Open Source Community Africa is a community for open-source lovers, enthusiasts, advocates, and experts within and across Africa with the sole aim of increasing the rate of credible contributions by African software developers, designers, writers, and everyone involved in the sphere of technology to open source projects both locally and globally, changing the perception of Africans from just the billion users to the NEXT BILLION CREATORS.
After about a year of the OSCA Abuja community had existed, we decided to host our first physical event themed "Open Source Day" to set the motion for the OSCA and Open Source in Abuja. So, on Saturday, 25th of June 2022, we held the Open Source Day and gathered Developers, Designers, Web3 gurus, and more.
How did it go?
We had about 16 sessions that featured speakers who introduced the over 300 audiences to the different aspects of Open Source Contributions, Technical Writing, Opportunities, Web3, and building products and APIs.
At the end of this article, I'll add the links to all speaker's slides.
Introduction to Web 3
Clarie Charles joined us virtually and introduced us to web 3.0 and open-source resources to get you started. She also highlighted that web 2.0 is not dead yet as it’s still being used for read-write applications 😅.
Outreachy: Career Opportunities in Open Source
Omotola Eunice, Community Manager at Outreachy, showed us inspirational case studies on people who are contributing to open source and are being heavily rewarded and how you can make your first contribution through Outreachy.
The Open Source Philosophy to building APIs
Gbadebo Bello, Software Engineer and Community Collections Lead at Postman, introduced our diamond sponsor Postman, an API platform for building and using APIs with over 20 million developers using Postman, and also talked about how to build APIs with an Open Source Mindset. “Open Source is a culture of giving back to the community; so don’t forget to pay it forward,” - He said.
Helping maintainers maintain beauty in chaos
Shebuel Inyang talked about the importance of being considerate and respectful while making open source contributions. Do your research and read through comments before raising an issue.
Mfreke Akpabio spoke about adopting a product-led open source community mindset. The essence of growth strategy, time-saving and having a clear goal for a member-centered approach to building products.
Deploying your Web3 Open source projects
Seunbayo, a Developer Advocate at Spheron, spoke about how deployment is a challenge in Web 3, and how the problem is being solved.
The Unspoken Rules Of Package Managers
Ogoh Cyril spoke about how whenever he sees a problem, he either becomes the problem solver or a solution seeker. He also shared the three rules, which are:
- It exists.
- It would be created.
- You matter, so contribute.
There were a few minutes to connect, network, and chill.
Earn from what you write: A technical guide
Joel Adewole gave us the soap on earning from what you write, how technical writing is the development of written content for a technical subject and mentioned a lot of tools that could assist a technical writer.
Keynote Speech
Abdulwahab Ashimi gave the keynote talk about the OSCA Abuja community and the plans moving forward, then proceeded to welcome upstage our honored guests.
We were honored by the presence of Samson Goddy and Hack Sultan as they talked about how to publicize communities, why the Lagos community is doing well and how Abuja and others can do better.
Growing with Open Source
Akinjobi Sodiq talked about growing with open source, knowing yourself, networking, collaborating, building communities, and growing.
Ayodeji Ogundare passionately shared his journey in Community management and encouraged us always to give back to the community.
Contributing to Opensource as a Technical Writer
Ayodele Aransiola introduced our Sponsor Worka, and also talked about how you can make open-source contributions as a technical writer.
A Decentralised Future? Your Role, My Role
Abasi-ibiangake Udoka talked about "A Decentralized Future," how we are the next big thing, what we bring to the table, and how Africa is the next large workforce.
Automations standpoint in the open-source world
Our last speaker Mudasiru Rasheed discussed how you could improve your productivity and efficiency by leveraging GitHub and other related automation tools in open source and also revealed the power of GitHub Actions.
Event Conclusion
Our Hosts (Fatima, Favour, and Eloho) ended the event, appreciated the attendees, and urged them to come to more community engagements in Numbers.
Speaker slides
Here are the links to all speaker slides:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UXrUX1aTsSZFc097n97yIZC-RQxbNYmg?usp=sharing
Event Photos
https://photos.app.goo.gl/bSTLVH632B9ZofZC6
Highlights and Attendee Feedback
Open source day, Abuja.
The Abuja tech ecosystem looks like it's just getting off on it's feet's & for me it's really exciting :)
Great few months in the new city.#opensourcedayabuja #OpenSourceDayAbuja #opensource
— otobong.ada (@otobongfp) June 25, 2022
Learnt a lot yesterday about how to contribute to open source, the importance of and how to start technical writing, and importance of making tech noise. Thank you @Samson_Goddy @_oscaabuja #ossaday #OpenSourceDayAbuja #Web3
Meanwhile big congratulations!!👏 @ayodejidev pic.twitter.com/EamVqrhjGC
— chimex (@lekann) June 26, 2022
Learnt allot today, also got answers to so many questions I had from the speech @Samson_Goddy & @hackSultan made they are amazing people. It’s cool to know that you can contribute to open source no matter how little as long as it adds value. 🥑🚀#OpenSourceDayAbuja @_oscaabuja pic.twitter.com/OJyjdHh3qc
— francis.js (@EthamFrancis) June 25, 2022
A short clip from my talk @_oscaabuja about how we can all help reduce maintainers workload as contributors by reading the documentation. 🤗#OpenSourceDayAbuja
Thank you @elegant_tolly for capturing this illustration 😁🥰 #MaintainerMonth @github pic.twitter.com/QcPl7pg9LE
— Shebuel at #OSSDAYABUJA (@1shebuel) June 25, 2022
The three things I've learnt so far
1. Events are for networking, "no Dey form your potential employer dey by your side"
2. You can contribute to open source by just encourage newbies to get on board
3. Your mental health is important@Gbahdeyboh @Geektutor #OpenSourceDayAbuja
— Onuche 🎙️ (@Onuche_Codes) June 25, 2022
Thanks to our amazing sponsors: Postman, Worka and Picel8.
Like what Open Source Community Africa is doing? Help us do more by supporting or backing OSCA; please check out our Open collective and help us reach our annual budget, link here.
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Open Source Community Africa, changing the perception of Africans from just the billion users to the NEXT BILLION CREATORS
