GSoC with Systers Community Closure

This a post summarizing my Google Summer of Code 2018 experience with Systers Open Source community.

The Mentorship System I proposed consists of an application that matches women in tech to mentor each other for a certain period of time. I wanted an application dedicated to anyone who was either new or already in the Tech industry, from any social-economic background, and from any stage of their career to help each other out. You can find out more about the idea and motivations in this post.

Once I got accepted, during the Community Bonding phase, I started enhancing the idea and planning with my mentors and the community what would be the first features that should be implemented for the backend. I also prepared the initial documentation for any interested member of the community to look up and learn more about the project.

Then during the Coding Phase, I started implementing the backend until it was stable enough to start the Android application. During the program, I got to be present and work in all areas of the Mentorship System, including UI Design, REST API design, implement the minimum features of the app, set up test cases, proper documentation to help the community be updated and learn about how to work within an Open Source community.

I learned a lot from this experience! I’m super proud of the work I did during GSoC. This was the first time I worked fully remote and with a global team, where I could only speak English (not my native language).

Now that some time has passed I can clearly see the impact this had in my life and career. Here are some highlights:

Finally, I was nominated by my peers, mentors, and admins, from Systers Community as the Most Outstanding student out of 11 students. Being recognized for my work during GSoC made me very happy since I was already proud of my personal achievements.

Even though the program as ended in August 22nd, I’m still part of the community and plan to continue to be. I am determined to continue this project and at the same time, use this to help people, who may be intimidated with Open Source, start contributing and start feeling less intimidated by it.

This was truly an awesome experience.

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