Personal

I am in OpenMRS Internship Program OIP

I am happy and proud to announce that I have been accepted for the OpenMRS Internship Program (OIP) also known as the Southern Summer of Code. OpenMRS is an open source medical record system framework for developing countries led by Regenstrief Institute and Partners In Health. OIP is supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). OIP runs as same as the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program. This is going to be fantastic.

First Aid

Last week, I did a 15-hour first aid training course at the Red Cross. It is hard to learn the proper first aid techniques from books. By the way giving CPR is a tiring exercise. Giving chest compressions is a good workout, if you do it properly.

The proper first aid for an emergency is changing all the time. What you think was the best course of action few years ago for a particular situation is obsolete today. Sometimes not doing anything could be better than applying the wrong first aid. For example Heimlich maneuver is not recommended for a choking victim today because if the first aider is not sufficiently tall enough to do it properly, it is not effective and sometimes it could damage the victim’s vital organs.

Always be Yourself

Last night I went to see Billy Elliot the Musical. It was great.

The movie was one of the greatest I have seen. Set in Britain in the 1980s in the coal mining country besieged by strike and hardship, it is about a boy who wants be a ballet dancer, struggling for freedom and acceptance, being different from what was expected of him from the society.

The show story says,

If Billy Elliot is about one thing it is that we are all capable of making lives for ourselves which are full of joy and self-expression, whilst we might not all become ballet dancers we are capable of finding moments of real profundity and creativity whatever our circumstances. But more than that we have a duty to ourselves and each other to create a society where this possibility in all of us is nurtured and can flourish. We owe it to the next generation to create a world where it is possible for the Billy Elliots as yet unborn to have a chance to succeed and flourish rather than be fed to the machine which grinds us into identical pieces only fit for consumption. If Billy Elliot conveys any message at all I hope it is that it is possible to fight back and resist and it is possible to move on without forgetting where you come from.

In everything you do
Always be yourself,
And you always will be true

Google Summer of Code 2008 ends

Last week Google Summer of Code 2008 came to an end. I am exceptionally happy that I could join the program and contribute something to the open source medical record system, OpenMRS project. Looking back at the past few months, it was a great pleasure working with the OpenMRS community, specially with my mentor, Ben Wolfe. I never felt this much better or had fun coding before. It was a great experience. Now that the time lines and constraints are no more, I hope to continue do something more.

I am in Google Summer of Code 2008

I am happy and proud to announce that I have been accepted for a project in Google Summer of Code 2008 for OpenMRS. OpenMRS is an open source medical record system framework for developing countries led by Regenstrief Institute and Partners In Health. I am looking forward to join the OpenMRS community and contribute to the core system of the OpenMRS, and continue the development work for years to come.