Up for 2025 YH4F? 2024 Winner Sofía Aritz shares why it's a must-join!

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...

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.

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…

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!