Recap of Didi Open Source Annual Conference 2021 – Highlights, Statistics, and Awarded Projects

In early January 2021, Didi held its annual open‑source conference, the fourth Didi Open‑Source Summit for 2020. The event featured speeches from Didi co‑founder and CTO Zhang Bo, as well as distinguished guests such as Bao Yungang (Director of the Advanced Computing Systems Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Jiang Ning (Founder of the Apache Beijing Community), and Wu Sheng (Apache Member and founder of Apache SkyWalking).

During the opening address, Zhang Bo reviewed major technical achievements of 2020, praised the contributions of product‑research teams, and highlighted Didi’s open‑source breakthroughs: a dual increase in the number and quality of projects, the first contributions to top‑tier global foundations, and notable outputs in pandemic response and commercial exploration.

Key statistics presented at the summit include:

Didi has released 63 open‑source projects to the public, accumulating over 72,000 stars on GitHub.

The company ranks among the top five Chinese enterprises in open‑source contributions and is within the global top 100.

External developers number nearly 30,000, with more than 5,000 enterprises and organizations using Didi’s open‑source technologies.

Significant milestones highlighted:

In September 2020, Didi donated the deep‑learning NLP project DELTA to the Linux Foundation’s LFAI foundation, marking Didi’s first contribution to a top‑level global open‑source foundation.

In February 2020, Didi open‑sourced its mask‑wearing detection technology, which has since been adopted by over 100 enterprises, including Panasonic, for pandemic mitigation.

The conference also announced Didi’s new internal open‑source strategy – “internal large‑cycle, internal‑external dual‑cycle” – aimed at breaking departmental silos, avoiding duplicated effort, and improving internal R&D efficiency. An internal “Didi Open‑Source Foundation” will provide funding and technical mentorship to nurture promising internal projects.

Several speakers delivered talks on open‑source projects, community building, and personal growth. The event concluded with the presentation of the 2020 Didi Open‑Source Awards:

First Prize: DoKit (https://github.com/didi/DoraemonKit)

Second Prize: Chameleon (https://github.com/didi/chameleon) and Cube‑ui (https://github.com/didi/cube-ui)

Third Prize: MPX (https://github.com/didi/mpx), Nightingale (https://github.com/didi/nightingale), and ChineseNLP (https://github.com/didi/ChineseNLP)

Didi also became an Apache Software Foundation Silver Member, pledging further collaboration with Apache projects.