs going on around the world so I believe that there also a f fellowship at the eum foundation um where uh they uh they offer this kind of uh guidance and and mentorship to uh new contributors so if you uh do care about open source that's of course there plenty of opportunities it's just a matter of if we're willing to uh to spend time and and dive into the the different um uh sector so um there's not lack of programs out there for us to participate so for for us like start the journey right away start to do something as well as when you mention um how can you get partnership how you can get um support for your community or program at first you need to do something and be consistent yeah so be consistent be persistent do something and continue doing sharing what you are doing with the community and eventually people will recognize your effort um so so my advice would be started to do things right away look up on your five your interesting um something that is stry thing for you for example people are here because I I I believe they care about ethereum look up on the ethereum website looking up for uh different bradam that they offer so beside theum there also many open source project that um uh based on ethereum or use the infrastructure so look look out for for those and check out uh every project they all have a community uh communication channels either on Disco either on GTO or or telegram yeah so that's a huge amount of um resources and on GitHub so the nice thing about um now like working on the open source space so all the contribution all the code are publicly documented yeah many projects they very good like beginner guidance for Asia also have something called the developer best practices on our website so where it show you step by step how can you participate contribute um to an open source uh project from um beginner uh level until uh like more advanced so keep uh like uh look out for those and participate in in the community from today okay so um but I'm also hearing that there are a lot of career opportunities because Google some of code um and um ethereum so um what are some ways you've seen open source um help individuals um and teams advance in their career um or if I'm new to open source um what are my prospects um how could it help my career actually so I think a lot of people they went open source passion is one of it second is is really to build their their CV right I think it's it's it's really inevitable that people comes and go so some of the people that I found out that they they went for open source projects are mainly to build their their career so as it it's kind of like an indirect way of building it but if as a hiring manager if I see that you participate in a lot of Open Source projects like the number of PR that you made um significant impact that you did to a open source project it would be a bonus for me to consider you as a role because one is for for the fact that you actually went all the way out to look for open source project to contribute that that's like a big thing for me personally cuz a lot of people they they just say that they're interested in the field but they never really do anything but for you to be able to contribute in open source projects that's when you actually spend your time and your effort to maintain the project and and keep your curiosity in it right so that's number one second is you really will learn a lot when you are contributing because comments will comes from different Minds review what comes from different experiences as well and to to also support the open source project voluntarily is also something that that is um encouraging for me so I think a indirect way of of advancing a career open source but contribute contributing in open source project is is one of the big step that you can consider and it's it's quite unknown unfortunately in the space that I know that people didn't know that oh you know open source contributing is open source projects is having so much impact into my CV and portfolio and I think we should we should let more people to know about that yeahh but M mine is more indirect way so I'm not really sure like securing a a full-time role ince project would that be sustainable or not yeah well um I personally uh I think that all the all the work that I've gotten um from a very young age I mean I got my first job when I was 13 right and the reason that I got my job is because of my o my uh my participation in open source projects because they could see that uh um I was uh I had a I had a technical capability at the time so they H me right and so I think that uh um the open source um projects uh and my contribution to it uh builds up transparency into uh What uh what what I'm capable of doing so it's uh so when people hire me to work on a project it's not theoretical right um there is strong proof that um that I know what I I'm doing and also there are other people out there um who verify it um as well through the uh forums etc etc so there is a a strong social uh verification process in open source but also a self- selection right um but then I I have such uh High uh a lot of trust in this process such a high level of trust in this process that I don't send my kids to school right we we homeschool and that's because I think that uh they can follow through the same process no matter what their passions are in the future right so for example right now they are to ants and insects right but I don't see why in in a few years they can't start contributing to forums uh Wikipedia pages on enology right and for that from that point on perhaps uh build up relationships with universities research institutes other organizations that are um into ants right and build up a career based on that so I think that uh it provides um this uh this opportunity where you said uh the ability to build up skills the ability to interact with other people who are way smarter than you I mean look at the amount of smart people in this conference right and the ability to uh to interact and and and talk to them I think that there's a um a lot of opportunities in this model of career building where you build up portfolios demonstrate your skills write blogs build