In fact, if you told an African parent you wanted to become a software engineer during this time, most of them would talk you out of it in a lovely manner, while others would literally threaten to disown you if you did not study to become one of the big three - a medical doctor, a lawyer or a banker. However, a lot has changed since then. The African population has moved from not knowing about tech to becoming a continent where most people now know about tech and want to have a career in tech.

In this article, I’ll be taking you on a journey that explains the growth and impact of open source in Africa. It will cover how we moved from a few Africans knowing about open source to the incredible increase in Africans contributing to and building open source projects, what triggered this increase, and what we believe is the next phase of open source in Africa.

How it all began

Remember I said I’ll be taking you on a journey? Let’s start with how it all began.

The educational system in Nigeria is designed to ensure that anybody in a university studying to get a science degree must go for industrial training in their third year to gain real-life experience before they graduate from the university. For context, an industrial training is like an internship, but in this case, you must spend these six months working at a company that aligns with the degree you want to graduate with. Since I studied computer science, I did my industrial training in a tech company called Start Innovation Hub and spent six months there learning how to develop Android applications.

One of the unique things about this company was that tech companies that wanted to establish their presence in Africa, like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, would reach out to the company's CEO (Hanson Johnson) to host community-focused events for them. My time at this company introduced me to developer communities and their importance in the ecosystem. Since I worked there, I’d automatically have access to these events. I would hear inspiring tech career journies from the speakers, learn more about tech, and begin to see that I had a chance at becoming a software engineer after graduating from university. During one of the talks at the event, a speaker who was giving a talk about Javascript highlighted how it was an open source language and talked a bit about what open source was. I found it fascinating but never looked into it after that because I wanted to focus solely on my industrial training goal - to learn how to develop Andriod applications.

Luckily for me, during a joint GDG event at the end of every year, one of the speakers, Samson Goddy, talked about open source in detail. He explained what it meant, how to contribute, its impact on your tech career, and so much more. His talk at the event convinced me to give open source contribution a shot. Samson and I would then connect on Facebook, and I would ask him to tell me more about open source and guide me through making my first contribution to a project. He recommended that I start with the Google Summer of Code program since I was still at university.

This led me to find the Open Data Kit, an open source organization that owned an Android application for collecting data worldwide. I selected a good first bug and started working on fixing that bug. I would eventually submit a pull request, which will be merged by the project's maintainers, leading to one of the best days of my life. To this day, I still remember when I found out the pull request was merged. I couldn't believe that the code I wrote would be utilized by thousands of people all over the world. It was one of the best days of my life.

Why am I telling you this? It's because, like myself, not many people in the tech ecosystem in Africa knew about open source or what it meant. We were at the peak of tech companies wanting to establish themselves in Africa, and the few people who were in tech were spreading the gospel about tech and encouraging people to join in. However, open source was barely mentioned in these conversations or quickly glanced over if mentioned. As time went by, something happened that moved Nigeria and eventually other African countries to become active in the open source ecosystem.

What, you may ask?

It was Open Source Community Africa (OSCA), created by Samson Goddy and Ada Nduka Oyom. OSCA was designed to increase awareness about open source in Africa and the number of African contributors and creators in the open source ecosystem. When OSCA started in 2018, an event was hosted in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, with about 20 to 50 people in attendance. In 2019, OSCA hosted open source-focused events in Lagos and Uyo, other states in Nigeria.

Each of these events would typically have about 20 to 80 people in attendance. This was a great first step, but we knew we needed to reach more people to achieve our goals. This inspired us to try something different and host an open source festival. A festival that would be sorely focused on open source, last for three days, and include workshops, talks, panel sessions, etc.

At the time we were planning to do this, something like that had never been done in any country in Africa. The only big tech events in Africa then were created by Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Don’t get me wrong, these events were fantastic and impactful to the African tech ecosystem, but we wanted something focused only on open source. So we made the necessary arrangements and birthed the biggest open source conference in Africa - OSCAFEST.

The big shift - OSCAFEST

The Open Source Festival (OSCAFEST) triggered THE BIG SHIFT from people not knowing about or being interested in open source to more people being interested in open source in Africa.

