Women of Open Source Community Africa; Emerging a Star with Ruth Ikegah

Hello, everyone. Welcome to my talk. You're just in time to hear an inspiring story of how I leveraged on the Women of Open Source Community Africa and became the first female African GitHub star. My name is Ruti Kega and I am an open source community manager, a technical writer, a Python developer and also a GitHub star. And you can find me at Ikearut on Twitter. Um, I'm so sad I did not get to give this talk in person, but I'm still happy I get to share my story with you virtually. So if you're attending my talk, definitely Do give me a shout out on Twitter and I will definitely connect with you. Thank you to the organizing team for making this virtual talk possible.

So let's go into my journey of transitioning from a non-technical background to code and even to the world of open source and even to how I became the first African female GitHub star. Like I said, I transitioned from a non-technical background and this is a picture of me in a lab. I I graduated from the University of Portacourt with a microbiology degree. So back in 2019, before the pandemic here, I used to be so enthusiastic about microorganisms. is a picture of me um looking at um a microorganism in the lab in the laboratory and you know

during the pandemic here uh while everybody was stuck at home i really needed to find something that i could do from home. So I um took up my computer. Um I was pre-exposed to tech um from my friends back in school So I went back to them and did ask them how do I, you know, get into tech. And because I was really enthusiastic about what I studied in school being microbiology, I started looking for ways I could link microbiology to tech. So I found out that I could learn Python and use Python to analyze microbiological data. And since I was stuck at home, I decided okay, let's try learning tech So I um started um learning um on a platform called ProGates.

It was a really very nice platform then for me Because it was really um visually aided and there were a lot of exciting to do. This is a picture of me finishing the first Python module, and I was really so excited that I took a picture of it. Um, and so that's how I you know, transition from a non-technical background as a microbiologist into tech. And it did not just stop there I further went on to learn about frameworks that I could use to build websites for myself, which I found the Django framework. And this is a picture, a tweet, a screenshot of a tweet. that I shared because I had just gotten into technical writing and I was sharing a lot of all the things I was doing with Django.

I was um you know I even had like an article series where I was sharing a lot of my knowledge in the public. And shout out to Jeff Triplet. This is a screenshot of me sharing that my article, writing models in Django, was featured in the Django newsletter. I was Super excited. You can see the lot of um so many emojis here to show my excitement. And then how did I transition um from just coding in Python to the world of open source So this is where the exciting story starts. Um I would love to talk about the WOSCA um which means the women of open source community Africa And this is an initiative

by um two communities here in Africa, which is the Open Source Community Africa and the Shikode Africa. uh which is a non um non-governmental organization that um has been doing a lot here in africa to bring women into tech and finding opportunities training and giving resources to women in tech So these two communities came together to form this initiative to bring more women into the world of open source. Which is really very important because of the gap you know with women in open source, even at large in the world So this was um the challenge and it started about in July 2020 and I because I was a member of the Chicode Africa community, I found out about this challenge

and I was, I had heard about open source before even joining tech, and I was really very enthusiastic about starting this journey So I signed up for the program and this is a tweet where we did a workshop. It was the first workshop I participated in and I learned how to use Git. I learned how to add my name the first contributions repo i'm sure a lot of people should have heard about the first contributions repo so um we were guided into um doing our first pull request and adding our names And as excited I was as I was, I went to share my my um journey that I had made my first contribution to open source. And it was so exciting that I got a lot of congratulations. I was so excited to participate in open source. And in that month,

the program was about getting a lot of pull requests merged and you know winning a prize. So I was so excited to participate in that challenge. And I started hunting for projects like a bounty hunter, hunting for projects that I could start contributing to Which led me to finding a lot of awesome communities that I am still a great part, a big part of today. I found the GNOME Foundation, which was the first open source project I participated in. And the Chaos Project, which is my main contribution right now, and also the Layer 5 community Now participating as a beginner was, you know, what's really interesting. I was just six months into tech, but I noticed something, I noticed an issue

which um was even um particular to beginners and even people I was in the program with we're trying to find projects that we could participate and contribute to. It was really very hard. Regardless of how many projects I I named them, it was so hard for me to find projects that I could even participate in. So I found out that this was a problem. This was a problem that beginners faced and even people that were trying to get into open source in Africa. I was like, wow, this is something that even after finding projects, this is something I could start advocating for. So I knew I needed a strategy, I needed a plan. I needed to make this happen. So, what was my my strategy? I wanted to make things much smoother for other beginners, for other people getting into open source to find

not just find these projects, but also find ways that they could contribute to this project. So I said, okay, this is a great course for me to start advocating for. So I needed a plan. What was the plan? What was my What was my break? Like well, how do I how do I plan to do this? Because mind you, I was three months, um, three to six months into tech. I did not know my way around, so I needed a way to plan this out that it would work well. So I started creating and participating in beginner focus programs in the open source communities I found myself in. I said, you know, bringing up the conversation that we should have a smooth way of onboarding new contributors in every project

I found. I also said doing one-on-one interactions through office hours, interacting with people personally, beginners as well, on how they could contribute to open source. I started conducting workshops, you know, um free workshops. I would just make it sweet and then people would sign up um on the form and then I'll send random um links to them to conduct workshops on how they could contribute to open source projects and also find projects as well that fit in their skill set. I also said using my social media which is Twitter, I I do use Twitter a lot. So I started using Twitter to find beginners, people that were interested in participating in open source, people that wanted to start their journey. I also started applying to conferences to speak at them.

