Hacktoberfest: An opportunity for Data Science Beginners
Do you know what is Open-Source Coding?
Open-Source refers to code that anyone can edit and modify. Company or an individual makes a code open-source so that various developers can analyze it and together develop amazing software or service that can improve it.
Github contains thousands of open-sourced projects and is the best place for anyone looking for open-source codes. Open-source coding helps developers to read and comprehend others’ codes which in turn prepares them real-life and also helps them get relevant experience in the field.
For all those who are thinking what is Hacktober fest? It is an open-source coding event that occurs every year in the month of October wherein many programmers, hackers, developers, data scientists collaborate on projects through Github.
The first edition of Hacktober fest was held in 2014. Since then, each year in October this festival is conducted.
So what do we do for a month? We make pull requests.
You need to find projects that interest you, then look for bugs or new issues that may improve the project.
The basic workflow is like :
The main goal/challenge of Hacktoberfest is to make 4 valid pull requests. Once, you’ve done that the Hacktoberfest team gives 14 days to the owner of the project to review your work to check whether the pull requests made are valid.
Congratulations!! You’ve completed Hacktoberfest challenge now. Be ready to get some cool swags couriered to you via organisers.
My experience at Hacktoberfest 2020
I participated for the first time this year, I was so confused about how to search for projects, contact owners, and actually, make pull requests. But my experience was awesome. When I made my first Pull Request, aka PR, I was thrilled.
My first PR was on a project where the owner was interested in getting machine learning algorithms available for the Spanish speaking population. So, we were supposed to contribute by submitting algorithms and their explanation in English and people with required skillset would convert it into Spanish.
After submitting a PR, a 14 day review period is started, after which the PR becomes valid and counts towards the challenge.
After this, my second PR was based on a project involving a calculator. As a statistics student, I always felt that random function is very important for a calculator. When I reviewed the code of this calculator, I found that it lacked random function and so I raised an issue. The owner liked the idea and assigned me that issue.
Next, I contributed KMeans and Convolutional Neural Network algorithm to a project which was trying to create a repository for almost all kind of machine learning algorithms for people to learn.
At last, I found a project on #BlackLivesMatter. The owners were making an open-source project named DiversityCorp which was committed to holding Fortune 100 companies accountable. The project involved collecting data on what the company statements during black lives matter campaign versus what changes had they actually done to ensure that no such discrimination further takes place in their firms. I really loved this project, so after contributing data for the top 10 companies, I made another PR in which I contributed more.
After the 14 day review period of each PR, all my PRs got accepted.
I won a really cool swag of Hacktoberfest 2020 (Tshirt) which is yet to be delivered to my home due to delays in international shipments.
I am definitely participating next year and contributing to more open-source projects for a cause and also to improve my skills.
Looking forward to seeing you all there.
I just made a new website to showcase my projects. Check it out and stay tuned to see my next article on how to make a great portfolio for data science enthusiasts. (P.S. Website is a part of it)
Visit my website at https://anjali001.github.io/
Update:
I’m happy to share that I received the swags on 6th Jan’21.
Thankyou #hacktoberfest2020 for the stickers and tshirt.
