September 2023: Productive but Stretched!
This September, my hands have been on deck, supporting and improving diversity in the tech ecosystem.
From working on reviewing applications to engaging and supporting curious and anticipating applicants, planning and executing live coffee chats to work trips
Earlier this month, I was in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for the second edition of the Diversity and Inclusion in Scientific Computing (DISC) Unconference by NumFOCUS. Alongside other diverse folks worldwide, we worked on enabling initiatives to enhance diverse communities.
Our mission is to increase the participation and inclusion of underrepresented people in the tech ecosystem.
After days of brainstorming and collaboration, we presented our collective work and published our outputs. All group topics were worth participating in, and choosing was difficult. I had the best team, so we focused on “A Mentoring Guide for Open Projects.”
Here are the projects we built, and they are open for improvements and contributions: https://github.com/numfocus/disc-unconference-2023-projects. It was a great avenue to share some of our approaches at Outreachy and gain new insights that will be helpful to strengthen the Outreachy program, especially from the mentors and mentoring community side of things.
I was also privileged to attend the PyData Amsterdam 2023 conference. Meeting with and networking with other tech professionals and enthusiasts was exciting. I talked to experienced folks about joining Outreachy as a mentor and improving their projects through Outreachy applicants and interns' contributions while supporting the Outreachy goals to support and enhance diversity in tech.
The first Python Language Conference, PyCon Uganda, was held in the Pearl of Africa.
I joined a panel session to discuss diversity in the tech ecosystem from an African perspective. We highlight its state, how organizations can work and partner with others to enable, be intentional, and support diversity, and the roles we as individuals need to play. It was indeed such an educational and insightful session.
I joined the Outreachy past interns in Uganda to celebrate the program’s 1,000 intern milestone. It was a fantastic session, and I was honored to answer some questions from applicants and potential mentors.
On Day 3, I spoke about building and influencing the open source ecosystem. My session focused on how anyone can build with and influence the open source ecosystem. I also encouraged folks to join Outreachy as mentors to give back and affect the ecosystem.