The first OSCAFEST in 2020 had more than 800+ attendees, lasted for 3 days, and had over 29 talks and 12 workshops, all focused on open source. We had speakers like Eriol Fox from Ushahidi, Aniedi from Google, Prosper from Eden, Stephen Walli from Microsoft, Henry Zhu from Babel, and sponsors like GitHub, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, AWS, and Cloud Native Computing Foundation were present. Here are a few highlights:

• The first day was sorely focused on workshops because we didn’t just want to tell people about open source; we wanted to show them how to contribute, so these workshops served as hands-on sessions.

• The second and third days were focused on panel sessions and talks. One of the panel sessions focused on increasing the number of Africans that got into open source programs like Outreachy, Google Summer of Code, and Google Season of Docs. Since we had about 6 Africans who had successfully participated in these programs in attendance, they shared tips that will help the attendees get into the program, how being part of the open source program impacted their careers, and much more.

• Prosper Otemuyiwa’s “Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results” talk stood out. He shared how open source was a big part of what changed his life, how tiny changes, like making your first open source contribution, could lead to something huge over time. He used Henry Zhu as a case study - how he made his first contribution to Angular by continuously contributing to several open source projects. This led him to get hired at Behance for his contributions and become a Babel maintainer. This talk showed the attendees that they could start by making their first contribution, build a career around it, and transform their lives.

The festival left attendees informed about open source and inspired to make their first contribution. It also trended on Twitter and other social media platforms, thereby creating more awareness about Open source in Africa.

The big shift - OSCA chapter leads program

Even though we had attendees from other African countries, we noticed that most people who knew OSCA and what we were doing were Nigerians. Our organization's name was Open Source Community Africa, not Open Source Community Nigeria, so we knew we had to take a different approach.

We recognized that we couldn’t reach everyone in all the African countries or the local tech communities in each country, so we decided to launch the Chapter Leads program. In this program, selected community builders will create, grow, and support vibrant local OSCA communities in Africa.

Before the launch of this program, OSCA communities and events only happened in 3 states in Nigeria (Lagos, Uyo, and Port Harcourt). However, thanks to the OSCA chapter leads program, we now have 34 OSCA chapters in different African countries. These chapters have hosted various events within their local communities, helping us reach thousands of people and drive our mission to increase the number of Africans contributing to and creating open source projects.

The growth & impact of open source in Africa

The Open Source festival and the chapter leads program created a ripple effect that moved Africa from a continent with a handful of people aware of and actively participating in Open Source to a more active and vibrant open source ecosystem. Here are some success stories and use cases:

• According to the Octoverse report, in 2020, Nigeria became the top country with the highest growth of people using GitHub to contribute to open source. In 2023, the report shows that the number continued to grow, but this time, it wasn't just Nigeria but other African countries like Ghana, etc., showing that the chapter leads program did have an impact.

• At the next festival, hosted in 2022, one of the attendees from OSCAFest 2020 (Uchechukwu Obasi) shared how attending the event advanced his career. He highlighted how he came to the event not knowing anything about open source, left inspired and now aware of open source, became a full-time open source contributor, and eventually landed a job at Grafana because of his open source contributions. He tied his career growth to attending OSCAfest in 2020.

• The number of Africans successfully accepted into open source programs like Google Summer of Code, Google Season of Docs, and Outreachy drastically increased since 2020. There’s this tweet someone made the other day about the number of Nigerians who get accepted into the outreach internship. Here’s a tweet someone made in 2022 that 25 out of the 65 people selected for the Outreachy internship were from Africa. For context, this number was from zero to 2 before the OSCAFest or the chapter leads launch. In 2019, I was the only African accepted into the Google Seaon of Docs program, but today, the number has also increased.

• During the first OSCAfest in 2020, we had 800 attendees, and at the last open-source festival in 2023, we had more than 2000 attendees. This is a testament to the increase in awareness and interest about open source in Africa.

• Yes, our goal was to create awareness about open source, but much more than that, we wanted to have open source projects created by Africans. This happened, too. Some of these projects include Chakra UI, Danfo.js, and the Nuru programming language. In addition, there are repos compiling the different open source projects created and maintained by Africans like Made in Nigeria, Made in Kenya, Made in Ghana, and Made in Zambia.

The next phase of open source in Africa

When you look at the use cases I’ve shared, you’ll see that we achieved our goal to a certain degree. Unlike five years ago, African participation in the open source community has greatly improved. People are now aware of open source, and we’ve hosted events solely focused on open source, increased the number of our community members, chapter leads, and countries, hosted Sustain OSS events, and so much more.

