In Developer Nation we have been supporting developers and organisations who help developers since 2019. The way we do this is through our donation program during our Global Developer Surveys. Every 6 months we donate $1,800-$2,000 to each organisation. So far, we’ve supported the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Black Girls Code, Techfugees, and Women in Big Data (South Africa).
For our 21st Developer Nation survey, we wanted to get developers more involved in the process. What changed this time?
Developers who participated in our latest survey wave got to choose the organisation they wished to support. Each developer taking the survey raised the donation amount by $0.10. There were 5 different organisations to choose from.
These were:
CoderDojo helps enhance and build technological skills in an informal, creative and social environment.
Electronic Frontier Foundation is battling for free speech, digital privacy and innovation. EFF is defending civil liberties in the digital world.
Free Code Camp is helping people to learn how to code for free. They offer a variety of videos, tutorials, articles and interactive lessons in order to enhance coding skills.
Mozilla Foundation works to ensure the internet remains a public resource that is open and accessible to everyone. Their goal is a more human-centered internet.
The Nature Conservancy, our most diverse donation program given our audience, protects through its projects millions of acres of land, rivers and marine ecosystems.
Based on the donation choices of the developers participating in our 21st Developer Nation Survey, we can proudly announce our donation to each program, as shown below. We are excited to know that we have such a diverse community that apart from empowering others to enter the developer ecosystem, are also mindful of our natural ecosystem:
Free Code Camp – $748
Mozilla Foundation – $516
The Nature Conservancy – $436
Electronic Frontier Foundation – $196
Coder Dojo – $116
Thanks to those who participated in our Developer Nation survey & helped make this happen!
Special thanks to prize winners and our affiliates – Michael Rabenandrasana and Sanchit Khurana- who have donated their prizes value and payments to the above charities.
We also received some great input and suggestions on other organisations we should support in the future, and invite you to share your ideas too, so we can keep supporting developers and make a difference. We will make sure to add them on our donation list in our upcoming surveys.
We’re super excited to announce the winners of our 21st Developer Nation prize draw. Thanks to over 20,000 of you who took the time to contribute to the developer ecosystem!
If you’re new to our prize draws: developers who take our surveys earn 100 points for every new survey completed, plus 10 points for providing their feedback about the survey. You can see the list of benefits and rewards here.
Winners of the General Prize Draw
Winners of the State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw
Winners of the Exclusive Community Premium Prizes (for members with 801+ points
Winners of the Exclusive Community Prize Draw – vouchers and surprise swag (for members with 801+ points)
Winners of the Exclusive Community Prize Draw – vouchers and branded swag (for members with 501+ points)
Winners of the Exclusive Community Prize Draw for branded surprise swag (for members with 301+ points)
Winners of the Extra Prize Draws
Winners of the Early Bird Prize Draws
Winners of our Partner Prize Draws
Partners – Baguette, ifanr and wwwhats-new.
Winners of the Referral Program
Over 5,900 developers have joined our Referral Program and 209 were especially competitive in promoting our survey to their communities. Thanks to everyone who took on the challenge! If you want to test your influencer abilities in our next survey, make sure you join our Referral Program. Without further ado, here are the top 50 winners:
We’ve reached out to all winners directly via email. If you recognise your email address but believe you haven’t been contacted yet, you can contact us here.
Wait, there’s more
The lists above only include prize-draw winners and not runner-ups. If the prize draw winners do not claim their prizes within 10 workings of us contacting them, then runner-ups will be invited to claim them instead.
If you’re not a winner, don’t despair, our next survey, our 22nd global developer survey will be live later this year. We’re already on the hunt for some amazing prizes, and open to your suggestions. What prizes would you like to win? Drop us an email or send us a Tweet.
To ensure that you are notified when our next survey is live, sign up. Don’t forget to make sure the survey notification option is ticked.
I had a chance to speak with Liam Arbuckle, the acting CTO of the game/web development studio/collective (100% open-source) called Signal Kinetics. Liam is based in Australia.
What is it that you’re working on?
Right now, we’re working on a citizen science game engine (sort of like Project Discovery in Eve Online, but integrating other games as well). We’re aiming to increase science discovery/contribution for everyone through gaming by allowing people/players to:
1. Contribute to real-world scientific problems/experiments
2. Help train ml/dl datasets/algorithms (sometimes through their actions in-game)
3. Engage with users, especially those in the scientific community (we’re working on a service called Arcadia which is basically a fork of Buddypress that will implement features similar to services like Steam & Facebook Games)
So you are targeting citizen scientists? Is there a particular age range you are targeting?
I believe information should be free, when I was younger, scientific journal access was expensive, also, there is a lack of engagement with the science community in Australia. I want to create something that can’t restrict a person from the science community due to their age, gender, spending ability etc.
What inspired you to create your Game Engine?
I attended Science hackathons, science and gaming, made mars rover, most recently I contributed to the Open Source Rover by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
What else are you working on?
We’re also working on our own game (with potential partnerships with Savy Soda, as an example, in the pipeline) and hoping to make our experience with Arcadia modular:
1. Users can contribute to scientific research through playing any game in the world by installing a custom add-on designed by the Arcadia developers for the game.
2. Users can have a “bank” (similar to the Pokemon Home system) that shows their games library, achievements and item list/screenshots in the Arcadia web app.
There’s no real large gaming community to play games online. I want to build a community, where gamers can share screenshots, there’s an overlay to watch people playing games, I want to make mini-games too, there’s no real limit. I used to game on a Samsung phone which had a play status, I could stream to Discord. I want to expand this idea to non-Samsung games, add a community with no limits – basically information freedom, with no blockage or limits.
3. Users can choose which games to play.
What are your immediate goals?
Get industry connections.
