Frank Matranga, 2019

Version 10.2 by FrankMatranga on 2019/03/03 02:29

[I'm currently still writing this, I apologize if it is incomplete!]


Who am I?

I'm Frank Matranga, a native New Yorker, student, volunteer, and self-taught open source developer & proponent. Currently an undergraduate Freshman studying Information Technology and Web Science & Computer Science at Renssealer Polytechnic Institute, I desire to serve the OSI Board as a fierce advocate for student awareness and involvement in open source for the benefit of local communities. Although I am running alongside candidates who have actively served the open source community longer than I've been able to type, I have dedicated much of my life working on open source projects that benefit local communities and school communities.

Service Work

Over the past 5 years I have volunteered to develop open source technologies for multiple non-profit organizations ranging in size and scale from my local food pantry (which I serve as a board member of) to national organizations such as Kids Tales and WeShelter to multiple homeless shelters in Manhattan, where I attended high school.

While my student responsibilities have restrained me from participating in larger open source communities simply due to lack of available time, I have nevertheless managed to bring and advocate for open source work to every educational institution I've passed through.

frank_laptop.png

Projects

Open source has allowed me to single-handedly and freely (in every sense of the word) develop solutions to problems I have faced in my career as a student. I'm currently managing a team of 15 students ranging from Freshmen to Seniors to develop my project LATE, an open-source, progressive web app in RCOS, the RPI club dedicated to open source work (which is affiliated with the OSI and hence nominated me). [More info coming soon!]

Why me?

As students of all ages are often limited in time and money, open source totally removes those limits by providing free and easy access to extremely powerful technologies to use and learn from. I myself, limited by the lack of CS education prior to university, was able to learn thanks to services like GitHub and BitBucket where I was able to find and study the vast array of open source projects developed by the community.

My experience at my university has revealed that despite the growing interest in Computer Science as a whole, not enough students are aware of the tenets of open source, what it means for them, how pervasive it is in the software they daily use, and how it can directly aid them. Since the OSI was formed "to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community," I would tirelessly work to improve awareness of the capabilities of open source in the younger generation everywhere. I would use my position to reach out to other universities to found their own organizations focused on open source development for students, in the same vein as RPI's RCOS. Since the students of today are the next wave of open source developers, it is vital that educational institutions recognize the value in preparing their students for the open source world.

Questions?

I can be reached at my RPI email(matraf@rpi.edu) or my work email (frank@matranga.family). Or leave a comment below!

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Created by Patrick Masson on 2019/03/01 15:49
    

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