I joined Outreachy to provide value for the underrepresented population.

I joined Outreachy to provide value for the underrepresented population.

April 2022: First Month at Outreachy

As an advocate for marginalized and underserved populations, I have worked directly with these groups, both in empowering them into tech and with the knowledge of their rights and accessible means for them to enforce the same. Given the opportunity to work as the community manager for a non-profit organization, Outreachy, dedicated to providing a paid 3-month internship program for populations who are subject to systemic bias and impacted by underrepresentation in the technical industry where they are living, this is a great chance to serve the population I'm passionate about and do what I love to do best.

I joined the Outreachy team on the 1st of April. You can read my welcome blog post announcement here.

Let me take you through how my first month went.

(I have a lot to write about, but I will do my best to summarize, so you don't get bored๐Ÿ˜‰).

I was welcomed by the best team, Anna and Sage. Anna reached out to me some days before my resumption to inform me of my onboarding, next steps, and to get me set on a few key things, noting that it may be a bit overwhelming due to the overflow of information I'll receive. I was asked to setup some things so I could access different systems.

My first few months' goals are to understand Outreachy systems, get to know and meet with my team (they are really interesting and, I must say, it's like I have been working with Anna and Sage for months). I couldn't ask for a better team. To familiarize myself with the way things are, this seems quite easier because there is lots of documentation in place and my team is doing their best by updating and creating new ones as soon as they see the need to. I'm definitely working with the best team. ๐Ÿ‘

Interestingly, I will not only be giving out values here, I will be adding to myself. Outreachy uses open source software for different activities. Yes, all open source! Here is the breakdown of some of the software; Emailing: Thunderbird, Conferencing: BigBlueButton, Chat Platform (community): Zulip, Password manager: Bitwarden.

I will be updating the list in my upcoming blog post.

Outreachy uses Django for their website. I use Windows OS, and my team suggested I install a virtual machine on my laptop in order to access the Django website on Linux OS. To do this, I had several work sessions with Anna, and they took me through the steps to install the Linux OS, so I can access some Ubuntu software when needed while I still have access to my Windows software. Did I mention my work session with Anna is one I always look forward to? To express myself, I posted a tweet after one of the sessions.

The work session with my team helped me better navigate the process of replying to applicants' help and organizers' mail, preparing an invoice for sponsorship, and documentation on GitLab, among others.

In summary, I have been going through different documentation, replying to emails, and helping the May applicants of the Outreachy program solve different issues where needed (updating time commitments, directing them to documentation that best explains their question, answering relevant questions that have to do with the Outreachy program, helping with manual final contribution submission, and so on). I also helped with reaching out to program sponsors for invoice details and working with my team to ensure we offer the best service to the program applicants, project community, mentors, and coordinators. I have also been working on strategies to drive engagement on all Outreachy platforms, and I will be updating this as time goes on.

I look forward to speaking directly with the project community (mentors, coordinators) and past interns in the coming weeks to better understand how to serve them and welcome the 2022 May batch of interns. I look forward to a more engaging Outreachy community and platforms in the coming months.

#Outreachy #Career #Diversity #OpenSource #Community

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