What type of connections are you looking for?
I’ve made contact with Melbourne-based game companies so I’m on track with that. I’m looking for grants, an investment to work on the blockchain element, get connected with a marketing team, get a few 1,000 players to start off with, and then connect with more on social media.
Right now I don’t have the money to finance, we’ve had people come online to help with the open-source. I’d ideally like to get some consistent engagement rather than have contributors that do the occasional work.
If it wasn’t for Covid-19 I would have moved out of Australia, there are huge problems with setting up in Australia, no grants, no infrastructure for tech companies.
I want to start contributing to established games and engines to gain experience, connections, contribute and potentially expand my team’s vision.
Are there any particular games that you have in mind?
Minecraft, l would love to contribute to that, I Love that you can make mods. I think Minecaft is crying out for more integrations, so I would love to get connections with Mojang. I’ll take any company that has a level of open-source ethos.
Continue working on the game, however, this requires money. A lot. And I’m not rich! I’m primarily focusing on a media kit that will later be used as the basis for a Kickstarter campaign.
When do you plan to run the Kickstarter campaign?
I won’t have the game finished before the campaign starts, I want to put together a media kit, assets, I’m going to an incubator to learn how to market the game, understand which social media do we target, and which niche users. I have been involved with other Kickstarter projects and know I can’t be too broad with who I target at first. I think in 3-4 months we will be ready to launch the Kickstarter campaign.
I’ve got a team of about ~20-30 people (with most being external/outside collaborators, there are around 10 people that run the show and contribute on a consistent basis). These people have varying levels of experience in game development, design, and web app construction (among other things).
Are you actively looking for more contributors? If so, what level of experience are you looking for?
I’ll take anything, I won’t say no to anyone, I find that the science community say no, if we say no, we’re just defeating the purpose of the project.
We would prioritise people who have c#, and website building experience. Once you get your base established, then start with junior developers. We don’t want to be too closed, but also we don’t want to be too open and not get work completed.
We are also working on a partnership with the Swedish Power Metal band Veonity to contribute with us on officially licensed songs for our games and the Arcadia platform – recording is due to start in July which is very exciting!
I love Star Wars, at 12 I went into robotics, and in 2016-2017 I worked to build a physical R2D2. In year 10 I started a computer science class at school. Unfortunately, computer science investment in schools is poor, but I had a good teacher that encouraged younger students who were not yet at the age to attend a class to learn in their breaks. I learned Python, and in year 11 I started working on GitHub, learned Ruby on Rails, Gem.
I ended year 11 and decided I wanted to start developing. There are no astrophysics courses near to me. You can build games and tell stories from computer science.
How do you make decisions when it comes to your next self-improvement step? Do you look at data, attend conferences?
I attended the recent Atlassian conference. Also, there are 20 of us that meet at a bar regularly to talk about problems, I have joined a few teams and am developing professional skills.
I pitched to investors last year and got 10,000 AUD but it doesn’t last very long in a startup.
I like to see people in the physical world, go to Python global conferences, learning what’s the newest feature with the project that I can use to my advantage.
Has it been a benefit to have online conferences due to Covid-19?
I would never have been able to afford travel to conferences until this year when I’ve started making money, the online conferences are more accessible.
Before, if you are not fully embedded in a developer community, there is not much incentive to go to in-person conferences, there is a huge cost to fly overseas for a conference, and no guarantee that project of interest will be discussed, no guarantee people that people will help you there. There are more frequent conferences now, by more teams, not just big companies doing them.
Do you have a mentor? Or are you mentoring someone else?
I’m a mentor at the University Codjo, mentoring 14-15-year-olds with Autism / ADSD. For me, the computer sciences teacher was a mentor at school, but I don’t have anyone mentoring me right now. I wouldn’t need a mentor right now for teaching me, rather someone who can structure how I do things, I’m not the best, I’m not perfect, people with experience have given great advice to me.
Do you have any words of wisdom for others thinking of building their own games or game engines?
1. I echo the words of “information wants to be free” if everyone open sources and has no barriers, that would be my ideal world!
2. If you want to make any media, games are great, they engage people, I lose interest in reading novels, in games, there is so much you can involve other people with, everyone can make their own stories. There’s engagement.
What’s in your toolbox?
Unity for most of my games stuff
Starship, customisable prompt for my terminal – makes everything look so much cooler. I love customising my devices.
GitHub
Keybase for communications, encryption and there are git integrations.
Notion
Visual studio code
Jira by Atlassian – more of an industry-standard than what I was using before.
MacBook M1 for on-the-go stuff, I duel boot with Linux when testing.
How do you work as a distributed team? What tools do you use?
Keybase is the main tool, git commits can be seen in there and there are cool bots and tools you can use. It was also acquired by Zoom which shows that things will be great for global teams.
We also use Facebook messenger or WhatsApp for casual talk.
Git commits can be sent there, cool bots, and tools you can use. Was acquired by zoom, shows that things will be great for global teams.
What do you need right now?
Right now direct partnership with companies is needed, funding is so important. Everyone in the team is paying out of their own pockets. The best way we can succeed is with funding so the Kickstarter will work, with partnerships, it will give our Kickstarter legitimacy.
If you’re interested in joining forces with Liam and his team either as a developer committed to open-source, or a partner, you can reach Liam via his GitHub profile.
We love to hear your development stories, get in touch to share yours.
As the popularity of a technology ebbs and flows, so does its impact, and when it comes to software development practices, few recent technologies have exerted as profound an influence as DevOps. This technology has become truly mainstream, seeing widespread adoption across software sectors, industries, and roles. We are delighted to say that, for these reasons, DevOps has matured out of our emerging technology tracker and instead has been replaced with several new and exciting technologies that have the potential to reshape the world. Here, we’ll use developers’ engagement with and adoption of these technologies to help us understand just how this might come to pass.
