Growth with Collaborations, Communities & Open Source

Collaboration is the key to creativity. 🤖

🫂What is Collaboration?

Collaboration is the process when two or more people, organizations or entities work together to complete a task or to achieve certain goals. For me, the first word that comes to mind when I hear collaboration is community.

Joining various communities and programs is where my journey of learning and growing through collaborations started. I often hear from people about imposter syndrome and looking at the tech world and opportunities as a race. Honestly, I never felt like that. It doesn't mean that I didn't face rejection. But joining various communities and interacting with amazing people from all around the world made this journey full of fun. Having a collaborative approach towards everything that I do rather than being competitive changed me as a person. Collaboration on projects, learning together and helping each other grow is something I always look for and value.

📍Why is collaboration important?

Collaborating on projects and also while learning is always better than doing it alone or competitively looking at things. Here are a few reasons why I feel collaboration is important:

• We have more resources and skills to achieve a certain goal.

• Diverse perspectives and problem-solving approaches

• Meet and network with amazing people from all around the world

• Learn from each other, share ideas and brainstorm to solve problems

• Enhance soft skills

• Learn how to be inclusive and respectful while interacting with people from diverse backgrounds

• It teaches us to be empathetic and patient while interacting with others

• We learn about teamwork and leadership skills

• We learn to take feedback positively

• Develop an attitude of giving back rather than being selfish and competitive

🛣My Journey

The collaboration helped me get some amazing opportunities. Let me share my journey of growing through collaborations and what I learnt through it.

Then I will also share how you can also get started with your journey and a pro tip. 😃

Mentor at Open Source Hack - July & October 2022

This was the first time I got selected for any program after multiple rejections. While applying for the program I did doubt that I am getting rejected as a mentee so how can I get selected as a mentor? But if I don't apply anyway there is no chance of selection. So I filled up the form just a few hours before the deadline and applied for it.

Open Source Hack is a virtual open source program by the AnitaB.org Open Source Community. I was a member of the community for a long time. I attended their meetings. Through the meetings, I got to interact with women technologists from all around the world. I was a part of their volunteerism Bootcamp after which I was volunteering in a few of their projects and communities.

Open Source Hack was very special to me as it was an open-source program and I love the community. While reviewing PRs and giving feedback I learnt a lot about how to be respectful while giving feedback. I learnt to value others' time by reviewing PRs as early as I can. While guiding the participants on making contributions and troubleshooting issues I learnt a lot about those tech stacks. Hence, while collaborating with the participants and admins during the program I learnt a lot. Later I also got a free ticket to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration(GHC) virtually. Currently, I am also a member of their Software Engineering Committee.

MLH Fellowship (Prep) - July 2022

Good times + awesome friends + amazing memories

It was a 3 weeks program where I got the opportunity to join a multicultured POD and collaborate on working on a weather app and a portfolio website. I made some amazing friends from all around the world. We collaborated on solving issues and adding different features. Each of us shared our ideas and approaches to problem-solving and we learnt from each other. Some of the participants also helped others complete their tasks. This is where I got introduced to pair programming. We also had our POD leader who guided us at every step. We had daily standups where we shared our progress so far. We also had various fun activities like games and giving a lightning talk. As a part of the fellowship, we were supposed to book a 1:1 meeting with each one from the POD and have a chat with them and know each other. Hence, it was overall an amazing experience of growing our skills through collaboration and fun.

Wanna grab this amazing opportunity? Go ahead and apply for it!
MLH Fellowship Prep Proogram

Hacktoberfest - October 2022

Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open-source projects, their maintainers, and the entire community of contributors. Everyone was sharing their badges on LinkedIn after registering for Hacktoberfest. I was a bit afraid to share as I was unsure whether I could get 4 PRs merged or not to be able to complete the program. 🥺

But I finally got 28 PRs merged as quality contributions. 🥳

It was also a program where I got to know about a lot of open-source communities. I joined their public channels, introduced myself there, joined their community meetings, got to know about their projects and contributed in multiple ways. The communities were warm and welcoming to newcomers. The maintainers guided at every step while contributing. Contributing to open-source is one of the best ways to grow skills through collaboration. I met some amazing people from these communities and learnt a lot from them.

MLH Fellowship - September to December 2022

What we learn with fun and collaboration, we never forget.

I was one among the 94 fellows selected for the MLH Fellowship Fall cohort from 4000 applicants. This was possible only because of open-source and collaboration. I was a Software Engineering Fellow and worked with Solana labs for 12 weeks.

I had no idea about Blockchain when the program started. When I looked at the repository for the first time and the tasks that we were supposed to do, I doubted whether I will be able to complete them or not. 🥺

But finally, we were able to build a Python SDK for the decentralized finance platform Zeta from scratch. ✨

This was only possible because of collaboration. We had mentors and POD leaders who guided us at every step. Pair programming, brainstorming, and learning from each others' problem-solving approaches are something that helped all of us grow our skills and enjoy the journey.

