At Techfugees, we believe in creativity and sharing ideas. As such, the open-source model is our favored model for software development when building tech for refugees.
Open source projects are adequate with our philosophy of empowering vulnerable, displaced populations: open source code is of universal access, decentralized and co-created by nature.
It encourages collaboration and so peer-to-peer learning within the community.
Ex 1: **Talent Beyond Boundaries** is the only organization in the world connecting refugees to international job opportunities, opening labor mobility as a complementary solution to traditional refugee resettlement. In February 2021, they made their "Talent Catalogue software" opensource. The CEO John Cameron explains why:
" By open sourcing the Talent Catalog software we are making the source code freely available to others to use and improve as a common resource. We hope to leverage the well known advantages of open source software by encouraging others to contribute, improving the quality of the software and expanding its functionality for the benefit of all. The transparency that comes from access to “source code” can serve to build trust in the software, rather than needing to have faith in a proprietary “black box”. Also, broadening the number of participants contributing to the development of the software can make the software more “agile” and responsive to the needs of the sector."
"The existing software has benefited from around 5 years of real life practical experience of “doing” displaced talent job matching and mobility. It was completely rewritten from scratch in 2019 and a new version was delivered at the beginning of 2020. This rewrite was partly prompted by the aspiration to eventually move it to open source, but it also served to move the basic functionality to a more modern, secure and flexible architecture (see the details below). Throughout 2020, taking advantage of the new architecture, the speed, reliability and functionality of the software has accelerated rapidly."
Ex2: Techfugees Data Hub @[email protected]
👎🏼 Opensource can be very time costly. Bringing on developers and trainings them on the codebase, managing the community of developers might be beyond time and resources. Even though some organization see the value of OpenSource, not all of them can put it in practice.