We have tracked developers’ engagement with and adoption of different technologies over six surveys, spanning three years, endingQ1 2021. To measure engagement and adoption, we asked developers if they are working on, learning about, interested in, or not interested in different emerging technologies, whilst adding to the list as new innovations appear. We classified each technology according to whether its engagement rate is above or below the median-high/low engagement-and whether its adoption rate is above or below the median-high/low adoption.
Robotics, mini apps and computer vision are taking the lead as emerging technologies developers are most engaged with
After graduating DevOps from our emerging technology tracker, robotics, mini apps – apps embedded within another app – and computer vision head the table for those emerging technologies with which developers are most engaged. Around half of developers say they are working on, learning about, or interested in each of these technologies, and, whilst mini apps are most widely adopted by professional developers, hobbyists and students are most interested in robotics. However, of the developers engaged with mini apps, nearly a quarter are currently working on the technology. For computer vision, this drops to 15%, and for robotics, just 10%. Despite engaging developers in similar ways, it’s clear that the practical applications of mini apps are widely recognised by developers-in fact adoption increased by four percentage points in the last twelve months, one of the largest increases we saw.
Nearly 30% of actively engaged developers are learning about cryptocurrencies
Almost three in ten engaged developers are learning about cryptocurrencies, the most of any technology – though other blockchain applications are close behind on 26%. The academic interest in these technologies has yet to translate directly into adoption-only 14% and 12% of engaged developers are actively working on projects using these technologies. More than 40% of them are professionally involved in web apps / Software as aService (SaaS), and a third are involved in mobile development as professionals. This said, adoption did increase for both cryptocurrencies (+5 percentage points), and other blockchain applications (+4 percentage points) in the last twelve months-developers are continuing to find practical applications for these technologies. With giants such as Maersk incorporating blockchain technology into their logistics management systems in the last few years, more widespread adoption is inevitable.
Quantum computing and self-driving cars still lag in adoption
Quantum computing and self-driving cars continue to languish near the bottom in terms of adoption, but continue to spark some developers’ imaginations – more than two in five developers are engaged with these technologies. However, of these developers, fewer than one in ten are actually working on each of these technologies, and whilst engagement with these technologies dropped over the last twelve months, adoption increased for both – though more for quantum computing (4 percentage points) than self-driving cars (2 percentage points). There is a similar story with brain / body computer interfaces, which is a new technology that we added in the most recent survey-many developers are engaged, but, unsurprisingly, given its bleeding-edge status, very few are actively working on the technology.
We also recently added hearables, DNA computing / storage, and haptic feedback to our list of emerging technologies. Engagement is low with these technologies; on a level with fog/edge computing-between a quarter and a third of developers are engaged. We see that around one in ten engaged developers are actively working on these very nascent technologies, and two in ten are learning about them. Though the engaged audience for these technologies is small, there is a core of developers contributing to their continued progress.
Each of the emerging technologies we have covered encounters different barriers on its path to widespread adoption. For many, the barriers are technological-the advances needed to bring quantum or DNA computing to the mainstream are many years away, but there are also social, cultural, and even legislative barriers which will impede progress. Though important, developers are only part of the puzzle.
Working and performing during a pandemic will leave deep marks behind, both financially and psychologically speaking. In our latest survey, we asked developers how their needs have changed due to COVID-19. The findings shared in this post are based on the Developer Economics survey 19th edition which ran during June-August 2020 and reached more than 17,000 developers in 159 countries.
At the time of writing this post, there have been more than 30 million COVID-19 cases around the world, with 7.3 million of those still active. The virus is ubiquitous and affects all continents to more or less similar degrees. Working and performing during a pandemic is an experience that will undoubtedly leave deep marks behind, both financially and psychologically speaking.
7.2 million developers report needing flexible working hours/workload
We asked developers to select from a given set of technical and non-technical needs, up to three extra needs the pandemic has created for their own development activities. 73% of developers reported having additional needs due to COVID-19. In particular, 34%, or 7.2 million developers, expressed their need for flexible working hours/workload.
Quarantine and social distancing policies have encouraged many employers to allow their workers to work from home, where possible. A large proportion of workers are now facing the inconvenience of relocating their working space into their home. Among such inconveniences is the necessity of taking care of households while keeping up productivity. Under these circumstances, flexibility is seen as the key to success, or simply survival.
The next most common perceived needs, reported by about one in four developers, are:
collaboration tools and platforms (26%),
online training resources (25%), and
virtual opportunities to support networking and peer-to-peer interaction (23%).
Among these three, the only technical one, strictly speaking, refers to the need for collaboration tools, such as video conferencing platforms. The other top needs are related to self-improvement and self-management, and to socialising.
The supremacy of non-technical needs is striking. All of the technical necessities, except collaboration tools, sit at the bottom of the list, being reported only by about one in ten developers:
better performance in terms of computing resources (13%),
hardware components (9%),
increased security (9%), and
additional cloud space (7%).
There are two explanations for these patterns. First, developers may have not indicated the need for extra technical support because it had been already fulfilled, i.e. their employers had already provided them with it. It could also be, however, that developers did not perceive technical considerations as being more important than flexibility, networking, and learning.
The bigger the company, the more flexibility developers need
We found that the most important factor in influencing developers’ needs in relation to COVID-19 is their company size. Compared to those in middle- or large-sized companies, self-employed developers and developers working in small businesses of up to 20 employees report fewer new needs overall. That is especially the case for flexibility in terms of working hours/workload, and for collaboration tools. The most probable explanation is that they would have already implemented a flexible working schedule prior to COVID19. This is likely to apply to contractors as well as to small, dynamic startups. When it comes to keeping collaboration and interaction going, it may just be easier for small groups of people to maintain old habits or find an easy-to-use tool, such as emailing, phoning, or even getting together whilst respecting the required social distancing.
