Meet Abi – Collabora Software Engineering Intern

Collabora recruits interns to work over the summer alongside our team, and to build experience to help them assess whether they want to pursue a career in Software Engineering, but how does that work out? Meet Abi, mentored by Mert and Pedro, and intern behind the new SDK example in .NET¹. Lets hear from her:

Tell me about yourself!

I’m Abi, I’m studying Maths, Physics, Computer Studies and Media Studies at sixth form. I’ve been involved with the Army Cadets since 2017 and hope to join the Army Cyber Warfare Division after university.

When did you first become interested in coding?

I’ve grown up in a household that’s centralised around technology and found a passion for coding when studying Maths – I found I was quite good at it! I really enjoy the theory side of Computer Science, learning algorithms and how things are put together. I realised this more through the work I did at Collabora.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

I love to start new projects but often find I don’t quite finish them! I either get stuck or I just don’t have time to finish them before I’ve started a new one. Working at Collabora, I actually managed to finish my projects which is a big achievement I hope to continue with.

What have you been doing over the Summer?

It’s been a mixture of school work, camping holidays along the Norfolk coast and doing the Collabora Internship.

What have you been working on?

I’ve been creating an SDK example with .NET.

What is SDK? How can that be useful?

It’s a basic version of the Collabora Online space using a different framework. If someone wanted to start building on COOL in a certain language, they can start to understand how the communication happens between the server and the computer it’s run on. Then they can build what they need on top of it in a multitude of languages.

Why did you want to spend your Summer at Collabora?

I mainly wanted to gain experience so I could make sure I was going into the right career path. I also wanted to do it because it would look good on my university application and personal statement.

What did you learn from your time at Collabora?

How to learn by myself but also when to ask for help when needed. I really learnt a lot about what I need to work on as both a Software Engineer and as a person so I can grow in both areas. It’s also the first time I’ve felt I’ve fully understood a (programming) language, which has given me more confidence.

Would you recommend an internship at Collabora to others interested in a career in technology?

Definitely! I think it was a good learning experience – it taught me personally what I want, and gave me a good insight into what a professional setting is like compared to an academic environment.

 

It’s great to see Abi’s work merged as a fresh new SDK example and to see how she has grown over the Summer.

Why not get involved? We love to work alongside the next generation to help them discover what a career in Software Engineering might look like. If you’ve ever considered it for yourself, get in touch today!

Collabora Online Unlocks the OpenPOWER Architecture

Cambridge, October 26, 2022. Collabora Productivity announces the availability of Collabora Online in the OpenPOWER architecture. Accessing this architecture makes our collaborative online office available on another group of powerful data centres and is the result of the young partnership with independent IT service provider 21unity, based in Dieburg, Germany.

Collabora Online Available on OpenPOWER

Starting with the release of the enterprise version 22.05.6, Collabora Online now supports the ppc64le architecture. The abbreviation describes the little-endian architecture provided by the OpenPOWER Foundation, which is based on the Power ISA instruction set. Power ISA is a successor to the PowerPC ISA developed by IBM for the microprocessor architecture of the corresponding name. The architecture is super-scalable and belongs to the family of Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC).

We are pleased to bring our product to the Power platform”, says Michael Meeks, General Manager, Collabora Productivity. “We love to work with like-minded partners who build their business around open technologies.”

Benefits of the OpenPOWER Architecture

Unlocking the OpenPOWER architecture is a consistent step in our strategy to make Collabora Online available on all modern architectures and platforms while bearing the best possible performance in mind. It enables us to deliver our collaborative online office on an additional family of servers and data centres. The OpenPOWER architecture combines performance with high reliability. The openness of the technology is the key to the recent innovations in performance and energy efficiency. For the ppc64le platform, Collabora currently provides Ubuntu 20.04 packages and Docker images to customers and Partners.

21unity and Collabora Productivity Forge a Partnership

The availability of Collabora Online on the OpenPOWER architecture is the result of the fruitful partnership between the Dieburg-based IT service provider 21unity and Collabora Productivity, and was facilitated by the openness of the technology used. The OpenPower Foundation follows an open collaboration model for its technology, in which participating companies share technological innovations with each other – comparable to Collabora’s open-source software development. Collabora Online is based on LibreOffice technology – new features and enhancements that our developers create for our desktop suite are incorporated into the LibreOffice core alongside Collabora Online. 21unity offers the digitally sovereign online collaboration solution 21unity CLOUD as a new product on the OpenPOWER architecture. The offering consists of Nextcloud Enterprise for sharing files, writing email, and conducting chats and video conferences, and includes Collabora Online as a feature-rich, professional online office with outstanding interoperability.

We are very pleased to be offering Collabora Online in our 21unity Cloud running on OpenPOWER”, says Yogi M. Schneider, CTO/CDO at 21unity. “It’s great to be able to offer the excellent features and interoperability to a wider user base.”

21unity operates the 21unity CLOUD from its own data centre with enterprise-class POWERServers in Dieburg, Germany.

