Episode 288: Uni students and OSS with Jeff Young & Daniel Shown

Guest Jeff Young | Daniel Shown Panelists Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer and Eriol Fox talk with Jeff Young from Georgia Tech and Daniel Shown from Saint Louis University (SLU) about how academic OSPOs are bringing students into open source in meaningful, sustainable ways. They discuss experiential learning, research software engineering, near-peer mentorship, student motivation, maintainer burnout, and how universities can help students build real-world skills while strengthening open source communities. Press download now! [00:01:46] Jeff describes Georgia Tech’s OSPO focus. [00:03:49] Daniel explains SLU’s experiential learning model. [00:05:29] Daniel and Jeff share how many students they’re working with in their programs. [00:06:13] Jeff talks about how students engage with open source and Daniel describes meeting students and the wide range of student experience levels. [00:09:33] They discuss what the students bring to the sustainability of open source software and the value of seeing open source as a community effort. [00:13:05] Richard asks how academic programs connect students with maintainers when many open source maintainers are already overwhelmed. Daniel explains how SLU uses internal tech leads as near-peer mentors and describes training student maintainers. [00:15:26] Daniel describes training student maintainers. [00:16:45] Jeff discusses Georgia Tech’s growing mentor model. [00:18:55] Eriol asks the guests what their “dream programs” would be if they had more resources. [00:23:44] Richard asks how to excite universities, funders, administrators, teachers, students, and other stakeholders about open source education. They discuss open source, AI, student excitement, grounded storytelling, and real impact. [00:28:24] Find out where you can learn more about Georgia Tech and SLU’s OSPOs programs online. Quotes [00:05:24] “I call the students developers. They’re not students, they’re actual developers.” [00:10:50] “Those students may not be the greatest developers, but they still have a great perspective and insight that helps grow and diversify some of these open source projects.” [00:13:20] “Our project is fun in that I don’t have to put pressure on upstream projects to find maintainers to support the contributions from students.” [00:13:57] “It helps create a sense of empathy for maintainers of bigger projects that are out there.” [00:26:39] “I had a student tell me at the end of last semester: 'More grounded, fewer aspirations.'" [00:27:18] “You wouldn’t have stoplights without OSS.” Spotlight [00:29:19] Eriol’s spotlight is ScienceUX.org. [00:29:53] Richard’s spotlight is Logeion, a project out of UChicago. [00:30:34] Jeff’s spotlight is the App, iNaturalist and iNat INQUIRE Project. [00:31:13] Daniel’s spotlight is Processing.org. Links SustainOSS [email protected] [email protected] SustainOSS Discourse SustainOSS Mastodon SustainOSS Bluesky SustainOSS LinkedIn Open Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute) Richard Littauer Socials Eriol Fox Website Jeffrey Young LinkedIn Jeffrey Young Website Daniel Shown LinkedIn Georgia Tech Open Source Program Office Georgia Tech OSPO Virtual Summer Internship Program (VSIP) GT Open Source Program Office LinkedIn Saint Louis University Open Source with SLU Open Source with SLU-Opening Skills & Solutions Open Source with SLU LinkedIn ScienceUX logeion iNaturalist iNat x INQUIRE Project- GT Center for Scientific Software Engineering iNatInq ML Pipeline-GitHub Processing Sustain Podcast-Episode 274: Qianqian Ye on p5.js SustainOSS – AI, FLOSS, and Sustainability Virtual Forum (11 June 2026) Sponsor CURIOSS Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound Special Guests: Daniel Shown and Jeff Young.