Author: Naomi Obbard

Recapping COOL Days 2023: The Event that Rocked Cambridge!

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Thank you to all who attended our COOL Days 2023 meet up in Cambridge on 28th & 29th March. We had a great time organising the event for our partners, the Collabora team and open source community. It was a great success!

If you didn’t manage to make it to Cambridge, check out our 90 second YouTube short which shows a quick overview of the fun we had.

COOL Days was based at Clare College, the second oldest of the 31 historic Cambridge Colleges. We started off our packed schedule full of lightning talks, partner workshops and team building with a meal at Millworks on the Monday evening (famous for it’s delicious Shawarma!)

The Technical Day

Is it possible to fit 45 lightning talks into one day? Yes!

We were live from Cambridge all day on Tuesday 28th March. It was wonderful to see so many presentations of all the work that’s been developing over the last 6 months by the Collabora Online team, community and partners all across Europe and beyond.

For those that would like to re-watch our COOL Days live stream, you can find it on our YouTube channel.
To download the slides from the Technical Talks, head to our github.

 

Partner Day

Wednesday 29th March was our Partner Day, full of workshops and discussions around our collaborative Partner Programme. It was a privilege to have Simon Phipps and Robert Riemann kick off the day with their insights into the importance of data protection in Europe and future of open source.

Throughout the rest of the day we had many open discussions with our Partners about how we can support them and work together even more successfully and talked about the development road map for 2023.

 

LibreOffice Technology Hackfest

On Wednesday 29th March we also held a Hackfest for those who are involved in the LibreOffice Technology community. Many hours were spent hacking in person, learning from one another and solving bugs with other members of the community.

 

Social Events

We made sure there were plenty of opportunities for team building including a treasure hunt around Cambridge, punting down the river Cam and of course, some delicious meals together. On the final evening we dined at Ridley Hall which for many, gave them a taster of what dining at Hogwarts might be like – minus the owls!

 

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

We hope to see you at our next COOL Days event.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for where we’ll be next:

Nextcloud Enterprise Day

June 13, 2023 – Munich, Germany

LibreOffice Conference 2023

September 20 - 23, 2023 – Bucharest, Romania

SSCon 2023

November 7-9, 2023 – Berlin, Germany

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Collabora Online Partners with Exzatech

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Cambridge, United Kingdom – Bangalore, India – 01 November 2022

Collabora, the developers behind Collabora Online, and Exzatech Consulting, an IT and software solution provider focusing on security and enhanced business performance, are happy to announce a partnership integrating Collabora Online and Exzatech’s ‘Ndryve’ collaborative workspace.

“We are pleased to be Partnering with Exzatech and increasing our offering in Asia.” said Michael Meeks, General Manager of Collabora Productivity. “We love to work with Partners who place value in providing businesses with data privacy and have a great vision for their technology.”

Collabora Online now available in Ndryve

Exzatech provides Ndryve, an enterprise-ready, remote-friendly, “Content Collaboration Workspace” with a focus on data protection and security. Providing a range of benefits for all types of businesses including Government and Healthcare, Ndryve also hosts unique features for research and academic institutions.

Ndryve offers traditional on-premises, hybrid managed or fully cloud-hosted content collaboration workspaces. Their technology combines the ease of consumer-grade solutions like Dropbox and Google Drive, with the security, privacy and control of individual business’ needs.

Collabora Online is a powerful online office suite that supports all major document, spreadsheet and presentation file formats which can be easily integrated in many infrastructures and solutions. Key features are collaborative editing and excellent office file format support.

Collabora Online is excellent for enterprises that need a powerful office suite in the cloud, or on-premises, that protects their privacy and allows them to keep full control of their sensitive corporate data. Collabora Online enables Hosting and Cloud businesses to include document viewing and collaborative editing functionality into their service offerings.

“We are happy to now be offering Collabora Online as an integration in Ndryve, giving our customers the ability to integrate a full-featured, flexible, collaborative workspace across desktop and mobile.” says Anantha Raghava, Chief Executive Officer of Exzatech Consulting.

About Exzatech Consulting

Exzatech combines flexibility and creativity to provide strategic guidance and innovative solutions to their clients. Their vendor-agnostic approach gives them the ability to provide the most suitable analysis, advice, and solutions for each business. Over the years, they have deployed adaptable and innovative solutions for a number of leading BFSI, government, and enterprise clients that have improved operations, secured networks, saved costs, and enhanced business performance.

“As individuals, we are just like anyone else. But as a team, we are a powerhouse of knowledge, skills, and ideas. With decades’ worth of business and technology experience under our wings, we have built a formidable presence as a much sought after IT and software solution provider in India and abroad.” says Exzatech.

For more information visit www.exzatechconsulting.com/ndryve

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.

Collabora’s multi-platform policy is completed with Collabora Office for iOS and Android. Collabora Productivity is a division of Collabora, the global software consultancy dedicated to providing benefits of Open Source to the commercial world, specializing in mobile, automotive and consumer electronics industries. For more information, visit www.collaboraoffice.com or follow @CollaboraOffice on Twitter.

Free Collabora Online Demo

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Meet Abi – Collabora Software Engineering Intern

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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!

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

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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:

Nextcloud Enterprise Day

June 13, 2023 – Munich, Germany

LibreOffice Conference 2023

September 20 - 23, 2023 – Bucharest, Romania

SSCon 2023

November 7-9, 2023 – Berlin, Germany

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Meet Christopher – Collabora Software Engineering Intern

Naomi Obbard 1 Comment

 

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!

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