BgGPT is the new bulgarian alternative to ChatGPT. It performs better than other LLMs in bulgarian language all while being on par in english with other known services. It's developped by INSAIT, a known AI research institute, situated in Sofia, Bulgaria, combining talent from ETH Zurich, EPFL, Sofia University and more.
## Project hunting process
First of all, I started exploring projects that were connected to my interests. Given that I have developped mobile apps with maps in the past, I decided to take a look at [OpenStreetMap](https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto). However, the project is extremely large, layered, and hard to digest, so I had no clear idea how I could make a contribution. Then I skimmed through other projects I could make translations to (like React.js, MDN Docs, ...), as I know that this is something that can always be improved on, but I did not find what I was looking for. Following that, I took a look at plenty of random repositories, issues, and also dove into more unconventional projects, like adding a new feature to an esoteric programming language. I stumbled upon [spookyc](https://github.com/normanpiryns/spookyc), which is a programming language which is supposed to scare you (I know Halloween is behind us). It looked fun at first, but I didn't manage to make it function locally. I wanted to get a basic understanding of it and implement some new tests. It seemed depreciated, due to lack of maintenance (to be expected, given that it has not been active since 7 years). Later on, I started browsing repositories of things I know and discovered that INSAIT had their own repos and saw there was no README, and thought it would be a suitable addition, even though it is non-technical and does not help the project in any way outside of marketing. It is unfortunate that I could not solve an actual problem, but I got the gist of how I can make a better impact in the future.
## My contribution
A simple informative README about the BgGPT project in bulgarian language. I opened the pull request and wait for a potential merge. Due to the low priority of the task, I did not insist on contacting the owners and getting this through, but if it was a more relevant feature, I would have insisted on more feedback and iterate on it.
## Local Fork
https://github.com/normanpiryns/BgGPT/tree/readme
## Reflections
In conclusion, I believe contributing to an open source project is more than just going online and writing a line of code, but being an active part of a community that builds the project together and is engaged with its evolution.
I underestimated the effort it takes to find a bite-sized but active project that runs locally, but I think that as I increase my engagement with the software engineering world, I will be able to build more significant features to existing projects.
