On 4th November, 2019 we celebrated Fedora Women’s Day at IIIT Allahabad. I, alongwith Aadya Mishra co-organized this event for an audience mainly consisting of first and second year girls, pursuing either Information Technology or Electronics and Communication. Everyone had a basic grasp on simple coding concepts, but after interacting with them it was clear that very few knew about the various opportunities girls have in the technology field and open source. Hence, I decided to take this opportunity to explain to these budding minds how much fun and full of possibilities it is to be a #WomanInTech.

In order to start preparations for this event, we decided to have an attractive poster. Our obvious choice for its design was another talented woman, Sunidhi Kashyap.

Fedora Women’s Day (FWD) is a day of celebration to help raise awareness and thanks for the women contributors across the Fedora Project. Fedora Women’s Day marks the anniversary of the Fedora Women team. They are an opportunity for women to learn about free and open source software and jump-start their journey as a FOSS user and/or a contributor.

We have a series of fun events lined-up for all of you including: ~ Mini games ~ Hands-on session on how to start contributing to Fedora ~ Learn to deliver talks in conferences ~ Fedora opportunities and networking ~ FOOD and SWAG! ~ and much, much more

My entire aim was to use this session to motivate these girls enough to understand their options in the field of computer science and its associated technology. Hence I created an extensive 2-hour session revolving around such topics.

I started by introducing the Fedora DI Team and its role in nurturing inclusive events across the Fedora community and raising awareness about diversity around the globe. I explained how one can be a part of the DI team and still be called an open source contributor. Next I explained what open source means and what all Fedora offers in the community. This was followed by an interactive game where everyone were to name 5 OSS they’ve used in their lives till now.

I then moved on to explain the various coding programmes Fedora is part of, namely, Outreachy and GSoC. I gave an overview of:

  1. Each programs’ purpose and perks.
  2. How one can benefit with the constant mentorship and
  3. How inclusive and welcoming Fedora is to its beginner contributors.

I shared my Outreachy and Flock experience, and they seemed absolutely thrilled to be a part of something so empowering. Since most of the girls’ main worry was that whether they were good enough to contribute, I gave real coding examples from my Outreachy selection process so that they knew what kind of open-source issues to expect (and that they were absolutely easy to solve).

After I had gotten them all bustling with enthusiasm and hope, I introduced them to the Women of Fedora by showing a short video. This was followed by addressing the elephant in the room: Imposter Syndrome. They were all made to understand that they’re all much more talented than they give themselves credit for. To implement this, we had a quick #IAmRemarkable session, inspired by Google wherein each girl spoke about 5 achievements of her. It made them realize they’re all full of potential.

I then bombarded them with a whole lot of links about scholarships, conferences, and funded speaking opportunites so that they could discover their passion in their university life by networking and exploring various fileds. Since majority of the audience consisted of first years, I gave them tips as to how can they make productive use of their winter and summer break.

The extensive session ended with feedback, general brainstorming, and was peppered with tasty refreshments. Every girl left with a lot to think about and the atmosphere was heavily postive and encouraging. I couldnt’t be more proud sharing my knowledge with these aspirants. After all I was once like them :D

You can access the slides here: slides