I remember my first conference was the OSI conference back in 2020. And I did a lightning talk on how I got my first contribution. So after that um engagement, it was really exciting. I started applying to different conferences You know, sharing my journey and also conducting workshops that could help people find projects. I also started consistently showing up, sharing my journey. Trust me, it was hard because I was still at my beginner phase. But I started sharing my journey, sharing my strategy, sharing the different tips that I found that could help people find open source projects. Also, this I would love to share with you the lesson that I learned along the way while I was making this plan, while I made this strategy, while I was advocacy.

kiting for people while I did office hours while I did workshops I would also love to share the lessons that I learned along the way I did understand and notice that helping holding a beginner, a new contributor in a project, you know, doing those office hours really helped people at their beginning phase start and even make successful contributions and so far in my journey in open source I have found office hours onboarding Using documentation to guide beginners, handholding them through the process and answering their questions has really been successful in making contributors and even new beginners in tech

contribute to open source projects. I also realized that consistently showing up has its rewards because personally I have also gotten those rewards And it has also helped me improve my technical skills even while I was helping others improve my non-technical skills like communication, like even speaking and giving keynotes as well. And it was really very nice because I've had to show others that this consistently showing up will get you a lot of rewards. I also learned that sharing my work publicly has helped me build my network even down to this keynote. I got this awesome opportunity from a friend, Abigail, that shared this opportunity with me.

So I've been able to build my network while I publicly share my work. Just by sharing my work, someone will reach out to me and get interested in participating in the project or even helping fund the project. Now, the exciting part of this talk is sharing with you the different achievements I have gotten, which publicly advocating for open source here in Africa, sharing my work and making sure that beginners find ways to contribute to projects. I got an award at the beginning of my journey, six months into tech, I got an award as the first African female GitHub star. This is a very exciting selfie

I took. You can see I'm still worried. I was wearing my October 1st t-shirt as um we are just rounded up October 1st that year. And I took a selfie. The award just came in when I was working for my working space. So I had to take a selfie and share it out to the public. So this is um 2020 when I received my first GitHub um award and also the program got renewed here um in 2020 two as well so i'm really so excited of this achievement and one of my biggest achievements to date i also won an award because during um at every year um github stars we have a particular conference called the github nova conference where um github awards um the stars for their work so far and in 2021

I won an award as a pioneer GitHub star for starting the GitHub virtual meetup um in Africa at my first month of becoming a GitHub star and also growing that meetup. I also won an award recently Um I I definitely would add award winning award winning to my bio after this talk. I did win an award recently as the GitHub style of the year um this month because I had grown the GitHub Meetup. I participate in the program um I find speakers all around Africa I reach out, I use my social media platform to grow the program, and I have also been co-hosting the program since um 2021. And that program, um, the GitHub virtual meetup

has grown From um about a few members when we started to over 3,000 members all across Africa. So I was awarded the GitHub Star of the Year. In over 100 stars, I was awarded the Star of the Year I have also gotten my own share of paid open source projects. I've also worked on projects that were paid at Gutton dollars as well, which is really really very exciting for me. Now, what can we all do? What can you do as a new contributor seated in this room? What can you do as an experienced contributor and even as an organization? My word out there to new contributors in this room is that regardless of your experience, you can do big things from a small place.

Because personally, I achieved all these things while as a beginner, advocating for different causes, created a niche for myself in open source And I definitely assure you that once you have your strategy and you have your mindset on it, you can do big things from a small place. My advice to experienced contributors is that please be empathetic and always think of a way of helping new contributors when they join your project. try to make documentation seamless, try to invest in onboarding, try to reach out to new contributors, try to um as well as Always explain in your issues because I see this a lot in open source projects where a contributor will just open up an issue and there's no explanation.

Please, as little as opening up an issue and giving as much context in that issue helps a new contributor. So please try to apply empathy as you help your new contributors in your projects. And to organizations, please support and fund open source programs in Africa. I am pleading with you to always look forward to supporting open source programs look out for programs and organizations I'm definitely available to help you look out for programs in Africa that you could support as well um and fund not just um supporting but if you can also fund these programs because Like example an example is the WOSCAP program that I came out of.

If that program wasn't there, maybe I would have not been here talking to you today. So make it a thing to always support and fund open source programs and organizations. Around the world and also in Africa as well, if you can. Now, what am I currently up to? I'm currently up to a lot of things, but a summary is that I am currently up to finding ways to support people that are building open source that want to build projects in Africa and I want to be able to support them to build projects that the whole world relies on. This is my my my plan for the next five years and beyond. And I am also um I also started um three months ago I started a local chapter of the Chaos project here in Africa.

and we have been growing so much at the speed of light so you can always check out um at chaos africa on twitter and see all the Awesome things we have been doing in Africa. And these are the two important things that are dear to my heart. You can always reach out to me on how you can participate, on how you can sponsor, on how you can be part of the work. I am really so excited that I got to give this talk to you today and I'm so glad that you got to listen to my talk. You can follow me at Ikega Root on Twitter and I'm also on LinkedIn at root Kega and you can also shoot me an email. Thank you so much for listening to my talk. Do give me a shout out on Twitter and I would definitely love to connect with you all.

Have an amazing conference day. Thank you.