Neeraj Pathak
Neeraj Pathak is an SDE intern in Deloitte working on Open-source technologies and ML models. Alongside he's a Software Developer & core-maintainer of Stdlib, a JS library for numerical and scientific computing. He has also worked on a Research & ML Open source project at Google Deepmind namely at JAX-Privacy, and received a Letter of Recommendation from Research scientist at Google. In the past he has hosted multiple talks for the local dev-community based out in India with monthly meet-ups being organised. Neeraj was previously invited by Y Combinator to attend their first startup school talk in India.
Session
For decades, OSS communities grew through visible friction. Newcomers filed issues, asked questions, and in doing so announced their arrival. Maintainers noticed. Contributors became maintainers. Now AI is removing that friction.
Through an NSF-backed program, stdlib conducted 100+ stakeholder interviews and found the same pattern: newcomers increasingly rely on AI instead of engaging with communities. Maintainers never see them arrive, and communities lose opportunities to grow contributors.
This session is intended for maintainers, OSPO leads, and researchers interested in the future of FOSS, Attendees will leave with evidence-based frameworks for growing contributors & community as the old, accidental on-ramps quietly disappear.