On the contrary, the bigger the company, the stronger the need for all of the above, including opportunities for virtual interactions. A large company typically requires a structured system of communication, and usually that system needs to accommodate the various teams’ diverse needs; even more so when a company is locked into an IT vendor’s services.
Interestingly, the need for mental health support also linearly increases with company size, probably as a result of those challenges experienced in terms of flexibility and peer-to-peer communication and interaction. Another potential reason is that employees in larger organisations, where nobody is indispensable by default, may be experiencing more performance pressure and be more scared of losing their jobs.
How COVID19 is affecting developers’ technical needs
While developers’ technical needs due to COVID-19 do not change significantly with company size, they strongly correlate to the developers’ level of involvement in tool purchasing decisions. Those most concerned about increased security, performance, and cloud space are the ones responsible for tool specs and expenses, as well as budget approval, who usually fulfill roles within technical management.
On the one hand, with the increasing number of developers working from home, more machines need to be available and connected via VPN and similar technologies. More layers to navigate introduces complexity barriers that affect work efficiency, but also the need for the implementation of extra security controls. Furthermore, servers are often overloaded and downtimes happen more frequently, affecting system reliability. If you add to this the fact that budgets are being reduced or even frozen, due to the economic instability the pandemic is causing, the situation is actually precarious. Those in charge are inevitably the ones noticing the need for technical support the most.
Conclusion
In a relatively short time, the pandemic has generated and consolidated a series of working practices that had been previously known only to a very small proportion of the population. Such new practices, based on remote working and virtual collaboration, are likely to persist after COVID-19. If one acknowledges this, investing in optimising support becomes even more valuable. We recommend that, especially large enterprises, consider the delicate balance between self management and collaboration needs when designing policies and offering support to their employees in the face of the pandemic situation.
Do we read your feedback? Yes we do! We LOVE to see what our community has to say and always invite feedback in our surveys.
Our 19th Developer Survey was no different. 17,241 developers took part from 165 countries and 8,200 participants left feedback. We asked developers if there was anything we forgot to ask, whether they enjoyed the experience and how we can improve in our next Developer Economics Survey. This is what they said:
We loved hearing from our community and our team are taking on board all your comments to make our 20th survey even better. Did we say 20th? Yes that’s right, standby for our anniversary survey! To ensure that you are notified when it’s live, sign up. Don’t forget to make sure the survey notification option is ticked, so we can email you when we are ready.
Thanks to all of you who took part in our Q2 2020 Developer Economics survey! Your responses make a difference and contribute to the developer ecosystem. We’re super excited as it is now time to announce the full list of our developer prizes and their winners!
Developers who take our surveys earn 100 points for every new survey completed, plus 10 points for providing their feedback about the survey. You can see the list of benefits and rewards here.
Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 801+ points – Microsoft Surface Pro 7 and One Plus 7T
Winner
Country
Prize
j*****@h******.c**
Mexico
Microsoft Surface Pro 7
m*****.t*********@g****.c**
Lithuania
OnePlus 7T
Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 801+ points – Prizes: Vouchers, branded stickers, water bottles, surprise swag, and socks
Winner
Country
Prize
j*****@h******.c**
Mexico
Microsoft Surface Pro 7
m*****.t*********@g****.c**
Lithuania
OnePlus 7T
S********@h******.c**
Pakistan
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
a*********@y****.c**
United States
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
l*@l****.c**
Colombia
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
p****@p**********.n***
Australia
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
c****@h******.c**
United States
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
c*******@y****.c**
United States
Branded stickers and water bottle
z*********@g****.c**
Taiwan
Branded stickers and water bottle
b*****@e*************.c**
United States
Branded stickers and water bottle
r******@g****.c**
Canada
Branded stickers and water bottle
d*.b****@g****.c**
Canada
Branded stickers and water bottle
t*******.h******@g**.d*
Germany
Surprise swag
s******.s******@g****.c**
Germany
Surprise swag
l***********@g****.c**
Canada
Surprise swag
m*****@c*******.i*
Italy
Surprise swag
s******.t**@g****.c**
Malaysia
Surprise swag
Here’s a sneak peak at the surprise swag!
Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 501+ points – Prizes: Vouchers, surprise swag, branded stickers and socks
Winner
Country
Prize
j***********@g****.c**
Japan
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
a***********@g****.c**
Malta
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
a*************@g****.c**
Spain
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
f***********@g****.c**
Nigeria
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
n.s*******@g****.c**
United Kingdom
$50 Udemy or Amazon voucher
k******@g****.c**
Italy
Surprise swag
t****.a*******@g****.c**
Algeria
Surprise swag
p**********@g****.c**
South Africa
Branded stickers and socks
j********@g****.c**
United States
Branded stickers and socks
k*****.k******@g****.c**
Greece
Branded stickers and socks
n********@w****.c**
Israel
Branded stickers and socks
s*********@g****.c**
Portugal
Branded stickers and socks
Exclusive Community Prize Draw for members with 301+ points – Prizes: Branded surprise swag, stickers and socks
Winner
Country
Prize
b*****@g****.c**
Hungary
Surprise swag
g****.o**@o******.c**
United Kingdom
Surprise swag
t***********@g****.c**
United States
Branded stickers and socks
m*********@g****.c**
United States
Branded stickers and socks
General Prize Draw
Winner
Country
Prize
h*********@g****.c**
Egypt
iPhone 11
d*****@y*****.r*
Russia
JetBrains All Products Pack
o*********@g****.c**
Mexico
GitKraken Pro license
a******@o******.c**
Kenya
GitKraken Pro license
g****.c*****@h******.c**
Canada
GitKraken Pro license
s******.a***@g****.c**
India
GitKraken Pro license
z***********@g****.c**
Russia
GitKraken Pro license
p************@g****.c**
India
GitKraken Pro license
n************@g****.c**
Japan
Cloud Guru x 6 months license
j*****@g****.c**
Russia
Cloud Guru x 6 months license
d************@g****.c**
India
Cloud Guru x 6 months license
m*******.m*******@g****.c**
Russia
Raywenderlich.com 3 months Professional subscription
e****.s******.9*@g****.c**
Russia
Raywenderlich.com 3 months Professional subscription
A*********@y*****.r*
Russia
Raywenderlich.com 3 months Professional subscription
f.a*****@g****.c**
Turkey
SitePoint premium subscriptions x 6 months
n***********@g****.c**
Russia
SitePoint premium subscriptions x 6 months
b****@l***.r*
Russia
SitePoint premium subscriptions x 6 months
v****.m**********@g****.c**
Ukraine
SitePoint premium subscriptions x 6 months
n*******@g****.c**
Russia
SitePoint premium subscriptions x 6 months
s*************@y****.c*.u*
United Kingdom
Seagate STGX5000400 Portable 5TB External Hard Drive HDD
r*****.c****.g*******@g****.c**
Venezuela
Corsair K68 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
m*****.a********@g****.c**
Nigeria
$20 Amazon voucher
i***.f****@m*.e**.a*
Australia
$20 Amazon voucher
t***********@g****.c**
Russia
$20 Amazon voucher
a************@g****.c**
Ghana
$20 Amazon voucher
j************@g****.c**
United States
$20 Amazon voucher
g*****@g****.c**
France
$20 Amazon voucher
n***********@g****.c**
Brazil
$20 Amazon voucher
m***.l**.p*******@g*********.c**
Japan
$20 Amazon voucher
m*************@g****.c**
India
$20 Amazon voucher
d*******@g****.c**
United States
$20 Amazon voucher
m******@g****.c**
Canada
$20 Amazon voucher
m***.d*******@g****.c**
Netherlands
BaseCode field guide – full kit
h********@g****.c**
Russia
BaseCode field guide – full kit
h***@j*************.e*
Spain
BaseCode field guide – full kit
t*************@g****.c**
South Africa
BaseCode field guide – full kit
d****.b****@f*******.c**
France
BaseCode field guide – full kit
a****************@g****.c**
Ukraine
BaseCode field guide – full kit
r****@m***.r*
Russia
Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition (The MIT Press)
The State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw
Winner
Country
Prize
h******@g****.c**
Mexico
Oculus Quest 64GB
i******@g****.c**
United Kingdom
Sketchfab 12 month Pro License
m*******.t*****@g****.c**
United States
OctaneRender Studio for Unity – 12 months license
d*********@g****.c**
United States
iPhone 11
a****.q**********@g****.c**
Canada
Vufori12 months Basic License
a***.p********@g****.c**
India
VR Ninjas Virtual Reality Mat
n******.c******.f@g****.c**
Chile
VR Ninjas Virtual Reality Mat
Extra Prize Draws
Winner
Country
Prize
s*******.1*@g****.c**
India
$50 Amazon voucher
j**********@i*****.c**
Brazil
Developer Economics hoodie
s*****.b********@g****.c**
United States
Augmented Reality: Principles and Practice (Usability) book
m***.l****@g****.c**
United States
The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition: Your Journey to Mastery book
f********@b*.r*
Kazakhstan
InsomniPlus license ($50 value) – Debug APIs like human, not robot
p*********@g****.c**
Vietnam
Developer Economics hoodie
s*******@g****.c**
Russia
Soft Skills: The software developer’s life manual
s******.l*****@g****.c**
South Africa
Developer Economics hoodie
t*****************@g****.c**
South Africa
$20 Amazon voucher
r*************@g****.c**
Nigeria
The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure book
r**********@g****.c**
Germany
Developer Economics hoodie
2*******@w**.d*
Germany
$20 Amazon voucher
m********@b*.r*
Russia
Game Engine Architecture, Third Edition book
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Indonesia
Developer Economics hoodie
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Russia
$20 Amazon voucher
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Spain
Precision: Principles, Practices and Solutions for the Internet of Things book
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Vietnam
Developer Economics hoodie
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India
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Nigeria
Deep Learning (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning series) book
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United States
Developer Economics hoodie
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Russia
$20 Amazon voucher
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Russia
Raywenderlich.com 3 months Professional subscription
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India
Developer Economics hoodie
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Japan
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Ukraine
Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain 2nd Edition book
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France
Developer Economics hoodie
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United States
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The Phoenix Project: Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
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South Africa
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Indonesia
Developer Economics hoodie
Dicoding Prize Draw – Dicoding Learning Path (Beginner Android or Beginner Web class or mixed) – Exclusive developers taking the survey from Indonesia
Winners
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We’ve already reached out to the winners by email. Do you recognise one of the email addresses as yours but haven’t received your email yet? Please contact us at community@developereconomics.com
The lists above only include prize-draw winners and not runner-ups. If the prize draw winners do not claim their prizes within 10 workings of us contacting them, then runner-ups will be invited to claim them instead.
Some of the winners have generously donated the cost of their prize to Techfugees, the charity we supported during the survey.
We’d like to say a special thanks to the lovely people at BaseCode, Dicoding, GitKraken, SitePoint, Sketchfab who supported us during our Q2 2020 Developer Economics survey by donating a prize – you rock!!