About 21unity

21unity, based in Dieburg, specializes in customized IT solutions for companies. They are a cloud service provider and offer an “out-of-the-box” Nextcloud Enterprise with 21unity Collaboration Cloud and also created their own ERP system, which give the customers a full-fledged digital office experience. Their mission is to create easy-to-use, browser-based solutions for uncomplicated digital collaboration. In the area of system integration, they consider themselves not just a solution finder or developer, but an accelerator and trusted partner for digital transformation. The cloud offering provides a comprehensive collaboration office with the security of a German server location. The link with 21pro – a proprietary ERP – professionalizes the workflow in the process. Learn more at 21unitycloud.de

About Collabora Productivity

Collabora Productivity created Collabora Online, an online office suite based on LibreOffice Technology. Collabora provides a wide range of products, as well as consulting services for enterprises and governments. Powered by the largest team of certified LibreOffice engineers in the world, Collabora is a leading contributor to the LibreOffice codebase and community. Collabora Office for Desktop and Collabora Online provide a business-hardened office suite with long-term support. For more information, visit www.collaboraoffice.com or follow @CollaboraOffice on Twitter.

 

Free Collabora Online Demo

 

It’s a Wrap! COOL Days 2022 was a Sky High Success!

 

Thank you to all who attended our COOL Days meet up in Berlin on 3rd-5th October. We had a great time organising this for our Partners, Collabora team and open source community. It was a great success and we can’t wait to do it again!

If you didn’t manage to make it this time, check out our first YouTube short which shows a 2 minute overview of our amazing time in Berlin.


Community Day

On the Monday 3rd October we had our Collabora Productivity Community Team Building Day. This was a great chance to meet some of our Partners, and for the Collabora team to meet up after 3 years of travel restrictions. Many met in person for the first time and bonded over their love for retro computer games, competitive table football and the thrill of indoor skydiving!

Partner Day

Tuesday 4th October was our Partner Day, hosted at the Alexander Plaza Hotel. What a privilege it was to have Peter Ganten from Univention talk with us about his work to promote Digital Sovereignty, as well as hearing from members of the Collabora team about what we have been working on over the last year to build Collabora Online. We discussed the development road map for 2023 and had open discussions with our Partners about how we can support them and build closer relationships so we can work together even more successfully.

Meanwhile, the development community were taking part in a Hackfest at the bUm thanks to Nextcloud.

Technical Day

We all met at the bUm for our Technical Day on Wednesday 5th October. Some of our engineers, Partners and contributors presented lightning talks to show the latest developments happening at Collabora Online. It was a key chance for the community to speak directly with the engineers behind CODE and COOL, ask questions and input into the roadmap.

If you interested in seeing the slides from our lightning talks we’ve made them available on github:

COOL Days Slides

UX and Community Manager, Pedro, also blogged about our time there:

Pedro’s Blog

You may have seen some of our team live tweeting from the event – follow us on Twitter to see updates from events and conferences throughout the year.

 

We hope to see you at our next COOLDays event

 

Keep an eye out for where we’ll be next:

COOL Days

April 8-10, 2024 – Cambridge, UK

Nextcloud Enterprise Day

April 24, 2024 – Munich, Germany

OW2Con

June 11-12, 2024 – Paris, France

Meet Christopher – Collabora Software Engineering Intern

 

Collabora recruits interns to work over the summer alongside our team, and to build experience to help them assess whether they want to pursue a career in Software Engineering, but how does that work out? Let’s hear from Christopher:

Tell me about yourself!

My name is Christopher and I am currently studying Physics, Maths and Computer Science. I’ve been doing a fair amount of programming for around 4 or 5 years at home, mainly self-taught. I’ve also learnt a lot from my Dad who works as a Software and Hardware Engineer and my Grandad who is a Physicist. Outside of coding, I’ve been teaching myself to play guitar for the last year.

When did you first become interested in coding?

It was Christmas 2018 – I’d been given a coding task from my Computer Science teacher at school to make a simple game (Battleships) and I found it really interesting. As I was working on it, I got thinking how I could make it better, so I added databasing and networking functionality to it.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

The most enjoyable things for me are the functionality improvements I’ve been working on over the Summer with Collabora. I’ve made small UI changes that have made a meaningful difference to the end users.

What else have you been working on over the Summer?

I solved an existing bug with toggling elements in the notebook bar and also worked on the ability to toggle Dark Mode. I started the template for the Admin Console, creating a foundation for clustered diagnosis.

Why did you want to spend your Summer at Collabora?

I was told it would be valuable to get work experience in technology to help with my University application, and in the future it would look good on my CV. I originally heard about the Internship from the Computer Science department at my school – Michael Meeks came in to do a talk and I was inspired by his charisma. It made me excited to spend the Summer working on my skills through working at Collabora.

What did you learn from your time at Collabora?

The most valuable thing for me was learning how to work as part of a team. It’s hard to get this experience at GCSE and A Level as you’re only really given small personal projects.

What do you want to be working on in the future?

I don’t really know exactly what I want to work on yet! There’s so many different things you can do which is what attracted me to the industry. Having the skills is a real door opener and transferable across many industries.

Would you recommend an internship at Collabora to others interested in a career in technology?

Absolutely! It was challenging but stimulating – I’m very thankful for a great opportunity and to Pedro and Pranam for the skills they’ve taught me.

 

Christopher has been continuing to work on some projects for Collabora during his final year of college. We are excited to see what other UI improvements will be made over the coming months.

Why not get involved? We love to work alongside the next generation to help them discover what a career in Software Engineering might look like. If you’ve ever considered it for yourself, get in touch today!