Last Updated: May 2025

pn-projects is a student-initiated, faculty-guided open-source and academic innovation organization. We are a community dedicated to building and maintaining:

• 🔓 Open-source CS & EC engineering projects
• 🎓 Academic projects and submissions for CSE and ECE domains
• 🔬 Confidential research projects aimed at publication, patents, or thesis support

Our mission is to empower students, educators, and early professionals by providing a real-world development platform governed by clean structure, academic integrity, and scalable open collaboration.

We envision a self-sustaining, evolving organization that continues to thrive even as its founding members graduate. We are structured to:

• Transition smoothly across academic batches
• Maintain long-term project continuity
• Provide leadership and mentorship roles to ensure growth
• Uphold technical standards, documentation quality, and reproducibility
• Protect contributor identity, authorship, and code ethics

Our ultimate goal is to become a global student-led project powerhouse, a standard for how technical student communities should work.

The core governance of pn-projects is built around the following formal documents:

These documents must be read and understood by anyone applying for internal membership.

From top-level governance to casual contributors, we support a wide spectrum of technical engagement:

• FM / Founding CMDO – Strategic founders with root powers
• CMDOs – The administrative and technical governors
• Mentors – Professors or domain experts supporting integrity and research
• Legacy CMDOs – Honored alumni who built our foundation
• Senior Maintainers – Project leads and review authorities
• Junior Maintainers – Execution-focused active developers
• Contributors – Global participants via public PRs

For full responsibilities, see: Responsibilities.md

• Publicly accessible
• Maintained under strict technical review and CI/CD standards
• Includes firmware, embedded apps, CLI tools, simulation utilities, and developer libraries

• Private repositories available to verified students and faculty
• Structured for reuse, extension, and submission readiness
• Example: Reimplementation of a mini-compiler, digital logic trainer, or lab instrumentation app

• Confidential and review-only access
• Available only to CMDOs and approved mentors
• Includes publication-ready code, experimentation, and cross-university collaboration

Each project type is managed under clear protocols defined in our Contribution Policy and Project Lifecycle.

1. Fork any public repository
2. Make 3 meaningful PRs (bugfix, docs, feature)
3. Follow contribution guidelines in Contribution_Policy.md
4. Apply for contributor listing or Maintainer entry

• Join a project under guidance of a Senior Maintainer
• Attend onboarding and sprint meetings
• Consistently deliver and collaborate
• Request promotion as per Roles_and_Promotions.md

• Must be a faculty member or researcher
• Must endorse at least one project
• Join only via invitation or recommendation by a CMDO

Project Proposal → CMDO Approval → Repo Setup
     ↓                        ↓
 Team Assigned        Roadmap Defined
     ↓                        ↓
  Issues Opened       Code Written + Reviewed
     ↓                        ↓
   Testing & Docs → Milestone → Release/Archive

• Project proposals use a unified template (stored in /docs/)
• Every project has a README, CONTRIBUTING, LICENSE, and /docs
• Weekly or bi-weekly check-ins are expected for maintainers

We operate using a flat yet responsible structure that decentralizes authority while ensuring accountability.

┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Founding Member / FM      │
│ (Root Admin - Advisory)   │
└────────────┬──────────────┘
             ↓
    ┌────────▼─────────┐
    │      CMDOs       │◄── Audit / Elections / Transitions
    └────────┬─────────┘
             ↓
   ┌─────────▼──────────┐
   │ Project Maintainers │◄─ Project Assignments
   └─────────┬──────────┘
             ↓
    ┌────────▼────────┐
    │   Contributors   │◄─ Public Participation
    └──────────────────┘

• CMDOs govern policy, infrastructure, and project lifecycle.
• Maintainers execute and manage per-project development.
• Contributors scale our reach and experimentation.
• Mentors (not shown here) support CMDOs directly.

For more, see Constitution.md and Roles_and_Promotions.md.

We believe in merit-based visibility and tangible rewards:

• CMDO-signed certificates available on request
• Performance-based endorsements for students' resumes
• Maintainers eligible after completing a project sprint

• Monthly shoutouts via Discord, GitHub discussions
• Top contributors pinned on CONTRIBUTORS.md

• All projects must have appropriate name
• The nomanclature should not violate CoC

• Only authorized CMDOs can use the official PrabodhNandini crest in public decks/presentations
• Requires approval for use in:
  • Conference submissions
  • University posters
  • Press releases or product branding

• Members must not represent pn-projects as an official vendor or sponsor
• For media partnerships or inter-university MoUs, contact: teamprabodhnandini@gmail.com

We actively welcome partnerships with:

• University labs and faculty teams
• Hackathon teams transitioning to open source
• Independent developers who seek structure
• Research labs in VLSI, Embedded, ML-on-Edge, IoT, and CSE

Proposal template available in: /docs/CollabProposal.md

This README is a living document that evolves with the organization.

We are students, engineers, mentors, and builders united by shared values of:

• Openness
• Fairness
• Technical rigor
• Academic honor
• Long-term continuity

If you believe in contributing with integrity and scaling with community — pn-projects is your home.

🌟 Welcome to the PrabodhNandini ecosystem.