Code 4 govt contribution experience

Hey everyone!!! I’m excited to share my experience of contributing to and writing a proposal for the Code 4 Govt program.

So, what is the Code 4 Govt program? It’s a program that offers an opportunity to engage with products in the Digital Public Goods (DPG) space and connect with brilliant minds. In simple terms, it’s similar to the Google Summer of Code (GSOC) program.

I registered for this program in May after receiving an email from Unstop about it. Since I was familiar with the GSOC program, I decided to give this program a shot.

This was the second edition of the C4GT program, featuring 104 projects across 38 products from 20 organizations, with over 70 mentors.

Initially, I was a bit confused about which project to choose. So, I decided to look into each project to see which one aligned with my tech stack. While searching, I came across a project from CARE organization that perfectly aligned with my tech stack. One of their projects involved refactoring the middleware from JavaScript to TypeScript.

To familiarize myself with the codebase, I started contributing to their middleware repository and frontend repository on GitHub. This gave me an opportunity to connect with the project mentor and gain a better understanding of their organizational goals.

After getting acquainted with the codebase and the project, I began writing the proposal following the provided guidelines. During this process, I came across a side task of validating data using a union discriminator, which I was initially unfamiliar with. However, upon reaching out to my mentor, he kindly helped me gain a clear understanding of it.

As the deadline for project proposals approached, I double-checked my proposal for any errors and finally submitted it.

I learned a lot during this contribution phase, and now I’m eagerly waiting for the selection results. I’ll keep you all updated!!!!

Update — I got selected :)