Wanna grab it? Go ahead and apply for it!
MLH Fellowship

Speaker at Google DevFest, Kolkata

Growth through collaboration and contributing to open source helped me in getting selected as a speaker at Google DevFest, Kolkata. This was the first in-person event I attended and I was also a speaker there. The best part was that it was in the city of Joy Kolkata. The vibes and enthusiasm at the Taal Kutir were phenomenal.

DevFest is a global, decentralized tech conference hosted by the Google Developer Groups (GDG) community. Here, I gave a talk on how and why to contribute to open source.

I got the opportunity to network with the amazing speakers at the event and learnt a lot about different technologies from them. The attendees were also full of enthusiasm and it was great to meet with them. I made some amazing friends at the event and also joined a lot of communities who were sponsors at the event. The event also got featured in national media!

Open Source Cohort #3 mentee at Codess Cafe

Codess Cafe is a vibrant community of high-achieving, growth-oriented women in tech. Joining this community as a mentee allowed me to network with a group of aspiring software developers. We were assigned mentors to help up with our doubts. Whenever an opportunity comes up it is shared in the group. Hence we don't regret that we missed any opportunity due to a lack of awareness. We also have sessions and mentors to guide us through the selection process. We also collaborate for participating in Hackathons and other programs. We all collaborate and help each other in achieving goals.

Collegiate Leadership Institute (CLI) Program by The Society of Women Engineers

This program allowed me to join a global community of women engineers. The program is meant to equip the participants with skills, knowledge and leadership abilities to become global leaders in engineering careers. As a part of the program, I also got a chance to attend the Women Engineers Conference. It also had a career fair. I got a chance to grow my network and skills. Thus joining communities and collaborating can be life-changing.

Technical Coach for the Apprenticeship Pathway Program at AnitaB.org

As a Technical Coach, I collaborate with learners to complete their unit projects and understand various concepts related to web development. In the process of helping the participants with troubleshooting, I always learn a lot. One of the skills that I picked up was understanding the code written by someone else. It was also fulfilling to see the participants completing the program and getting an internship opportunity with Intuit.

Member & Contributor at Layer5

This email made my day! I started contributing to Layer5 during Hacktoberfest. After contributing for around 2 months and getting 10 PRs merged I got an invitation to join their GitHub org. While contributing I learnt how to communicate effectively with the maintainers about the progress on PRs and the doubts that I have. I also learnt to have patience and take feedback positively. I learnt how to understand large codebases and improved my technical skills a lot. Contributing to open source is a great way of growing through collaboration.

Community Manager at CodeIN Community

Recently I also got selected as a community manager for the CodeIN community. Being a part of various communities has always been an enriching experience. I am excited to work with a fabulous student-led team filled with young and talented like-minded folks and also network and connect with wonderful people across the country/globe. I am excited to start working here at CodeIN and acquire skills, learn from the best, and last but not least, get loads of professional experience plus make memories!

Other Opportunities

I also cracked multiple other opportunities because of my experience of collaborating with various global communities

• Harvard WECode Tech Fellow

• Harvard WEAmplify Extended Scholar

• Dan Kohn Student Scholar

• Linux Foundation Training (LiFT) Scholar in the Women in Open Source category

• Women in Tech Global Conference 2022 Scholar

Sounds cool! 😎
Even you can grab them. Start by collaborating today!!!

💡How to start collaborating

Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Now you might think about how you can collaborate and where to start. Well, I agree the first step is the hardest. But every beautiful journey starts with a first step. Here are a few ways in which you can also get started with collaborations.

• Join a community

• Participate in Hackathons

• Apply to good Ambassador programs like GitHub campus expert, Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador, Google Developer Student Club and many more. It should help you grow your skills and network. Avoid applying to random ones just for the certificate

• Contribute to open-source

• Learn in public. Share about your work on various social media

• Collaborate on building projects

• Attend conferences, meetups and webinars

• Join weekly/monthly community meetings

• Network with people

• Learn the art of following up

• Participate in various learning programs to join a group of folks with similar goals

• Volunteering: It can be very rewarding and meaningful as it allows giving back to the community and making a positive difference in the lives of others. It is a great way to grow skills through collaboration. It helps in growing your network, gaining valuable experience and also making good memories.

• Sign up for newsletters

• Pair programming

⚠️Alert: Avoid taking free advice from everyone. It can end up wasting a lot of time and resources. Trust actions and experience, not mere words. Always look for proof. Do a bit of background research before jumping into anything.

🔥Pro tip: Shyness kills more opportunities than failure ever will. Conquer your shyness and start believing in your wings. So hit the Apply button for any opportunity that you wanna be a part of!

🌌Conclusion

Collaboration can open up a lot of opportunities. It teaches us important skills rather than just coding. It helps in developing higher thinking skills and gives us a sense of satisfaction with the learning experience. We learn to view the same problem from different perspectives. We learn to think globally and be inclusive. In collaboration, overall productivity is always higher than working individually.

I hope this will help some of you get started with your journey of growth through collaboration. Keep exploring and learning new things.

🔥Pro tip: Don't give up on any opportunity before applying and give your best at every step without worrying about the results. Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can fly!!!