Episode 130: Connecting Open Source and Research in Australia with Rowland Mosbergen

About this episode

Rowland Mosbergen discusses the intersection of open source and research in Australia, emphasizing community engagement and diversity initiatives.

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSScast! CHAOSScast – Episode 130 In this CHAOSScast episode, host introduces Rowland Mosbergen, a research software engineer at Australia’s WEHI, and discusses experiences in CHAOSS Asia and open source community connections. Rowland compares research labs to startups and explains that CHAOSS Asia’s regular online meetings help him engage with the broader open source ecosystem despite not traveling to conferences. They mention tools like the OSC DB directory for finding communities and discuss how Chaos Asia helps share events and CFPs. Rowland describes his “practical diversity and inclusion” approach: embedding inclusion into processes by centering marginalized people, sharing power, creating safe spaces, and offering online, non-exploitative open source internships that assess achievement relative to opportunity. He also describes organizing Research Software Asia Australia (RSAA 26) and supporting new Research Software Africa and Latino America conferences through shared documentation and a large, flexible volunteer committee to prevent burnout. They close with personal value-adds: Rowland’s family…

People in this episode

Host: CHAOSScast Host

Guest: Rowland Mosbergen

Topics covered

• open source
• research software
• community engagement
• diversity and inclusion
• internships
• conferences

Keywords

• CHAOSS Asia
• open source community
• diversity and inclusion
• internships
• research software

Sponsors

Sustain

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CHAOSS Project, WEHI, CHAOSS Asia, Research Software Asia Australia, Research Software Africa, Latino America

More episodes of CHAOSScast

• Episode 132: Please take the CHAOSScast Impact Survey - and we're taking a break · April 16, 2026 · 3 min
• Episode 131: Repo-Health - a tool built on CHAOSS metrics · April 2, 2026 · 36 min
• Episode 129: Using Metrics in your OSPO · March 5, 2026 · 42 min
• Episode 128: Guest Episode - GR-OSS OUT Podcast: Building Welcoming Communities with Stacey Potter · February 19, 2026 · 22 min
• Episode 127: Community Health metrics for Commercial Open Source · February 5, 2026 · 35 min
• Episode 126: Meet Leon, your new Asia host · January 22, 2026 · 23 min