Community Spotlight: James John
In this spotlight, let’s look at James’s journey in Oppia as a GSoC student and what he learned from his experiences.
James is a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Uyo, Nigeria. He is a tech enthusiast with a passion for frontend web development. He also loves singing and playing video games.
James found Oppia on the organization list for GSOC, 2019 and the cutting-edge technologies being used here attracted him. He is now part of the Oppia Foundation GSOC team. He is working with the speed improvement team, where the task is to improve the page load time and other performance metrics, and static rendering of the Oppia webpages. He says, “I discovered Oppia’s mission of providing quality education to those who lack access to it. I have been an educator for a large part of my life and Oppia’s mission aligns with my personal mission of delivering knowledge to people.”
While the cause is daunting, the technology that makes it all possible is by no means, less so. James tells us, “Oppia is the first big open-source organization that I’ve contributed to and sometimes it is scary.” But the Oppia mission of making education available to all without any boundaries rings true for its volunteers as well. James soon found that the team helped him out at every step of the way and eased him into the seemingly new territory. “..the community has been welcoming, so all my problems finally end up getting solved.”
“Oppia has challenged me to think better about writing good, clean and accessible code. Writing end to end tests in Oppia had been the most challenging part of my contribution to Oppia. It’s the first time of me doing such and there’s a lot to learn. So contributing to Oppia has been more of a learning process for me.”
James advises all future Oppia volunteers to take a step towards learning and personal growth. His story is one of personal achievement while contributing to a larger cause that spoke to him. He says, “Oppia community is very welcoming and you’ll get to learn a lot in the process. Even if you’re a beginner, you’ll still find some things to do and improve your knowledge.”
Join the Oppia community today!
Oppia’s lessons and platform are built by volunteers from around the world. Join the team to improve access to education around the globe. You can learn more about our learning platform, Oppia, by visiting https://www.oppia.org/or get a flavor of the Oppia lessons by visiting our lesson library herehttps://www.oppia.org/library. Those interested in volunteering can reach out to us at https://oppiafoundation.org/volunteer.
