Gauging interest for a student projects revival

[Kevin Ottens]

Hello,

On Thursday, 14 August 2025 14:36:41 Central European Summer Time Albert 
Astals Cid wrote:
> El dijous, 14 d’agost del 2025, a les 14:10:14 (Hora d’estiu d’Europa
> central), Kevin Ottens va escriure:
> > Hello folks,
> > 
> > Some of you might remember that quite while ago, I was setting up student
> > projects with the Toulouse University. We had quite a few students
> > participating in those and helping KDE projects over the years.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, the organization changed in the Toulouse University and
> > this kind of died out. :'/
> > 
> > That being said, I've been in contact with one of Paris Universities
> > earlier this year, it looks like they have a program we could participate
> > in and they seem very eager to have KDE related projects.
> 
> Does the project need to be totally independent (i.e. new app/library) or
> can it be adding new features to existing apps/libraries?

It has to be adding new features to existing apps/libraries. Part of the 
learning is about contributing to an established project.

Of course, it is can be a bit self-contained it is a plus to make it easier 
for a small team like this to jump in.

> > AFAICT the setup would be similar to what we did in Toulouse:
> > * I collect interesting projects, each having a KDE developer as main
> > point of contact ("the customer" so to speak);
> > * I present the projects to the University;
> > * Teams of students pick among the projects what they fancy (between 3 and
> > 5 students per team);
> > * During the course of the project, one of their teacher keeps an eye to
> > how the student work, the "customer" provides feedback on their work and
> > make sure what they produce can be used.
> > 
> > One point still unclear would be the amount of involvement I could have
> > once the projects are started. I used to first train the students on the
> > basics, then keep an eye on the progress and give them advice. If
> > possible I'll aim for this but this is still an open question.
> > 
> > The start of the projects would be end of year, next January latest.
> > 
> > Anyway, for that to happen we'd need projects to propose obviously, hence
> > this email:
> > * do you work on a project which would benefit from a team of students
> > participating for a few months? (they'd contribute a few hours each week,
> > they have other courses to attend to obviously)
> 
> Do we have a guesstimate of how many total person-hours are we speaking
> about?
> 
> My random guess: 4 hours per week per person, 3 people per group, 12 weeks =
> 144 hours
> 
> But maybe it's supposed to be 10 hours per week per person and 20 weeks
> which suddently puts it at 600 hours

It's rather the former. I don't think they'll have the capacity to put 10 
hours per week per person. 4 hours per week is more realistic.

> > * are you interested in having that "customer"/point of contact role for
> > the said project?
> > 
> > I'd like to go forward with at least three projects to propose, if there
> > are more it's fine as well.
> > 
> > I'll also be at Akademy to discuss this further with anyone interested.
> > I'm aiming at having a list of projects and customers ready by mid-October
> > latest as I expect the conversation with the University to take a bit of
> > time to bear fruits.
 
Regards.
-- 
Kevin Ottens, http://ervin.ipsquad.net

enioka Haute Couture - proud supporting member of KDE
https://haute-couture.enioka.com/en
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