Meraka Code Sprint

The Meraka Institute Code-sprints programme is a capacity and applications expansion programme.

A major challenge that the programme meets is the narrowing the gap between theory and practice for graduates:   although a substantial number of computer scientists and engineers annually pass through the South African tertiary educational system, there is a perception that many of these young graduates are not “work” ready upon graduation. This perception is substantiated by the many intern programmess at companies and research organizations.

If students gain practical and relevant experience and develop appropriate skills during the course of their degree studies, more young graduates will be “work” ready and immediately contribute to the economy.

Existing initiatives with the aim to deliver innovative applications that contribute to society are dependent on skilled software developers. The small number of available developers who can contribute to these applications limit the potential impact as the application development time for adding new features is lengthy.

After being awarded grant funding from SAFIPA, the Meraka Code Sprint was established with the aim of improving the work readiness for students. The methodology is that of a skills transferral programme coupled with real world experience.

What is a code sprint?

A code-sprint is a mechanism where a small team is gathered to “aggressively” contribute to a software project with well defined components, for a short and focussed time frame.  The team works under the full-time guidance of a senior and experienced technical leader who is familiar with the project or technology.

Utilising the code-sprint approach, an inexperienced team can add additional functionality to a project that increases the value and impact of the project.  Alternatively, a sub-project can be created and advanced to appropriate feature richness within a short time frame.  Through this process, the emerging developers are improving their skills and gaining appropriate experience, thus reducing the gap between student and professional contribution.

The vision of the Meraka code-sprints is to use students to expand the functionality of projects in initiatives which have proven to be beneficial to South African citizens.

Sprinting the code

The first code sprint took place in 2009. There were a total of five sprinters under the guidance of a technical code-sprint leader per sprint, so a total of six people present in one sprint. The sprint took place over 20 working days.

To take part in the sprint, students are recruited from all over South Africa who are then brought to the CSIR for the duration of the sprint. The sprint itself is executed with all the students working on problems as defined by the code-sprint leader. The students in a sprint all work together in a large office space in order to encourage and enable close interaction between the students themselves and their code-sprint leader.

The code-sprint leaders are requested to provide a set of outcomes that they wish to achieve during the sprint which is used at conclusion to determine the success of the sprint. Typically the outcomes expected are:

• The students learn and acquire new knowledge, and also build up networks; and
• The project that they worked on is enhanced through the features that they have added, thus bringing that project much closer to the point of making impact in a community.

The aim of creating real benefit

The projects used as code-sprint targets are selected based on their potential to create impact in the community.  Thus when the sprint is completed, the target project can be used in a community. A good example is from the sprint held in 2009 for Afrimesh. The sprinters contributed to a network management system for network operators in rural areas, developing countries and disaster zones. This technology, combined with other components, has created an opportunity to benefit various communities.

Next scheduled code sprint

The code sprints are now running into their second year. The initial code sprints were held in June and July 2009 and the next round is scheduled for January 2011.

For more information contact either Louis Coetzee on +27128413036 , or vial email at louis.coetzee@csir.co.za, or Dhiren Seetharam on +278414605, or via email at DSeetharam@csir.co.za.