Who can participate

We are looking for great coders no matter the status, age, gender or background. However, in order to be one of the grand prize winners you need to be able to travel to the FOSSASIA OpenTechSummit to Singapore from March 23-25, 2018.

What are the prizes?

Everyone who gets five pull requests merged during the contest period will receive a digital certificate of participation from the FOSSASIA organization. Developers with 10 merged PRs or more will receive a Tshirt or other cool items from FOSSASIA (if postal distribution is feasible).
Out of the top ten contributors in the contest three grand prize winners will be chosen by the jury. The grand prize winners will receive 600 SGD in travel support (please provide blog post and receipt, reimbursement at the event) and a free speaker's ticket to the FOSSASIA Summit in Singapore from March 23-25. Plus, they will have the chance to present their work at the event. Other finalists will receive a 100 SGD travel voucher for a conference of their choice (please provide blog post) and a free ticket for the FOSSASIA summit, if they can attend.

How are the Winners chosen?

When deciding on the Winners, the jury will review the work of the 10 developers with the highest number of contributions gained during the contest. Apart from the code commits we expect a monthly blog post, community outreach, screencasts and other contrbibutions.
Basically we are looking for good developers who are team players. That is why the sheer number of tasks is not the only main criteria for choosing the grand prize winners. Same as in GSoC we are looking for quality work. In the end from the 10 highest scoring developers, the jury will name 3 finalists as grand prize winners that will receive the travel stipend to attend the FOSSASIA OpenTechSummit. Because some tasks are more challenging than others just by the nature of the type of task (for example, heavy coding versus solving a text typo bug), it is entirely possible that someone who completed 15 issues could be chosen as a Grand Prize Winner over someone who completed 35 issues, if they are both among the top 10 contributors, they are eligible to be among the Winners.

How to contribute code in the contest?

* At first developers sign up on a Google form here to participate.
* Then FOSSASIA admins will add them to the FOSSASIA Code Heat team on GitHub within a week (usually earlier).
* Each developer then searches for issues that interests him/her and claims ownership of a particular issue. The developer works on the issue and if there are questions asks on the chat channel of the project. The main channel for decision making is however always the GitHub issue itself.
* Once finished, the developers make a pull request from his/her own forked repository to the development branch of the project and submit their work for review.
* Pull requests need to pass Travis builds, code CI tests and ensure migrations work.
* Mentors and core-developers from the organization evaluate the work submitted. If the work is accepted, the developer earns 1 point for each accepted pull request and 1 point if they close an issue. So you could earn two points if you close an issue with a pull requests. [Please Note: Sometimes developers try to “beat the system” by submitting lots of small improvements as pull requests. Please consider that the jury is mainly interested in the substantiality and quality of code contributions and the sheer number is not the main criteria.]
* After the pull request has been merged developers can claim another issue to work on if they wish.
* If the work needs polishing, the task remains open and the core-developer may give the submitter additional time and guidance on improving their work.
* If the work does not meet expectations, the task can be reopened for another developer contestant to claim and work on.
Please follow FOSSASIA Best Practices to achieve the desired outcome.

What other contributions are part of the contest?

Other contributions in the contest are blog posts, weekly scrum updates to the project mailing list, screencasts and organizing meetups. We would like to see the following contributions from participants in the contest:
* A weekly scrum to the mailing list by Monday 10AM your local time
* A weekly project update on your Twitter and Facebook and address it @fossasia @mariobehling @hpdang
* A monthly blog post by 15th of each month according to the blog post guidelines on a Google doc (Contributors with accepted blog posts will receive access to the FOSSASIA Blog)
* Help to maintain cloud deployments of projects with the existing teams
* Organization of two developer outreach events or meetups (a) one before November 1, 2017 and (b) the second one before February 2018 and share the info on Facebook and Twitter
* Support of high-school students in the Google Code-In program
* Create two screencasts or videos about the project you are working on for the FOSSASIA YouTube channel (a) before November 1, 2017 and (b) before February 2018 (You will receive access to the FOSSASIA Youtube)
* Make a project presentation with Google docs by January 31, 2018
* Create a Gist with a list of the work outcome by January 31, 2018

When does the contest begin? Can I join the contest at any time?