We’ve successfully created awareness and increased the amount of creation and contribution. But the work isn’t done. We believe it is time to move into the next phase of open source in Africa, and this has led us to work on an acceleration program called the IDB program—ideate, design, and build — that we will launch soon.

Our goal for this program is to enable participants to accelerate their tech knowledge and become better professionals and collaborative team players by providing them with real-world work experience where they can engage in the ideation, designing, and development of open source projects. Stay tuned for it! 🎉

Aside from OSCA, others played a part too

So far, I’ve talked about the work that OSCA has done, but I’d be lying if I ended this article without highlighting the other Africans who helped to raise awareness of open source in Africa outside of OSCA. Here are some Africans whose work has increased awareness about open source in Africa:

• Marlene Mhangami, who led the first PyCon Africa event, became the first African to be a vice chair of the Python Software Foundation and actively advocated for Open Source in Africa.

• Prosper Otemuyiwa, who created a Laravel starter pack that trended more than Google and Facebook, has created several open source projects and continues to be a strong advocate for open source and tech in Africa.

• Adewale Abati, also known as AceKyd, created the Made in Nigeria repo to showcase open source projects created by Nigerians. This repo will inspire people from other countries in Africa to create “Made in repos” that showcase projects from their country.

• Peace Ojemeh brought a new light to contributing to open source as a designer when everyone kept thinking only software engineers could contribute to Open Source.

Without these people and many others I haven’t mentioned in this article, the open source ecosystem in Africa wouldn't be as active as it is today.

Summary

It is possible to do great things from a small place. Open Source Community Africa started as a small community in Lagos, Nigeria. But in five years, it went on to have an incredible impact on the African tech community.

We are still actively working on growing the open source ecosystem in Africa. There are still more countries to be reached and so many lives that can be changed. If you’d like to be a part of it, you can email me at edidiong@oscafrica.org. Thank you!

About Open Source Stories: This four-episode documentary series, to be released in October 2024 in commemoration of Hacktoberfest, tells the stories of Nigerian students (including one of OSCA’s Chapter Leads) who have embraced open source and transformed their tech careers. The series features eight students from different Universities in Nigeria, shining a spotlight on how open source can open doors to incredible opportunities and what building a career in open source looks like.

Each episode explores different themes within open source:

• Episode One: Hello World: This episode captures the moment when each student discovered open source. Through their stories, they share what open source means to them, how they were introduced to it, and the first steps they took to contribute.

• Episode Two: Blooming Where You Are Planted: In this episode, the students recount how they carved out their unique space within the open source ecosystem. They tell stories of trials and errors, roadblocks, and moments that helped them find their niche.

• Episode Three: Money Makes the World Go Round: This episode brings the stories of contributors who turned their open source passion into something sustainable. They explain how they discovered financial opportunities like Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and Outreachy and how they navigate the balance between passion projects and income.

• Episode Four: It Takes a Village: In the final episode, the students open up about the deeper motivations that keep them engaged in open source long after financial opportunities are secured. Through their stories, we explore the sense of community, friendships, and the impact of their contributions. This episode highlights the personal satisfaction and emotional connections that drive them to continue, showing how open source goes beyond code.

This partnership reflects OSCA’s commitment to fostering open source contributions and to create an atmosphere in which Africans not only use software and hardware but are also creators of these technologies. Beyond the Classroom offers an intimate look at how open source has become a vital part of these students’ personal and professional growth, as well as the communities that have helped them thrive.

The series will be released throughout October to coincide with HacktoberFest, with new episodes dropping every Friday. OSCA is proud to play a role in bringing these inspiring stories to the global open source community, and we can’t wait for you to experience the incredible journeys of these young developers. You can watch all the released episodes in the playlist below. Cheers! 🧡

In this live webinar, you get to hear us talk about:

• Why open source matters.

• Open source licensing.

• What does commercial open source (COSS) mean, and how does it work?

• How do we monetize open source and different business models?

• How Runa Capital approaches COSS investing.

• How members of the OSCA community can build commercial-ready projects.

• Maxime’s experiences as a startup founder and venture capitalist (VC).

• And lots more!

Kindly RSVP here to join the webinar and ask any questions you have in advance. Also ensure to click the "Notify me" button in the YouTube live stream link below to receive a reminder when it's time.

See you soon!

To achieve this goal, we recognized that we couldn’t reach everyone in all the countries in Africa or the different local tech communities in each country. So we decided to create a Chapter Leads community program, where selected community builders will create, grow and support vibrant local OSCA communities in Africa. Our Chapter Leads, represent a global network of organizers responsible for growing and supporting vibrant local OSCA communities across cities in Africa.

