Up for 2025 YH4F? 2024 Winner Sofía Aritz shares why it's a must-join!
The fourth round of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom (YH4F) is
officially underway, with its opening event on 9 January. Sofía, one of
the 2024 winners, gives us an insight into her project, how she came up
with her idea, and her experience of the competition in general. Find
out more! And do not forget to register for this
edition!
A new edition of
Youth Hacking 4 Freedom (YH4F) is starting this week with its opening
event on Thursday 9 January. At this event, the YH4F organizers will explain how
this competition works and will resolve your doubts so, if you still
haven’t done it, register! This
unique programming competition, organized by the Free Software
Foundation Europe, encourages young Europeans to develop a personal
technical project under one premise: whatever it is, it has to be Free
Software. But it is more than just a contest: it's an opportunity for
young talent to showcase their creativity, learn new skills, and
contribute to their community.
We spoke with Sofía Aritz, one of last year's winners, who shared her
journey from doubting to register to participate due to a lack of ideas
to winning with her project Identity, a project she
developed almost at the end of the programming
phase. Identity is a general purpose memory storage app, but
the data you store in Identity has an unlimited number of use
cases such as medical ones, helping people suffering dementia,
palliative care, depression, etc.
FSFE: Hi Sofía! First of all, congratulations on
being one of the winners of the last round of YH4F! Could you please
briefly introduce yourself and tell us what you like to do before we
delve into your project?
Sofía: Thank you very much! My name is Sofía Aritz
and I am 18 years old. I love reading and programming, these two have
been my greatest passions for the last decade. Over the years, I’ve
applied my computer knowledge in different areas: music, databases, data
sovereignty...
FSFE: What was your first experience with
programming and how did you start learning it? Was it with Free
Software?
Sofía: My first experience with programming was at
the age of five, when my uncle gave my mother a printed copy of the
Python tutorial. The prospect of being able to control a computer was
one of my biggest motivations for learning to program. I was able to
learn Python thanks to both the tutorial and the fact that it is Free
Software.
Register for Youth Hacking 4 Freedom 2025!
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FSFE: How and why did you decide to join YH4F? What
do you like the most about the contest?
Sofía: Although YH4F was exactly what I had been
looking for years, I had doubts about joining it because at that time, I
had no (good) ideas and I was in my last year of high school, so I was
quite busy. But since it sounded really good [a programming contest for
young people who could work on whatever they wanted!], I thought about
it and finally joined at the end of February 2024. I was sure at the
end, I was going to have an idea.
About what I like the most… It's hard to choose: the concept of YH4F,
the groups meetings, my peers…
FSFE: So, when you joined, you didn’t have an idea.
How did you come up with your final project, Identity?
Sofía: I didn't come up with the idea of Identity until the
programming phase was almost over. My mother is a singing teacher, but
she's done some medical work in the past. One of the things she
researched was the relationship between dementia and music. Over the
years, she has tried to look for things similar to Identity, but
couldn't find any. Then one night, we started talking about the
relationship between dementia and music, and the idea of Identity became
a reality.
Since I didn’t have any meaningful ideas in mind when I joined, I
started working on an application to help my school manage their
computers, but similar Free Software projects already existed and the
idea didn’t really appeal to me. I also had a couple of other ideas that
I worked on for a very short time, but I can’t remember what they
were.
In the beginning, Identity was going to be a music-centric app with
integrations to platforms such as Libre.fm, Spotify… but after
discussing possible use cases and who Identity could be useful to, we
landed on the current concept of Identity. Together, my mother and I, we
came up with the current idea of Identity.
FSFE: What motivates you to work on your project?
How can Identity be useful for everyone?
Sofía: What motivates me the most is the fact that
Identity can help millions of people, not just those with dementia, but
everyone! That's why I'm currently working on the project.
Right now Identity is just a general purpose memory storage app, but
the data you store in Identity has an unlimited number of use cases.
What I'm currently researching is how memories can help people in
different areas: dementia, palliative care, depression, etc.
On a technical level, I plan to implement a plug-in system that will
allow anyone to use the data they store for specific purposes: from
things like an "Identity Wrapped" to more medically focused use
cases.
This is one of the open questions from my presentation during the
award ceremony, and even though things are clearer now, it is not yet
resolved, but I am working on it!
FSFE: What were the main problems or challenges that
you encountered during the programming phase?
Sofía: I didn't face many technical challenges while
working on the project. I used a tech stack that I was familiar with and
didn't worry much about code quality and scalability. I had a huge time
constraint and I decided to just build a proof of concept.
The biggest challenge was working on the project without having a
clearly defined idea. I started coding while I was still discussing with
my mother what Identity would become and what Identity
would be used for.
FSFE: Did you work on your project alone or had any
help by others? How did you learn so much about the needs of elderly
people?
Sofía: I did all of the programming myself, but I
got feedback and ideas from a dozen of people who were really invested
in the idea of Identity. Without those people, especially my mother,
Identity wouldn't be what it is today.
I did a lot of research into how the use of memories could benefit
palliative care and dementia patients, but the cornerstone in the
initial phases was my mother. She had already done research on these
topics some years ago.
FSFE: How has participating in YH4F and working on
your project affected you personally? What have you learned about
yourself through this experience?
Sofía: Participating in YH4F has changed my life for
the better. I've learned how to manage projects efficiently, how to work
on a project whose requirements change constantly, how to give and
receive constructive and actionable feedback…
I've always had loads of energy and motivation and, thanks to YH4F
and my current internship at the FSFE, I can focus that energy and
motivation on changing the world for the better.
FSFE: Do you think you will continue working on your
project and what would be some next steps you would like to take? Are
you planning to improve the documentation so that more people can reuse
your projects?
Sofía: Of course! Right now I'm working with some
doctors specialized in palliative care and with some experts on the
field of data security to make sure that Identity is as secure and as
useful as it needs to be.
I'm rewriting Identity with a focus on scalability, interoperability,
security, and modularity, and one of the things I am focusing on is
proper and useful documentation. In the future, Identity may have to
interoperate with existing medical systems, so documentation is one of
the most important aspects of the project.
FSFE: Is there any kind of advice that you would
like to tell new Youth Hacking 4 Freedom participants?
Sofía: I have a huge list of advice I would give
people participating in Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, but there is one that I
would highlight: don't be afraid to submit unfinished projects!
Identity works, but there are many things that don't (e.g. the
trustee system) and I thought about not submitting Identity to YH4F.
Thankfully my mother encouraged me to submit it and my life has
completely changed for the better ever since!
FSFE: What are your future plans in the area of Free
Software?
Sofía: I'll continue working on Identity and
contributing to Free Software projects, as I've been doing for the last
few months. But my focus has shifted. I have just started an internship
at the FSFE, in which I will learn how to do public awareness and policy
work to improve the state of Free Software in Europe!
FSFE: Thank you Sofía for your time and for sharing
your thoughts and insights about Youth Hacking 4 Freedom. It is a
pleasure to welcome you to the FSFE staff team! It is truly amazing to
see what you have accomplished due to Youth Hacking 4 Freedom.
The 2025 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom started on 1 January with
its programming phase. On 9 January, the competition will officially
kick off with an opening event in which participants will get all the
information about the contest and will be able to solve all their
questions. Moreover, the event will include former
participants that will tell about their experience and will give some
tips on how to find a project and making it a winner.
Late registration is possible but we recommend you
to register as soon as
possible to be able to meet other participants. Check out the YH4F website to find out all the details of
this competition or feel free to reach out to the organisers via mail! Thanks to our donor Reinhard
Wiesemann and our sponsor Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH for making this competition
possible.
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