Outreachy: internships in open source software

About this talk

Have you ever wanted to develop your Python skills beyond a personal project? Are you a non-traditional student looking to get real world experience in programming or looking to make a career transition to programming later in life? Do you like the idea of open source software, but don’t know how to become involved in a project?

About a year ago, I could answer yes to all of those questions and so I set out to find some answers.

In this talk, I’ll share how I found out about Outreachy, a program that provides internships in open source and open science to people subject to systemic bias and impacted by under-representation in the technical industry where they are living.

I’ll share about my experience applying, being accepted and working as an intern for Zulip, a 100% open source chat program for distributed teams.

Finally, we’ll research together (so bring your laptop) some of the organizations and projects connected to Outreachy where you could leverage your Python skills to become an active contributor or possibly a paid intern through Outreachy.