When I think back on my amazing year with OpenMRS—a journey that started in September 2022—I see myself fully involved in a world of significant contributions, collaborative innovation, and never-ending learning. My 2023 participation with OpenMRS has been characterised by significant frontend and quality assurance (QA) contributions, which have shaped both my technical proficiency and my comprehension of the critical role technology plays in the world of healthcare.
When I joined OpenMRS in September 2022, the friendly and welcoming community that embodies the spirit of this open-source project welcomed me right away. The next few months were a dynamic journey during which I learned about the platform’s internal operations and found my place in the big, wide world of healthcare technology.
OpenMRS’s collaborative culture offered a supportive setting for learning through practical contributions. In addition to developing my technical skills, actively working on coding projects, bug fixes, and feature additions allowed me to obtain understanding of the real-world uses of software development in the healthcare industry. Every line of code seemed to be a step closer to providing medical professionals with instruments that would actually improve patient care.
I also want to highlight that I submitted an application for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2023 and that I helped propose the “Responsiveness & Tablet-based Needs for OpenMRS 3” project. The experience was quite beneficial even though I didn’t get accepted into GSoC. I was forced to consider OpenMRS’s future requirements and how technology may improve its usability and responsiveness while creating the project proposal. Through its insights into project development and community interaction, the application process itself was a valuable educational experience. I understand that the voyage itself was a wonderful source of learning, growth, and resilience, even though not getting chosen was frustrating. It has strengthened my resolve to keep improving OpenMRS and looking for ways to make a difference in the field of healthcare technology.
Giving back to the OpenMRS community extended beyond only committing code. Taking part in community activities, attending virtual meetups, and participating in OpenMRS Talk conversations all became essential components of my daily routine. These exchanges let me see the world from new angles and reaffirmed how important teamwork is while working towards a common objective. My grasp of the inequities in healthcare around the world and the role technology plays in closing these gaps has been deepened by the wide diversity of perspectives and experiences from the community.
To conclude, I would want to sincerely thank all of the amazing people who have shaped my OpenMRS path. Your constant support, advice, and companionship, @jayasanka , @heshan , @piumal1999 , @anjisvj , @dkigen and @grace , have been the pillars that have sustained me through both struggles and victories. Through your tutelage, I have not only improved my technical proficiency but also given my contributions a feeling of direction and camaraderie. To all of my friends in the OpenMRS community, thank you for making this trip so very rewarding with your teamwork and shared enthusiasm for healthcare technology. As a result of this community’s collective wisdom and attitude of generosity, I am a more involved and better contributor to this dynamic ecosystem. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has contributed in any way over the past year, no matter how minor, to making my OpenMRS experience a genuinely rewarding and meaningful one. Cheers to OpenMRS’s ongoing expansion and the ties that bind us in our common goal of improving healthcare.