The Open Source and Open Technologies SIG of the Emerging Technology Special Interest Division has jointly organized the 2008 Asia Open Source Software Conference and Codefest. The two conveners of this SIG, Mr. Wilson Ko and Dr. Samson Tam led a group of 29 students and attended the event held in Guangzhou.

Jointly hosted by Guangdong Linux Center (GDLC), Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization, Japan (CICC), Hong Kong Computer Society (HKCS) and Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC), the “Asia OSS Conference and Showcase” - an Asian international summit, was held during 8 - 14 Mar 2008 in Guangzhou, China with an objective to accelerate the open source software (OSS) development in Asia.

29 Hong Kong students from eight local education institutions including The University of Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong IVE (Chai Wan), IVE (Haking Wong) and IVE (Tsing Yi) had participated in one of the AOSSCS programme – CodeFest , a 2-day OSS programming marathon with the objectives of providing a workshop for students from the region to share their knowledge and experience.

The 29 students participated in Codefest were privileged to have worked with various OSS mentors from China, U.S., Japan and other economies during the two-day event. “The introduction of Ruby on Rails by Aaron (the veteran) was really systematic and practical. I have never been able to find anything even close to it in school “said Chris, a member of Radiant CMS team. Yang, another student and a member of the Linux Ext4 team also concluded, “Big brother (the veteran) was brilliant. Without his hints and passion, we could have never finished this project.”

The event not only provides an opportunity for IT students to build networks and connections, but also gathers the veterans and students form Mainland, Japan and Hong Kong together to renew and enlarge the circle of acquaintances. "Codefest has given me an opportunity to understand students from another culture. I talked in crappy Mandarin, assisted by English phases, but the cooperation was still awesome!" Rick Mak, a member of RadiantCMS team said.

At the closing ceremony of the CodeFest, representatives from each group were elected to present the programming results. “It was truly a unique experience of OSS development. The chaos, the hard work, and the friendship are all unforgettable” said Rick Tong, a member of the Linux Ext4 team. "Kernel programming should never be tried by a normal human being" said Max, a member of the Linux Ext4 team. "I will definitely join if Codefest will be held again" Chun, a member of Apache Tuscany team said.