Episode 288: Uni students and OSS with Jeff Young & Daniel Shown

Episode 288: Uni students and OSS with Jeff Young & Daniel Shown

From Sustain by SustainOSS

May 15, 2026 · 34 min

About this episode

The episode discusses how academic OSPOs are integrating students into open source projects through mentorship and experiential learning.

Guest Jeff Young | Daniel Shown Panelists Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer and Eriol Fox talk with Jeff Young from Georgia Tech and Daniel Shown from Saint Louis University (SLU) about how academic OSPOs are bringing students into open source in meaningful, sustainable ways. They discuss experiential learning, research software engineering, near-peer mentorship, student motivation, maintainer burnout, and how universities can help students build real-world skills while strengthening open source communities. Press download now! [00:01:46] Jeff describes Georgia Tech’s OSPO focus. [00:03:49] Daniel explains SLU’s experiential learning model. [00:05:29] Daniel and Jeff share how many students they’re working with in their programs. [00:06:13] Jeff talks about how students engage with open source and Daniel describes meeting students and the wide range of student experience levels. [00:09:33] They discuss what the students bring to the sustainability of open source software and the value of seeing open source as a community effort. [00:13:05] Richard asks how academic programs connect students with maintainers when many open source…

People in this episode

Hosts: Richard Littauer, Eriol Fox

Guests: Jeff Young, Daniel Shown

Topics covered

  • open source
  • academic OSPOs
  • experiential learning
  • mentorship
  • student engagement
  • sustainability

Keywords

  • open source
  • OSPO
  • mentorship
  • experiential learning
  • student engagement
  • sustainability
  • software engineering

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Georgia Tech, Saint Louis University

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