Justin's Blog

Sun's Campus Ambassador Program

Updated 8 August 2008

Sun Microsystems Australia and New Zealand is currently seeking applications from Student Developers to join Sun's World-Wide Campas Ambassador Program. A limited number of positions are available in this region. Only one student per University will be selected. Applications expire at the end of October 2008.

Resumes should be sent to Ganesh.Hiregoudar@Sun.COM with a copy to gary.serda@sun.com and kevin.mayo@sun.com by the end of October 2008. A referral from the Head of School at your University will help.

Positions are part-time, around 5 hours per week to commence as soon as possible through to the end of June 2008.

Job Summary

The Sun Academic Developer Program is all about sharing and participation. That's why Sun is recruiting for a student intern to ensure that Academic Developers (students, faculty & researchers) at the University take advantage of the latest innovative and Open technologies such as Java, Open Solaris, Open SPARC and NetBeans. We invite you to join the global community of Sun Campus Ambassadors. The Sun Campus Ambassador will build communities around Sun's free and open source platforms (OpenSolaris, Open SPARC and Java) and developer tools among Academic Developers (students, faculty and researchers) at the University.  The Sun Campus Ambassador is expected to become proficient on Sun's open technologies, including OpenSolaris, Java, Netbeans, and Sun Studio. Sun will provide extensive training on each of these technologies.

Job Description

Sun is looking for graduate or senior level students with a strong background in software development/programming to work part time to:

• Lead the Sun open source developer community on your campus
• Run Sun Technology demo sessions on your campus
• Promote Sun training events on your campus
• Promote Sun's platforms and development tools to professors and researchers
  

The Sun Campus Ambassador must have a strong background in software development/programming. The Campus Ambassador must have excellent communication skills and should be comfortable serving as a public speaker. In addition, the Campus Ambassador must be self-motivated, highly organized and be able to work independently. Familiarity with NetBeans, Sun Studio, mySQL and/or the Solaris Operating System are desirable.

Every Campus Ambassador will be provided with a special award at their commencement. 

Further Background

Sun's Campus Ambassadors are facilitating the adoption of open source technologies on campus, as well as fostering community and innovation. These technologies and open source projects include the Solaris 10 OS; Java technology-based systems; community projects such as the OpenSolaris project and OpenSPARC technology project; and the NetBeans integrated development environment (IDE) and Sun Studio software tools.

Sun provides the Campus Ambassadors with free training and support; in turn, ambassadors help student developers take advantage of Sun's robust portfolio of high-value, no-cost resources, such as free web-based training, free developer tools, open source technologies and communities, and easily accessible technical support via forums and communities. In selecting candidates for the Campus Ambassador program, Sun is choosing from among the most original and innovative young minds on campus today.

Anil Gulecha, a Campus Ambassador from India, invented a way for Solaris to be booted off a USB drive. One of Sun's Canadian Campus Ambassadors, Martin Morissette, led a team of students who built a Java technology-powered submarine, called Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, that dazzled judges at the prestigious International Autonomous Underwater Competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Sun is also turning to its Campus Ambassador community in order to provide business and academic decision makers valuable insight into needs and expectations for university IT infrastructures. In a recent survey of Sun Campus Ambassadors, students expressed high expectations for e-learning resources, wireless access and open source tools – insight that may shape IT decisions, purchasing and the market itself. Several sessions at WWERC will address these issues, and Sun's Hal Stern, senior vice president of systems engineering, will host a panel of students who will share their IT challenges, triumphs, expectations and frustrations. "The people at Sun are a great mentors and the internship opportunity helps enhance students' careers," said Fahad Hussain, Sun Campus Ambassador at San Jose State University. "Sun works closely with the universities to equip students with advanced skills, hands-on experience with leading-edge, open source technologies, and the confidence to create new technologies.

Not only does Sun offer training and support, the dialogue goes both ways. Sun is interested in hearing what we really need to get the most from our IT education and be ready to make a difference in the business world." To help meet student demand for open content and technologies, Sun's Campus Ambassadors are facilitating the adoption of open source technologies on campus. These technologies and open source projects include the Solaris 10 OS, Java technology-based systems, community projects such as the OpenSolaris project and OpenSPARC technology project; and the NetBeans integrated development environment (IDE). During FY07, the program met with huge success, with more than 180 Campus Ambassadors in more than 30 countries. This financial year, we intend to expand the program even more.

Posted at 05:24PM Aug 29, 2007 by Justin Glen in Sun  |  Comments[4]