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A seminal moment for Drupal - DrupalCon Asia

Photo by Michael Cannon

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Once the dust settles we will begin to realise DrupalCon Asia was indeed a seminal moment in the history of Drupal. In this short time, as I've managed the social media for the conference, I've watched the Asian Drupal Community come of age.

Huge respect has grown for the region has been born out of the event through high calibre presentations, floorless executing of the event, sheer energy, cultural diversity and harmony. I have no doubt this event was exactly the impetus the region deserved. There's a lot to celebrate.

One of the reasons for the heightened sense of importance everyone placed on the event undoubtedly stems from the fact for 840 of the 1025 attendees (82%) this was their first DrupalCon. It's been a long time coming, a huge anticipation surrounded the event. More than ever before this con mattered to everyone who passed through the doors.

for 840 of the 1025 attendees (82%) this was their first DrupalCon

So many have taken their first brave step onto the stage of the international speaker circuit, volunteered as sprint mentors, helped organisers with logistics, organised BoFs, met with their peers from across the region and the world.

Many overseas Drupalists recognised the gravity of this event DrupalCon Asia and they came in force. We saw a very strong international presence with attendees from 32 countries including USA (40), UK (15), Australia (10) and Japan (9). Dries Buytaert, Angie Byron, Alex Pott, Gábor Hojtsy, Josef Daernig, Dave Hall, Donna Benjamin to name just a few. Josue Valencia travelled the furthest from Guayaquil, Ecuador (16,499 km).

For years the significance of Drupal's Asian powerhouse has been gathering steam, this event provided the perfect showcase to the world. The event was a triumph for inclusivity and diversity not only that ladies represented 16.5% attendees but also that through Drupal people are able to transcended cultural, political and physical boundaries.

Drupal community celebrated

Record breaking sprint participation

What really impressed was that over 350 (34% attendees) came to the contribution sprints. This is the greatest proportion witnessed at any DrupalCon to date.

A whole lot of fun!

Between all the sessions, BoF's, hallway track, summits and trainings there was a huge amount of fun going on too. Sand drawings, kite flying, Octocat competitions, . What occurs to me is how do Europe and USA follow this up? The baton passes to New Orleans.

A touch of Bollywood hits DrupalCon

Best #Prenote ever?

Building bridges between communities

Kite flying outside on the green

The most selfies ever at one DrupalCon

and dries in a turban

Here's a non alcoholic drink to DrupalCon Asia! Where next?

Header photo by Michael Cannon

Further information: 
Map of DrupalCon Asia attendees by Josef Dabernig
DrupalCon Asia Flickr Group

Harmonising Integrations to Charity Fundraising Platforms

UK charities are amongst those who have realised the greatest the benefits of Open Source adoption. Sharing code and learnings charities like Oxfam, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Comic Relief, RNIB are prospering in the digital space through open source, achieving more with the same level of investment. Ultimately this means more fundraising money reaches worthy causes.

Good but could do better

Many of these charities depend on fundraising providers including Virgin Money Giving and Just Giving. Theses deliver fundraising campaigns and allow charities to engage effectively with supporters. Working with Great Ormond Street Hospital, speaking to my peers and Cancer Research's development team, it is evident there is a huge duplication of effort in relation to software integrating to these fundraising providers.

Build a module together?

With Drupal and Just Giving alone there are several modules, sandboxes and unreleased integrations I am aware of. In this situation the standard "Drupal way" is to come together and develop a common set of modules collaboratively. Whilst this would work, we can go further.

A better way forward

Thanks to Drupal Commerce I am aware of an approach which can benefit more than just Drupal. The degree of variation between standard addresses across hundreds of countries in vast. Commerce Guys, who develop Drupal Commerce, desired a better framework to handle addresses in their platform. They decided to abstract the task to a PHP Addressing Library. In making available a PHP library to the community Commerce Guys have opened the door to contributions from other PHP developers and Open Source projects. And that is exactly what happened. Dozens of contributors. The result is far better than they would have achieved alone. Not only this, it benefits more than Drupal. The library is available to any PHP based CMS.

Based on this success approach I have written a proposal which will achieve a framework making integrations to fundraising providers far easier across all PHP systems.

The attached PDF describes my proposed solution.

File: 
CTI DIGITAL - Harmonising Integrations to Charity Fundraising Platforms.pdf

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