The contest begins at 9:00 AM (SGT/GMT+8) on September 10, 2017 and runs until 11:00 PM (SGT/GMT+8) on February 1, 2018. Participants should take the time to read through the contest website and familiarize themselves with the introductory information and Readme.md of the project before starting to work on an issue. Interested developers can join the contest at any time during the program.

How do developers register for the contest?

1. Developers should join the community and sign up for the following channels
* Signup for the FOSSASIA Newsletter
* Star and fork repositories you are interested in on GitHub
* Join the FOSSASIA Chat on Gitter
* Follow FOSSASIA on Twitter and the Codeheat Twitter account
* Like FOSSASIA on Facebook
* Join the FOSSASIA Group on Linkedin
* Follow the FOSSASIA Linkedin Page
* Subscribe to the FOSSASIA YouTube Channel
2. Once the contest is open developers will be able to sign up on a Google form here.
3. Developers will receive an invite to the FOSSASIA GitHub within a week (usually earlier). All developers should then make their participation public by showing their membership as “public” in their GitHub profile.

Why should developers participate in the contest? 

The idea of the contest is to introduce developers to the FOSSASIA projects and to provide an opportunity to build up their development profile, learn how to work according to Best Development Practices and ultimately become part of the development team. The contest also provides an entry point and preparation for future coding programs like the FOSSASIA Google Summer of Code.
Many young developers are not yet deeply familiar with Open Source and the contest is an easy way to get involved in this international community of developers, who want to help you learn and succeed. The contest is a gateway to learning new skills as well as learning to work in a collaborative software development team. At the end of the contest, developers can show their friends, teachers, co-developers and family members the work they did on public repositories and the project applications istelf - used by people around the world.

What programming languages do participants need to know?

There are various programming languages used in FOSSASIA projects ranging from web front-end to back-end technologies and Linux technologies. You could even code on hardware firmwares and design hardware as a project. Here are a few languages that are popular: Java, Kotlin, Javascript, HTML, Python, C++, Shell Scripts.

What do I need to do to be among the winners?

For us everyone is a winner, who contributes in whatever way in the community. However in contest setting there are some points you should fulfil to increase your chances to be a finalist. To be among them it is important to work according to the FOSSASIA Best Practices and to provide the following:
* Continuous substantial contributions, pull requests, and code reviews
* Participate in chats on the project channels
* Provide continuous updates in weekly scrums, monthly blog posts * Create two screencasts and a presentation * Provide a Gist with a list of the work outcome of your work by January 31, 2018

What is a scrum and where should I submit it?

A scrum is a simple update to inform others about what a developer is working on and if there are any impediments a developer encounters. In many company software projects developers provide a daily scrum in a live standup face to face. As Codeheat is not a full-time program and happening online, weekly scrum updates on the mailing list are more suitable. There are three questions that should be answered in a daily scrum mail:
1. What have you worked on yesterday?
2. What are you planning to work on today?
3. Are there any impediments that prevent you from achieving your goal?
Each answer should include a short sum up of the item and a link to the respective issue/pull request. Each pull request should have an issue that it is related to. Scrum mails should be send out every Monday morning before 10AM local time.

Which projects can I work on? Can I also contribute to other FOSSASIA projects as part of the contest?

You can work on any project in the FOSSASIA GitHub org and in the loklak GitHub organization. While there is sometimes overlap in different projects and components and participants in the contest are invited to contribute across projects, we especially look for contributors who focus on a specific project and in particular we are looking for backend developers.

How is the travel funding paid out and what happens if a grand prize winner is not able to get a visa? 

The travel funding is provided in cash at the FOSSASIA Summit itself. In the event a Grand Prize Winner is not able to join the FOSSASIA Summit because he/she cannot obtain a visa or for any other reason, the runner up selected by the jury will be chosen as the Grand Prize Winner and the original Grand Prize winner will receive the 100 SGD travel funding to attend a local event in his/her area (the original Grand Prize winner will retain the title as a winner).