Importance of Growing Together as a Tech Community
By: Kai Iyer
Tags: Code, Tech Events, Community, Gssoc, Open Source

Photo by Antenna on Unsplash

Every undergraduate starts the journey with a dream filled with hopes and aspirations. Exploring new fields, working on projects, meeting new folks, teaming up, attending events, and growing together is the dream of every developer who wanna do something big and make a name for themselves. But how do we achieve this dream? What’s the right way to approach the tech world and how can we improve ourselves is a big question that lies ahead of every aspirant dev. Well, there are various ways to go about it but the most fun and effective way is to grow together with a group of like-minded individuals who share the same dream and wanna do something creative apart from their curriculum.

I remember the time when I started my undergraduate program with the same dreams as of any student who loves to explore the amazing cyber world out there. I tried asking seniors and fellow mates regarding the tech events around the city and how to get involved in them, but tough luck and I couldn’t get many insights. I did a quick internet search and found out some links with a decent reputation. Online forums suggested starting with Web Development would be wise and I jumped right into it. I started with online tutorials and practice competitions. I learned HTML-CSS-JS and tried making my first webpage. I went to a hackathon without any team(Beginning of my SOLO approach) and learned quite a few things from the mentors out there. I understood there’s a difference between website and web app. I learned about web-servers and opensource. I came home and looked up for web-servers and how to use them for hosting a web app(NOT WEBSITE). I was amazed to see 127.0.0.1 could do so many wonders and finally hosted(locally) a web-app with a vanillaJS frontend, node backend, and MariaDB database. My own login page and customized dashboard hit it differently and I was fired up to do some more magical stuff with 127.0.0.1 and terminal.

I started Web App Pen-testing and practiced my skills on various online platforms. I joined forums on discord, slack, and started attending hackathons(SOLO). The vibe of hackathons and the amazing devs out there inspired me to do more than just web apps. I explored various fields and tried out a couple of projects that landed my decent opportunities from global firms. I noticed that my solo approach took more effort and was time-consuming. Although I was part of some pretty good forums and global community I found out that being solo had its own limits. I decided to join some local tech communities and collaborate with them. It was then I joined GirlScript Summer of Code 2019 as a mentor.

GSSoC is a 3-month long Open Source program conducted during summer by GirlScript Foundation, intending to help beginners get started with Open Source Development while encouraging diversity. Throughout the program, participants shall contribute to different projects under the guidance of experienced mentors. During the program, participants can extract any help or can resolve any sort of query regarding the projects or it’s implementation. The team and the mentors will endeavor to provide the required help from their best possible resources.

The mentors will be declaring the issues and the admins will be looking after the final structuring of the project. If a participant is willing to work on a project, he/she will have to comment on the issue and make a pull request and if the mentor finds the work satisfactory, the participant would get the opportunity to work for the same. The participants would be continuously evaluated on all the projects that they contribute to. I witnessed an amazing passion from the participants and fellow mentors. That’s when I realized that teamwork is really important in any journey and you need to have some folks to have your back so that you can rely on them and grow together. The sense of responsibility and passion for tech kept me going the extra mile.

With all the enthusiasm from the previous year, I decided to apply for GSSoC again but this time as Project Admin rather than a mentor. I applied with two of my projects and got through the selection process. The GS team and mentors were so helpful and supportive that my transition from Mentor to Project Admin was seamless. GS community gave me a platform to mentor young devs and help them implement their ideas. Slack chats, group discussions, and brainstorming brought out ideas which never existed. The energy from these young folks inspires me to work on new ideas and projects.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, events such as webinars, podcasts, and community coding competitions have a huge impact on the devs as well as the aspirants. Girlscript Kochi Chapter organized a pretty decent Webinar series named ‘Quarantalk’. I took the first webinar on IoT & Networking. A great audience was present and it was a pretty interactive session that laid a firm foundation for the enthusiasts. At the final phase of GSSoC ’20, we did some amazing integrations and got a couple of great reviews. GSSoC ended with a productive and creative summer. We’ll keep working on amazing projects and spread knowledge to inspire the upcoming generation of devs. Once again I look forward to working with an amazing bunch of devs.

Summer is coming to an end but the journey continues.