This is pretty much Rails/Ruby related only, and I believe that even though there are points to be taken for other programming languages, people who still haven't contributed to OS and working with, say, PHP will not benefit much.

And have to mention:

> "2. IMPROVE AN EXISTING GEM TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE"

This is such a cliché ("[doing something] to make the world a better place"), misused everywhere from CVs, random blog posts like this and missions of companies.

Seeing this phrase just downgrades the opinion and value of the source for me.