pro um build various products have creative outputs and based on that people people will hire you so um we don't have so much time left and um I would like to ask you what would you give to um what advice would you give to aspiring open source contributors or Community leaders in Asia if there were one piece of advice you wish you'd known at the start of your journey in open source what would it be so I would say start with um a very small step and continue yeah start things small and stick to it until until the end that's it um yeah that would something I would say to um to the new contributor you don't need to make um something big contribute on a very small level and from there you learn and uh connect with more people and continue your journey stack more that what I would say St more okay Brianna what would be your one piece of advice actually I resonate with uh Hong son a lot because at one point when I wanted to start an open source project I don't really know how to contribute and then I remember there was one person that told me that we just just open up create a pool request as soon as possible so that you can keep the momentum it can be as simple as just edit the r me like the read D me and then just create the PR and then that's where you keep the momentums on because the moment you see it merge the satisfactions will just keep you looking for more things right and then and then the open source projects they are also very welcoming some of it they actually labor for beginner friendly task um a a small small not not really small but they labor it as like a beginner friendly or like that's when you can start as a as a first one right so like my advice is really create your first PR as soon as possible and and then second is um look for the right look for a mentor that you can look up to in a in a in a project so that people like why you say people don't really ask questions and they they feel intimidated to ask questions in a bigger Forum group so having someone that you can trust by asking questions is very important so I think look for a mentor in the space that you can always go to them when you need advice or or even learn something that that's is really crucial for me um for me um in this part of the world I would um um the first thing I would uh recommend to people is to try to make learning fun right uh to uh to have uh try to disconnect uh you know the uh that awful experience of have of of learn of what people call learning that happens in traditional institutions with learning just because you are interested in something right and once you and understand that that is a valid part of learning and and and upscaling it's no less than uh than learning anywhere else and once you have fun learning share what you learn right so I really believe that these are the uh the the uh the the two components that I will uh tell everyone yeah go out there learn something learn about something cool related to the project and come and share no matter what it is right and um I think that that's a very good place to start okay thank you very much and uh yeah now we uh transition to the final part of the panel we have a few minutes left for questions so are there any questions here from the audience um there's a QR code here on the left hand side and um you can submit your questions um through this QR code do we have any questions here from the audience please don't feel intimidated by us you just say ask questions yes yes I think people have to use the QR code yes they have to use the QR code yes so we we okay yes so um there are two questions here um so I can see this if you were to discourage people from discourage people people from joining open source communities what would it be open source is not for you if you're not consistent so uh yeah I don't I'm not sure about this question it is a very good question it is a very good question it's a very good question yeah please go ahead um I um I think okay so in the past uh open source the open source Community had a uh well still to an extent does have a problem with people uh being very harsh on other people I actually liked it right because uh uh probably the way because of the way my brain is wired as well but but I think that uh it meant that doing something or producing an output of a low qu quality meant that you are going to suffer emotionally for it right so there's this strong um incentive to do your best work and check it again before you submit it because if you don't do it well people are going to be harsh on you right however times have changed right um it it becomes uh uh uh we want to have the The Wider community and okay um it might not be as I don't know efficient right but uh but but I think it creates a much nicer Community um overall toxic so I think that um if uh if today I was going to argue that um if you that uh open source is not not so much the uh uh the the important part of open sour is not the technical Excellence aspect which I would have argued was the case uh uh 20 years ago right I would I would say that these days the uh the main um strength of Open Source is the social aspect so um I know that there are many people who uh who are technically excellent but are not socialable right I think that it's um you know it it becomes a balance so as you whereas before you would have to come uh and you owned the space by being uh technically excellent while other people had to come in and they have to learn how to be technical I think now it becomes the the opposite problem where you come in is an open source space to learn how to be sociable right and uh and and the technical part can I think uh uh follow as a secondary consideration it's all about the people you also if um many years of experience in open source and um you know people in the US and and Europe and I think like um many years ago open source had very strong following in in Europe um before the following in Asia also in GRE so is that maybe something that um um by including more people here in the region is it something that was positive for the open source movement and uh maybe the open source movement was less harsh uh um after welcoming more people here from the region