Since its introduction in 1998, open source has made significant contributions to the world’s emerging technologies by promoting ownership and open collaboration among developers. As new technologies continue to surface at a rapid pace, more than ever it is crucial to encourage opportunities for open source to be adopted, developed, and utilized for local and global innovation for the future.

Such opportunities have been badly needed in the Philippines as open source was generally not known up until 2022. Open source communities were not widely present besides those related to Linux, Java, and Python, and there was no centralized organization overseeing the contributions and development of open source software. In analyzing the behavior within Filipino open source community groups, participation levels were quite low, primarily focused on job listings and certification support rather than active involvement in the community. Meet-ups or avenues for information sharing about OSS were sparse and far between, and only around 24,000 users contributed to GitHub. There were no Filipinos involved in maintaining big or famous open source projects as well. While software development conferences are not new in the country, these conferences do not highlight open source contributions.

Given the largely untapped potential of open source in the country, Samsung Open Source Conference, otherwise known as SOSCON, was brought to the Philippines in 2022, serving as a place where people from different backgrounds come together to share their knowledge and experiences with open source technologies. Pioneered in South Korea in 2014 and now implemented in various Samsung Global Research Centers outside Korea since 2020, SOSCON became a breeding ground for discussions among developers and innovators to increase awareness about open source locally.

With the theme of “Bukás para sa Bukas” which means Open for the Future, the first ever SOSCON focused on exploring the local open source landscape and how open source is used across different sectors of Filipino society. Topics covered including Kubernetes orchestration, Apache Spark, front-end development using React JS, technical writing for complex topics, open source with GitHub, data science, and open source in the Philippines, with each topic introduced by various employees and experts within and outside SRPH.

2023 SOSCON aimed to make the connections between data intelligence and open source clearer in the realms of power data analytics, engineering and data visualization with the theme, “Inspiring Action through Open Source”. Additional topics covered in 2023’s SOSCON included achieving model efficiency for a wider adoption of AI, Delta Lake and version control in data engineering, Baybayin optical recognition systems using support vector machines, the use of open source technologies in providing game predictions, optimizing open source for health research and development, Tensorflow with JAX2TF for fine-tuning and fusing LLMs, Airflow, Riesgo Vis, and the future of open source in artificial intelligence.

This year, SOSCON shifts its focus on open source being a collaborative tool to engage Filipinos in contributing to technological progress in the country. With the theme, “Weaving Tomorrow’s Techscape”, SOSCON 2024 stresses on the potential and capabilities of Filipinos in impacting the future, in line with SRPH’s culture statement of “Shaping the Future Together.” Through efforts like SOSCON, open source in the Philippines will hopefully become a more accessible avenue to drive technological advancements in the country.