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Contribution Ideas

To help you get started, here's a list of contributions you can make and events you can run to engage your club members. These have been divided into the following tracks: Technical, Creative & Media, Advocacy, Community & Organization and Governance & Legal.

If you have other ideas, feel free to book a call to discuss with the foundation team.

The Technical Track

  1. Core Code (PRs): Fixing bugs or adding features to FOSS projects. Start: Find "Good First Issues" on GitHub.
  2. Infrastructure/DevOps: Hosting an instance of an open source tool such as Nextcloud or Matrix for your club/college.
  3. Security Auditing: Finding vulnerabilities in open-source libraries. Start: Run Bandit or Snyk on a repo.
  4. Accessibility (a11y) Testing: Testing software for screen-reader compatibility. Start: Use the "Lighthouse" tool on open web apps.
  5. Quality Assurance (QA): Manually testing new releases and filing bug reports. Start: Install a beta version of a FOSS app and try to break it.
  6. Open Hardware: Designing PCB layouts or 3D printable cases for open sensors. Start: Use KiCad and check out Jigita.
  7. Open Science Advocacy: Encouraging researchers to use R or GNU Octave instead of proprietary tools like SPSS or MATLAB.
  8. The Migration Pilot: Selecting one small department or club in your college (e.g., the Sports Club) and migrating their workflow to Nextcloud or Etherpad.
  9. Campus "Tech Consultant": Helping the college admin move from paid software to FOSS (e.g., MS Office to LibreOffice, Google Classroom to Moodle). Start: A feasibility report for one department.
  10. Data Science (Open Datasets): Scrubbing and publishing a public dataset (e.g., local air quality or traffic). Start: Use Python to clean a CSV and upload to Kaggle/GitHub.
  11. Dataset Labeling: Organizing a "Label-a-thon" to help open-source AI models (like those on Hugging Face) understand local contexts.
  12. Hardware Documentation: Writing "Assembly Guides" for open-source lab equipment (like open-source microscopes or air sensors).
  13. Linux Installation Party: A hands-on event where you help community members install Linux on their laptops.

The Creative & Media Track

  1. FOSS Photography: Taking high-quality photos of events and uploading them to FOSS United Forum/Wikimedia/Ente.io with a creative commons attribution. Start: A "Photo Walk" at the next meetup.
  2. Illustration/UI Design: Designing icons or SVG assets for FOSS projects and banners for college fests using Penpot/Inkscape. Start: Design a banner for the next FOSS meetup.
  3. Video Tutorials: Creating "How to install Linux" or "Git basics" videos for YouTube. Start: Record a 2-minute screen-cap of a FOSS tool.
  4. Localization (L10n): Translating software UI into local languages (Hindi, Tamil, etc.). Start: Join a project on **Weblate.* *
  5. Technical Documentation: Rewriting confusing "ReadMe" files to be beginner-friendly. Start: Fork a repo and fix the installation guide.
  6. FOSS in Videos: Use Blender for video editing and animations for college fests.
  7. FOSS Newsletter Management: Curating a bi-weekly "State of FOSS" email for the campus using an open-source tool like Listmonk.
  8. Font Design (Typography): Contributing to open-source font projects or creating a custom open-source font for the college. *Start: Use FontForge. *
  9. Open Music Composition: Composing and releasing royalty-free background scores for FOSS United videos. *Start: Use LMMS or Ardour. *
  10. UI/UX Research: Conducting "User Interviews" for clunky FOSS tools and creating "Persona Documents" to help developers improve them.
  11. Digital Archiving: Digitizing old college magazines, historical documents or other academic material and uploading them to the Internet Archive.

The Advocacy Track

  1. Intro to Digital Commons: Share the idea of Digital Commons with your community and make them think beyond code.
  2. Techfest Integration: Pitching a "FOSS Only" shift or a track at the next edition of the college hackathon. Start: A meeting with the organisers.
  3. Wikipedia Editing: Improving articles or making a wiki page for your campus.
  4. OpenStreetMap Mapping: Mapping the college campus in detail on OSM. Start: Use the iD Editor to add campus buildings.
  5. FOSS Training for Faculty: Organizing "Digital Literacy" sessions specifically for teachers to show them how to use FOSS in the classroom.
  6. Podcast/Interviewing: Recording conversations with local FOSS contributors. Start: An "Audacity" session with a club mentor.
  7. Social Media Advocacy: Running a "FOSS Fact of the Day" thread on social media. Start: A 7-day thread on FOSS history.
  8. Mentorship/Teaching: Running a 4-week "Linux for Beginners" course for juniors. Start: Create a 4-slide curriculum.
  9. Alumni Registry: Creating an open registry for alumni of the college. Start: A simple CSV or Git-based repository for community members.

The Community & Organization Track

  1. Event Management: Running the logistics for an in-person meetup. Start: Organize a "FOSS Tea-time" session.
  2. Community Moderation: Keeping the club's Discord/Matrix/Forum civil and helpful. Start: Draft a Code of Conduct.
  3. Sponsorship Outreach: Reaching out to local tech companies to sponsor your next open source initiative (swag, snacks, stickers or monetary). Start: Draft a cold-email template for the club.
  4. Open Ledger Bookkeeping: Using GnuCash or Frappe Books to manage and publicly display the FOSS Club's finances.
  5. Video Streaming: Use Jitsi or other open source tools for video conferencing. Start: Run your team meetings on Jitsi.
  1. FOSS Policy Auditing: Reviewing University IT policies to advocate for "Open Standards" in file submissions (e.g., requesting .odt instead of .docx).
  2. Privacy Advocacy: Conducting workshops on "De-Googling" and using FOSS alternatives like DuckDuckGo.
  3. Digital Sovereignty Research: Writing papers on why local institutions should host their own data using FOSS instead of relying on proprietary clouds.
  4. Public Policy Whitepapers: Researching how the government can adopt FOSS for digital sovereignty. Start: Write a blog on "FOSS in Indian Governance."
  5. License Compliance: Auditing a project to ensure it uses the correct GPL/MIT/Apache licenses. Start: Use "FOSSology" on a local project.

Have other ideas to suggest? Send us a PR here.