I don't know so I think the question was so uh open source is not for you if you uh do not care about the world we are living in today I think open source Mich also mentioned it's not only about the software it's about working together to solve a problem we cannot solve the world problem by being alone so we need to connect we need to work with people so I would say open source is for everyone who want to survive in this world in this Society so we need to work together we need to Ross the Border we need to see together how to share idea and how to fix the problems that the world facing today yeah um shall we uh go to the next question yeah please feel free so uh I think the next one um uh is it how to start the open source Community uh what is your first step this we already mentioned already right uh just create a group and start from there yeah so start with the people from similar interest and then there is another one Mario you want to um what's the first step uh I think there's another one how to better Bridge the ethereum community and the broader open source Community well this is the Bri Place yeah so yeah I would say so defon is huge here in so many people here so many uh people representative from different region and uh um this is a great opportunity for people from Asia who can come here and learn about what exactly is ethereum yeah um how can people participate how can people join the community and uh I think that uh it's really nice that there are several talks um at the conference related to open source technology and theerum Foundation also soai to um to host the open source Hub in the community Hub where they where we got to bring in different open source players and Community leaders to come and share about their Journey so this is excellent and uh I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for also hosting this panel uh giving us um the people from The Open Source uh Community have a chance to connect with the ethereum or people in the audience who interested in in the topic so this is a great opportunity for us to connect um I think I I want toot on this front also so when we were building community and the open source projects I notice that a lot of people are highly interested in um blockchain not just ethereum even though Sor um specific topics right so we see a lot of projects that has been open source as well that welcome the people to come and participate and all I think that's like a good move to to encourage more communities to join right second is is really to tap into those communities and make sure they know about these projects which making yourself more available or like welcoming it is also a second part of it um having discords having like those channels that most of the community lives in it's uh key key key steps for to breach to breach the Comm the two Community spell in a sense yeah okay thank you and we have more questions coming in so one question still we have the time how can open source communities help developers build non-technical skills especially for new Developers for example public speaking pitching and and so on uh mishari what do you think well um I think that uh well I I started on that Journey right uh about about 10 years ago as I said I I realized that open source is all about the people not about the technicalities and I think that uh really uh forced me to um to uh to be more more socialable um and um I think that just comes out of uh out of actually um you know being being humble you talk to people and being open to feedback about uh about uh you know things like uh were you were you harsh were you abrasive and uh and then I think that you sort of build up uh in uh from there because uh if you're part of a community you want to build a stronger community and that doesn't really work in the in the wider sense if you are not being uh uh a people person right yeah so so I think it's just the important thing is to just be uh very conscious about uh conscientious about what you're doing I think open source communities often have a lot of workshops and they were they were they were at least at least in my community we also encourage a lot of new people to start their first talk or their first sessions on like creating like hosting a technical workshops starting from like just a facilitator soow you go into a moderators and then being a speakers on the stage that's how I that's how I grew from being on the stage right now being a speaker at the panel right so that actually is one of the parts that you can learn about non-technical skills second is like what mha say writing your first review on the pr is also very very hard sometimes I don't really know how to write a good review on the pr before you merch it giving feedback is also something that very um that requires skills right how do you actually write a good review or a feedback to a person that he will be willing to listen or even picks up right so I think I think those are the skills that you can learn smaller things within the community but a pro tip for me I now use chat GPT extensively to uh to reveiew the level of empathy in of my writing yeah I I think level of empathy makes sense but some people they literally just write a review and then they copy and paste it which I think that too you you can use it different way a bit Yeah I think but if you want to uh use it in order to increase uh your uh um your your social ability then chat GPT is a fantastic I use it for Grandma check a lot yeah okay so um I hope we in future we don't only have chat GPT but also more open source models we hope so and um open source projects in this area but uh we don't have time to discuss that today um there's so much more to discuss um so I would like to say thank you um all of us uh some great question thank you very much yeah thank you for you for joining thank you the panelists been truly inspiring appreciate a lot I hope um you all went away or go away with um new ideas um with um new Inspirations maybe to start um your own open source project or to participate in one of these many projects here at the event so I would like you to give a big round of applause for all the panelists and everyone here thank