Speaker
Description
AI tools can generate code, boilerplate, tests, documentation, and pull requests faster than ever. But open source projects do not need more low-quality AI-generated PRs. They need contributors who can understand real problems, read existing code, make good technical decisions, test their work, and deliver solutions that reduce maintainer workload instead of increasing it.
This talk introduces active FOSSASIA software and hardware projects where students and young developers can contribute to real products, including Eventyay, Visdom, Scrum Helper, LED badges, ePaper badges, Flutter apps, Voxbento, and Loungemesh. These projects offer opportunities to work on event platforms, visualization tools, developer workflows, open hardware, mobile apps, multilingual event technology, and spatial video collaboration.
The session focuses on how contributors can use AI meaningfully as part of a serious development workflow. FOSSASIA projects support this through documentation, contribution guidelines, issue workflows, progress updates, and AI-oriented project context such as AGENTS.md. The goal is not to outsource thinking to AI, but to use AI with enough project understanding to deliver focused, tested, and useful contributions.
FOSSASIA is looking for students and young developers who want to start their career by proving their ability through real open source work. Contributors who show technical judgment, independence, reliability, and useful project contributions can build pathways into internships, Google Summer of Code, freelance work, and paid development roles.
Key takeaways:
- How to identify and solve real problems in open source projects
- How to use AI responsibly without creating maintainer overhead
- How project context such as AGENTS.md can improve AI-assisted development
- What maintainers look for in useful contributors
- How open source contributions can become a pathway into professional software development
Session author's bio
Mario Behling is an open source innovator passionate about fostering collaboration and connecting communities through technology. In 2009, he founded FOSSASIA with Hong Phuc Dang. Under his leadership, the organization has launched over 200 open source projects, built a community of 7,000+ developers on GitHub, and pioneered solutions like Eventyay, Visdom, the Pocket Science Lab IoT platform, and Badge Magic.
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| Level of Difficulty | Beginner |
| Social Media | mariobehling |
| In Person Attendance | Remote |
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