As a woman in Open Source, it feels good to be able to meet and interact with other women contributing to open source. In this article, I highlight three women in Open Source, the amazing work they are doing, and what open source means to them. I hope their works inspire and encourage more women in this field.
When asked what Open Source meant to her, Rizel said
It means community to me. It's an opportunity to get exposed to different technological problems, solutions, and people.
Rizel is a Developer Advocate at GitHub and contributes to Sharing Excess, an organization working to fight food insecurity and address the root causes of hunger in Philadelphia, PA. She contributes by adding elements like Code of Conduct and Issue Templates.
She hosts Twitter Spaces on different Open Source topics and also makes code contributions to Open Sauced, a project maintained by Brain Douglas.
Carol is a Python Core Developer and the VP of Engineering Excellence at Noteable. She contributes to Project Jupyter, Nteract and serves as a mentor at PyLadies, an international mentorship group with a focus on helping more women become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community.
She is inspired by everyone who tries to learn something new to make the world better and more humane. When asked what Open Source meant to her, Carol said;
Open Source to me means offering tools and projects for people everywhere to learn, build, and share knowledge.
Anna is a Software Engineer, President of the Django Software Foundation Board, and a Fund Fundraising Coordinator at the Django Girls Foundation. In her role, she ensures that there are adequate funds to keep providing the free resources that volunteers need to organize free workshops for women. She contributes to open source resources, including the Django Girls website, tutorial and organizer manual, etc. As the lead maintainer of the Django Girls website, she helps new contributors by reviewing their pull requests and merging them.
What does Open Source mean to Anna;
For me, Open Source means making software resources available to all people, including those people who would otherwise be unable to afford them even if they may really need those resources. I can imagine if I had to pay for all the software that I am using right now or that I have used in my entire life as a coder and I really appreciate having Open Source software products/resources available for me. Open source means both the privileged and the underprivileged get access to the same resources, regardless of their backgrounds. Though sometimes the level of support they get, may differ depending on the developer, what matters is that both have access to software resources the under-privileged would have otherwise failed to access. It also means a way for new programmers to meet and network with experienced programmers worldwide and get to learn from them and a way for everyone to give back to the Open Source community.
Among all the other things Anna has been involved with, she is also a community builder and has organized many events including Django Girls Harare/Masvingo/Heidelberg, PyCon Zimbabwe 2016/2017, and DjangoCon Europe 2018. She has also spoken at PyCon Zimbabwe 2016/2017, PyCon Namibia 2016/2017/2018, DjangoCon Europe 2017, DjangoCon US 2018, PyCon South Africa 2016, PyCon Nigeria 2018 and PyCon Africa 2019, etc.
I admire the tenacity of these Women In Open Source and I hope their stories inspire you to start or keep contributing to Open Source. If you know any women in Open Source doing amazing things, kindly mention them in the comment session.