Long in the past, after I was a tech administrator for Arlington Public Schools, I obtained an surprising e mail saying, “Our school in India loves your children’s stories, so we’ve printed them all out in braille.”
Apparently, the college had discovered my assortment of children’s stories on the net. I spent a second visualizing these college students so far-off, having fun with my tales on these printed pages of braille. The e mail’s sender won’t have realized how significant their e mail was to me, however it’s stayed with me for 20 years.
Tell collaborative tales with open supply
That expertise bought me fascinated about how know-how can weave new connections between individuals in several international locations. While browsing the net not too long ago, I encountered an Inkscape fanatic in Romania. His expertise with the software program was apparent.
You won’t consider Romania as a tech hub, however individuals have all types of tech expertise there. Talent exists in all places. Open supply, accessible to anybody who downloads it, can function a connector between cultures and international locations. This fanatic was having a superb time honing his expertise utilizing Inkscape, certainly one of at present’s premier illustration instruments—and it does not price something. He and I had one thing in widespread—one thing that might foster a friendship.
I then grew to become curious whether or not the Opensource.com web site will get common internet visits from Romania. A fast e mail to the employees confirmed that, sure, their web site logs present common visits from Romania. In truth, Opensource.com will get extra month-to-month internet visits from Romania than from Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand. Would you be shocked to be taught that Opensource.com receives a variety of internet site visitors from Indonesia? I discover that statistic pleasant as a result of it factors in direction of a smaller world—a extra inclusive, multicultural world.
My ideas about open supply as a world connector woke up once more final month after I discovered about an open supply, web-based movement graphics editor named Motionity. The software program was created by a software program developer in Great Britain and he or she describes it as “a mix of Canva and Adobe After Effects.”
This utility is immensely thrilling. I can envision my lighthearted, whimsical story, Ellen the Eagle Needs Glasses, drawn in Inkscape and delivered to life utilizing Motionity. To honor AlyssaX’s programming work, we should discover methods to make use of her software program that showcase what it will possibly do. If you are an illustrator or animator, get in contact with me—even higher, shock me along with your completed artistic undertaking created utilizing Inkscape and Motionity.
Explore Motionity for no matter makes use of you may need. Surprise AlyssaX along with your greatest artistic work. I would like AlyssaX to expertise the identical feeling I had after I obtained that one-sentence e mail from India.
(Our language doesn’t at the moment have a phrase for that sort of expertise, however possibly we must coin a phrase. If you coin such a phrase, please inform me.)
Forge international friendships
Fifteen years in the past, I attended a global convention on wi-fi group networks. At that convention, I participated in a session explaining the workings of Serbia Wireless, a nonprofit grassroots group wi-fi community. One of the younger presenters was from Serbia, and one other was from Bosnia. I shortly understood its significance after I heard what they had been doing with their homebrew wi-fi group community. These two younger individuals had been utilizing open supply {hardware} and open supply software program to blur the nationwide boundary strains between the 2 beforehand warring nations. I actually wished to leap up and cheer when their motivation grew to become obvious. After their session, I grabbed one of many presenters, Bogdan Tancic, for this six-minute video interview. Listen fastidiously to what he has to say.
Make connections
If you are on the lookout for one thing significant to do in your life, discover methods of connecting with individuals in several international locations. Help these people cherish their cross-national friendships. If these new connections are grown repeatedly, the world could be an immeasurably higher place. Open supply is an excellent software to make that occur.
What are your personal cross-national open supply tales? Share your tales proper right here on Opensource.com.