If you’re not a winner, don’t despair, our next survey, our 20th (!!), will be live later this year. We’re already on the hunt for some amazing prizes, and open to your suggestions. What prizes would you like to win? Drop us an email or send us a Tweet.
To ensure that you are notified when our next survey is live, sign up. Don’t forget to make sure the survey notification option is ticked.
In our 18th survey wave, we’ve asked developers whether they contribute to open-source software, and if so, why? In this post, we’ll explore who the contributors to open-source software are, their reasons for contributing, and finally what open-source support they expect from companies.
Open-source contributors tend to be younger than non-contributors.
More than a third (33%) of developers who contribute to open-source software are less than 24 years old as compared to 26% of non-contributors. This is not to say that they are inexperienced programmers; 41% of open-source contributors have 1 to 5 years of experience, 4 percentage points higher than non-contributors.
Contrary to what one might think, open-source contributors are not necessarily professionals. In fact, they are equally likely to be amateurs than non-contributors. You don’t have to be working professionally in the software industry to be involved and contribute to open-source software development.
Open-source contributors are more likely to be involved in multiple development areas than non-contributors. However, open-source contributors are significantly more likely to be involved in emerging sectors such as machine learning/AI and AR/VR, where innovations are mostly driven by open-source tools.
Finally, as you’d expect, developers’ likelihood of contributing to open-source software is also reflected in their activity on the most popular open-source hosting site, Github. The correlation is clear. Two-thirds of developers who don’t contribute (67%) have no personal public repositories on Github, whereas close to half of the contributors (48%) have two or more public repositories. We observe a somewhat similar relationship with Stack Overflow. Non-contributors are significantly more likely to not use the Q&A site at all or visit the site but not have an account. On the other hand, open-source contributors are twice as likely as developers who don’t contribute to have earned at least one badge (30% vs 15%). Working on open-source projects encourages developers to actively engage with their peers on Q&A sites. We’ve seen which developers contribute to open-source software projects. Let’s now dive into the reasons for contributing.
Why contribute to open-source software
Developers are most motivated to contribute to open-source projects to improve coding skills (29%) and a belief in the benefits of open-source (26%). What’s more, 22% of developers contribute to open-source software because it’s fun or to solve an issue with an existing open-source software project such as fixing a bug or creating a new feature.
By contrast, financial compensation is the least important motivation. Only 3% of developers are getting paid for their work on open-source projects. As it turns out, developers are more likely to get involved in open-source projects to build their reputation (14%) or to network (11%) rather than for direct financial gain. Furthermore, developers who get paid to contribute are almost 20 percentage points less likely to think it’s fun than those who contribute for other reasons. They are also significantly less likely to believe in open-source as a source of freedom, as an ideological imperative.
Typically developers don’t contribute to open-source for a single reason but are motivated by multiple factors. For example, half of the developers who contribute to open-source for improving their coding skills also think it’s fun. 56% of contributors who want to network also feel like it makes them belong somewhere.
What developers expect from companies
In our Q4 2019 Developer Economics survey, we also asked developers what open-source support they expect from companies. Thirty-three percent of developers not contributing to open-source don’t expect anything from companies, as compared to 15% among open-source contributors. That said, two-thirds of non-contributors still think that companies should be involved and provide support to the open-source software movement; they realise how important open-source is and believe that companies should be a part of it.
On the other hand, 44% of open-source contributors expect companies to support and contribute to open-source communities. This increases to 55% for developers who contribute to solve an issue. Many contributors (44%) expect full documentation on how to use open-source software on companies’ products or services. This is especially important to developers who get paid for their work (53%).
Interestingly, open-source developers do not necessarily expect companies to build products and services upon open-source software (39%). This is the least important vendor expectation from developers in terms of support for open-source software.
Open-source software contributors are a diverse group of people. Their motivations to contribute range from learning, having fun, solving issues to building relationships and reputations. In summary, developers have plenty of reasons to contribute to open-source, and they expect companies to support them along the way.
If you are involved in open-source and want to share your views, visit our latest survey and help shape the trends.
We recently learned about a tech community with a mission to respond to the needs of refugees and we had to meet them. Techfugees is an impact driven global organisation nurturing a sustainable ecosystem of tech solutions, supporting the inclusion of displaced people. They do so, through several actions, mainly: Tech4Women, Tech4Refugees and the Basefugees initiatives
We met with Josephine Goube, CEO in Techfugees to get to know more about the organisation and the way they support refugees. We were fascinated by their work and determination and we have decided to support them. /Data and the Developer Economics Community will be donating $0.10 for every developer who completes the Q2 2020 Developer Economics survey. If you are a developer yourself make sure youtake the Developer Economics survey and help us raise $1,900 for Techfugees.
How did Techfugees come to life? What was the grand breaking event that inspired you to found this organization?
Founded in 2015, Techfugees was born out of the fact that 93% of displaced people who arrived on the shores of Europe owned a smartphone and 87% of displaced people live in an area of 2/3G coverage. We saw that they did no longer rely on information & help provided by NGOs solely, but a lot more from social media networks, and so we started building mobile tech that could be useful to them.
What would you say has been the biggest challenge for you and your beneficiaries?
Lack of funding and a hostile environment have been very challenging for us! There are feelings that have been building up over the years against displaced people. The fact that we want to bring technology to refugees has been faced with disbelief, and has been disregarded as being pointless. Comments such as “They don’t have phones” or “they first need water and food” tells us a lot about how the use of sensational media coverage has made it difficult for citizens to learn the real facts… One of them being that a lot of displaced people use ⅓ of their budget on phone data and that mental health shows significant improvement when one is offered the possibility to stay in touch with loved ones.
In what ways can technology and innovation help displaced people?
