Learning through Open Source

Introduction

Two amazing developers from Nigeria are currently contributing to the Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) for the Outreachy 2023 Internship and as part of the requirement for the Outreachy Internship, we would like to briefly introduce ourselves and how we got here

Goodnews Sandy

My name is Goodnews Sandy, and I am a front-end Developer and a Technical Writer. I enjoy using front-end technologies to build web-based applications that leave a lasting impression on users. I strive for excellence and pixel-perfect. I love when people go through my applications, and they are like “WOW! this is great!!”. I also write; I have a couple of articles on Meduim, mainly on technical topics; the personal articles are still drafts, LOL. I hope to publish them someday. Writing helps me consolidate my knowledge and also allows me to share the lessons with others.

I love contributing to open source, I see it as a community where i get to learn new technologies and build tools that people can use. Other things I do includes: Mentoring, I have mentored in three-four internships, and it’s always a great experience to teach beginners how to develop applications and navigate a career in Tech.

My hobbies: are sports and reading (Sidney Sheldon’s collection is my favourite).

I have an educational background in Petroleum Engineering and had a career change to Computer Science related field because I realized that technological fields offered more opportunities to use my creativity, and I love building things!!! and I do hope to use my skills to contribute to the Oil and Gas industry.

As an Outreachy Intern

I am one of the successful candidates selected to participate in the Outreachy 2023 Internship , I applied to Outreachy because I see it as an opportunity to learn new technologies and contribute to varieties of communities through Open Source. The Outreachy Internship is a three months program to contribute to any Open Source community of your choice. For the selection period, I chose Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) because their goals were clearly stated. I contributed to improving the Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) website and also collaborated in developing a Massive Open Online Courses(MOOCs) platform. The mentors were super helpful and I enjoyed contributing to the community.

Learning in Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA).

The Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) is part of a bigger Open Science Community. The Open Science Community is made up of scientists and researchers working together to build research tools, share knowledge and promote Open Science practices.

I am excited to be contributing to the Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA) for the Internship period. There is a lot to learn, and I am prepared for it. We communicate with the mentors through Notion and GitHub , and have two meetings per week to discuss progress. A couple of tasks have been listed on the notion board, which include: building blog post with Quarto, integrating Crowdin to make multilingual content, exploring JupterBooks and Sphinx-js for documentation.

I look forward to learning with the community and I intend to maximize all the opportunities available to me. I believe the knowledge from this experience would be an added value to my skill sets and career progression in general.

Alright, Let’s do this!!!

Richie Moluno

I am Richie Moluno, a Fullstack developer but more of a backend developer. My major stack is MongoDb ExpressJS and NodeJs. Currently, I am studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Benin, Benin City. I originally wanted to study Robotics because of the Iron-man movie. I really love robots, the process of converting computer codes to mechanical movements really intrigues me. When it was time to move to the University, the school I had in mind didn’t have any courses in Robotics. Based on my knowledge then, I felt Mechanical Engineering would be the closest alternative to Robotics.

My Passion

I really love to code, I think the passion doesn’t rely on coding itself. I’m more interested in anything that involves applying complex logic to get desired results. I often go for the more complex tasks because when I overcome these tasks, it gives me a greater sense of reward and achievement. While I am not coding, I like listening to Jordan Peterson; he speaks a lot on self-improvement, becoming a better person, being morally upright and how to live a meaningful life. I also like listening to music. I like the idea of reading books not often, though, but I am more interested in books that talk about human psychology. It helps me gain a better understanding of how the human mind works. I also like to play table tennis.

Why I Chose Outreachy and My Career Path

Being an Outreachy intern is a great opportunity for anyone who is interested in pursuing a career in Open source, the opportunities here aren’t limited to open source alone; in my opinion, they cut across other areas in Tech. One thing I learnt is my learning process would’ve been way shorter if I had good insight early enough. I had no mentor right from when I started coding; at first, I didn’t feel like it’ll be an issue, but I considered how long I spent going through unnecessary course content and learning concepts which weren’t needed for the career path I chose. I think having a mentor would really help in guiding and pointing me on the right path. I see Outreachy as a means to learn more from peers, gain solid experience in open source contributions as well as make new valuable connections. I hope to gain more experience in open source contributions, learn more about the open source community and also make new valuable connections that will be transferrable into the Robotics industry.