For people that are very constrained by space and time (borders, camps, …), digital technologies are not only breaking isolation but they also are an opportunity to break those very restrictions. People must have felt it through lockdown situations: it is amazing how much can be done digitally! Similarly, for displaced people, the internet and smartphones and the digital economy is a revolution.
Techfugees take on various projects to help refugees. Which one would you say has been the most impactful and why? What kind of projects are you currently running?
There are not one but many projects that I would like to mention. As with anything related to the internet and networked technologies, the more projects you run, the greater the impact of what you do! . I will share one of the most illustrative examples. Refugee.info, is a project coming out of our first hackathon in London 2015. Its mission is to deliver information to refugees and it had done so for more than a million displaced people since 2015. What Refugee.info did to become so successful at providing the service was to iterate on technology with the feedback of NGOs & refugees on the ground. Also, they started collaborating with another #Tech4refugees project coming out of a hack – Natakallam – an online language learning service delivered by refugees who did the translation of their app. In this way, not only did Refugee.info end up delivering information to refugees, they ended up supporting refugee translators with their work.
This one simple example shows you two things: the fact that when more technology projects supporting refugees collaborate they are more impactful, and that the best projects integrate refugees within their own teams to deepen their impact.
We see that hackathons are the heart of your organization’s activities. How many have you organized so far, are these created for misplaced people only? Any upcoming hackathon?
We have organised more than 30+ hackathons bringing displaced people and locals around the world, since 2015. One in four participants in those networking and creation spaces had a refugee background. The aim of these hacks are mainly educational and to provide networking opportunities, more than building the next big thing. Having said that, annual rounds of catch up with past #tech4refugees project participants enabled us to gather lots of data about their needs over time and identify some interesting insights and trends.. From the data gathered, we were able to measure the impact of Techfugees’ support in our hackathons participants’ lives.t Our hackathons teams had a higher 1-year survival rate, from 16% up to 33%, demonstrating that post-hack support is impactful and makes a solid difference.
How has the coronavirus situation affected the refugee community and your organization in particular?
In March 2020, Techfugees launched its Data Hub as a response to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Data Hub, brings together displaced persons, NGOs, members of civil society and innovators from all over the world, to map the impact of Covid-19 on displaced communities and source existing solutions to help mitigate them. The data is freely available on: http://bit.ly/covidrefugees. For us in Techfugees, it is important to listen to displaced people and take into consideration their situation and experiences. As a result, and as we saw more data coming in, we launched Techfugees Live Sessions! A series of online bi-monthly talks that provides regional and local updates on how communities are coping with the situation and what tech solutions are currently being used by these communities.
Short Bio: Graduate from Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics, Josephine has been the CEO of Techfugees and its worldwide chapters since 2015. She is also a board member of the Norwegian Refugee Council and an informal expert alongside the European Commission about migration issues. Nominated as one of the top “30 under 30 Social Entrepreneurs” by Forbes in 2016, 2017 and 2018, in 2017 she was honoured as “Digital Women” of the year in France. From 2012 to 2016, Josephine was Migreat’s partnerships manager, a London startup specialized in applying for visas for Europe.
Looking to find out more about how NGO’s are contributing to the tech environment? Read our interview with CodeYourFuture.
CodeYourFuture is a non-profit organisation supporting anyone who can’t get the vocational training they need to find meaningful work. Refugees, asylum seekers and other disadvantaged people – those below the poverty line, single parents on a low income, those with mental, learning or physical disabilities. They strengthen their students’ professional skills, teach them the fundamentals of the web, powerful modern languages such as javascript, and web application back-end development. After that, they help their students find jobs in the tech industry.
We reached out to Alec McCrindle and had an insightful chat about the mission of CodeYourFuture, and also had the opportunity to speak with some of the students there.
How do you run courses and programming lessons?
We run weekly classes that follow a curriculum that takes our students from limited programming knowledge through to becoming a junior developer. Between classes, our students complete coursework which is reviewed by professional developers. All of our classes are developed and delivered by volunteers. For anyone interested in attending our courses, here are some more details, the agenda of an average class and also the guide we have created for online teaching.
What are the criteria for someone to participate in your courses?
We accept anyone who can’t get the vocational training they need to find meaningful work. Refugees, asylum seekers and other disadvantaged people, those below the poverty line, single parents on a low income, those with mental, learning or physical disabilities. Anyone who can’t go to a bootcamp, for financial or other reasons. We also asked Ellie, Constantin and Yohannes about their background: Ellie: I have a bachelor of electrical engineering from my home country, I didn’t have any software engineering experience before CodeYourFuture. Constantin: I worked in a magazine designer role and later switched to photography. Yohannes: I graduated with a Computer Science degree in 2010 in Sudan. I loved working with a team and solving problems and coming up with solutions. After I arrived in the UK, I started working part-time and doing a web development course at CodeYourFuture. After completing my course, I will be ready to take my career to the next level.
Why did you choose to learn how to code? What’s the most fun thing about coding?
Ellie: Since I was a student, I was interested in software engineering because I was studying telecommunications engineering. I can understand electrical signals or electromagnetic waves, but I wanted to do something that I can see instant results like coding and creating something. The most fun thing about coding for me is solving the problems, I love math and coding is like math for me. With coding whatever you are interested in (like making web pages or applications or animations..) you can read about them and immediately start to practice. Constantin: Technology becomes more and more important. It is part of every industry. I wanted to start programming because of 3D. Still, at CodeYourFuture, I found that creating code feels like a creative task and it can be very satisfying, especially when you think that it can be applied everywhere. The feeling you get from developing websites, apps, marketing tools for anything you like. I find it very funny, when you think that so many people are scared of code and they prefer to study sometimes much more complex interfaces, and you feel like you’re a keeper of secret knowledge. Yohannes: I have been passionate about technology and information technology since I was 12 years old and that is why I have done a degree in computer science. I would love to pursue a career in software debugging and programming. I would say the most fun about coding is learning new concepts, and it is not boring at all.
What does your team look like?
We have a small global team and organizers in each region we serve. These are the West Midlands, the North West, Scotland and Greater London, Rome and soon, Cape Town and Tunis. We have volunteer teams that look after education, personal development, outreach and a tech team that works on systems and projects.
How can someone contribute to CodeYourFuture?
There are two ways to contribute. Firstly, through corporate partnerships to help us bring a new range of courses to more disadvantaged people than ever before. As part of any sponsorship, there are opportunities for personalized volunteer experiences for employees, for branding, PR, and a recruitment pipeline to diversify workforces. Then, we also have individual volunteers. We have an opportunity to help a lot of people learn a valuable skill, at a time when they need it the most. We’re looking for coding teachers, mentors, marketing experts and many more. You don’t need any experience – and non-tech folks are welcome too! Our website has more details about the roles and how to sign up. If people are unable to volunteer – maybe they know someone who may be interested?
What’s your vision for your students after they graduate from CodeYourFuture?
For them to lead thriving lives! That starts with a job as a developer in a company that will support their growth. Some graduates may continue their studies – we can help them find full-time learning opportunities too. We aim to support them through the community for as long as they need. Many graduates come back to CodeYourFuture as volunteers, which is an amazing cycle.
Going back to the students, to see this from their view, what kind of a career would you like to have in 5 years? What would you like to have accomplished by then?
Ellie: If I work continuously and I don’t have any distractions in my life I would say I want to be in the first 10 companies in the world or lead one of the banks of London. Constantin: I also study Augmented Reality, and some companies see the development of web technologies being towards a Virtual World. I try to prepare myself for that. Also, I am interested in Digital Twins, BIM models, visual effects and game development, and 3D printing. Of course, until I reach that I will probably be doing layouts for sites like I did for magazines. I think I have enough courage to start building apps or games for myself or for a small company. I want to add some more languages to my skill set, I think Python and C++. Yohannes: In five years, I would like to be a more professional and senior developer in one of the top banks, and play a key role in optimising and improving their software systems. During these five years, I would like to accomplish advanced courses in network and system security.
How many students have graduated from the program so far and where are they from?
During the last 3 years that we operate, over 100 students from around 30 countries have graduated from our program. This year alone, another 100 should graduate. We’re planning classes in Cape Town at the moment!
So, what have actually been the biggest obstacles for the students during their training program?
Ellie: I think the biggest obstacle during my training program is self-confidence… because sometimes I feel I lose myself. Constantin: Working. When I first moved to the UK I had to work as a freelance photographer, as that is what I am best at. But sometimes you need to work a lot or in night shifts. And of course, COVID and lockdown. On the other side, that has been a great opportunity to have enough time to study and be with my new-born daughter. Yohannes: The biggest obstacle I have faced during the training program has to do with finding the self-esteem to ask questions on the main slack channel. After having a face to face chat with my personal development mentor, I have improved my confidence skills a lot.
How many people are involved in running the school and doing the teaching?
Dozens of core volunteers and well over 100 occasional volunteers. Doing the following: Education – they create and deliver teaching content. They also mentor and guide our students through the course Outreach – Find new volunteers and students, contact employers and other NGOs – do marketing related work Personal Development – Develop our students soft-skills and personal support through the course Tech Team – supporting grads who need to practice on live projects for CodeYourFuture.
Has the Covid-19 outbreak affected your program? Are you planning to pivot any of your activities?
We operated in a hybrid fashion before the pandemic, so it wasn’t too difficult to move the classes online. One of the main challenges has been maintaining the strength of the community. We are like a big family, and we miss each other! We’ve been organizing different social activities; there are tea breaks, remote game nights, and some enthusiastic students and volunteers have a weekly exercise session!
The critical pivot has been at a volunteering level. As we’re entirely remote, we’re able to include volunteers from anywhere. We have people joining from the US, Costa Rica and Lebanon – helping with all aspects of our program. It’s been incredible to see all these new people get involved. You can join too!
What kind of skills have you managed to develop while in coding school? Except for coding skills, what would you say you gained from this program?
Ellie: Practicing continuously, time managing, self-confidence – I changed my lifestyle. I manage my time more than before, even if I feel I can’t. I try again and don’t lose my confidence, and don’t let conditions keep me down. CodeYourFuture helped me to be more serious about coding and changing my lifestyle. To remove anything else which is not important. Constantin: When I first came to CodeYourFuture, I was like an alien just landed from another planet. You first see a lot of people in the same situation from countries of which existence you do not even know, and a volunteer starts breathing exercises. And you realize ”ok we all breathe in the same way!” Now in the middle of the course, we are all friends, having fun on morning CYF energizers, evening Javascript calls and coffee-breaks. I feel like I know people from every tiny place on earth. And all that in one place. Yohannes: One of the important skills I have gained during the programme are soft skills – such as team-working, task prioritising and effective time management. The soft skills we have learned have been very effective in improving our learning ability.
And a final question for Ellie, Constantin and Yohannes, what kind of advice would you give to your younger self or to another refugee thinking of getting an education in programming?
Ellie: You need to want it badly and to change your lifestyle until you get what you want. You also need at first to have someone like CodeYourFuture to show you the best way to reach your goals. Constantin: Do not procrastinate. Time is money; start now. Click that apply button! Yohannes: I would recommend him/her to join CodeYourFuture in becoming a developer.
Special thanks to Alec from CodeYourFuture, who helped us through this interview. You can reach out to the team and get to meet them too, on twitter or Facebook.