Quick Recap of #OSCACLS24

After years of dreaming and months of planning, we hosted our first Chapter Leads Summit (#OSCACLS24) to equip our Chapter Leads to fulfil their responsibilities even more, share new changes to the program, and help them build deeper team connections amongst each other. With 30+ chapters in nine countries across South, East, and West Africa, we brought almost all of them together with help from our amazing partners. The event was a success as you can see from the happy faces in the pictures below :).

The event was anchored by the Community Managers of Open Source Community Africa (Bolaji Ayodeji and Edidiong Asikpo) and started with a special welcome message from the co-founders of Open Source Community Africa (Samson Goddy and Ada Oyom).

Up next was a keynote speech from the wonderful Juan Pa (Student Program Manager at GitHub Education) who reminded the OSCA Chapter Leads how important the work they do is, the value of building computer science related communities, the complexities of building communities, useful tips from his years and wealth of experience, and lots more!

We also had another keynote speech from Adewale Abati (Staff Developer Advocate at Block and Creator the MadeInNigeria project) who also reminded the OSCA Chapter Leads how important the work they do is, how his career journey grew due to the efforts of communities like OSCA Chapters, and why they should keep doing even more!

We also had one of the Chapter Lead Alumni's, Velda Kiara from Nairobi, Kenya, give a talk from her previous experience leading an OSCA Chapter on how Chapter Leads can improve their strategy to find local and international partners.

We then had more deep dive sessions on topics like:

• New changes the program and operational reminders.

• Challenges that the Chapter Lead's face to create impact in terms of OSCA’s vision.

• Building open source projects in their communities that solves a local problem.

• How their community can leverage more on open source and contributions.

• How they can motivate their community members to be more active in open source.

There were other team bonding activities, community building and diversity and inclusion interactive sessions, brainstorming sessions, feedback sessions, Q/A sessions, good food, and lot's more!

Conclusion

The OSCA Chapter Leads Summit 2024 was definitely a success and we look forward to even more in the coming years. In the coming months we will also be showcasing more success stories and the impact of these amazing chapters through our directory and on our different platforms. If you'd like to find and join an OSCA Chapter near you, do well to join our community Discord server and we will connect you.

While we're not ready to start a new batch of the Chapter Leads program, we are slowly expanding the program across African countries where we have less representation to ensure we can help more people leverage open source for the good of their careers and the world at large. So if you are in a country in North, South, and East Africa where open source literacy and development is low, and you have the relevant experience to lead a group of people with shared struggles, please ensure to reach out to us; we'll like to talk to you. Cheers! 🧡

Join us for another community webinar with one of our own Prosper Opara, where we get to talk all about the MLH Fellowship, a 12-week open-source internship alternative for aspiring software engineers. Prosper Opara is an experienced full-stack engineer with over three years of experience cutting across open-source contributions, technical writing, and cloud-native application development. Having been a fellow in the first cohort of the MLH Fellowship in 2020, Propser will share his experiences and answer any questions from community members who are looking to apply for the Fall 2024 batch.

The MLH Fellowship runs year-round with batches starting every few months. This year, they have three fellowship tracks for the Fall 2024 batch (which starts by 16th September, 2024). The application has already begun and will end by 31st August 2024 (for those in the African region). You can learn more about the program, read the FAQs, register to attend this webinar, and apply here immediately.

In this live webinar you get to hear us talk about:

• Prosper's career background and journey into open-source and full-stack engineering.

• Prosper's experiences contributing to, building, and maintaining open-source projects.

• What the MLH Fellowship is about and what to expect.

• How to apply for the MLH Fellowship and join the Fall 2024 batch.

• Best practices and tips to increase your chances of being accepted.

• And lot's more!

Kindly, RSVP here to join the webinar and ask any questions you have in advance. Also ensure to click the "Notify me" button in the YouTube live stream link below to receive a reminder when it's time.

See you soon!

Join us on Monday, 15th July, 2024 at 17:00 (WAT) to learn more about:

• The definition of Open Source AI.

• Why we need Open Source Artificial Intelligence (AI).

• How to evaluate machine learning systems.

• Mer's interesting career in project leadership, stakeholder input analysis, and client reports writing.

• And lot's more!

Kindly, RSVP here to join the webinar and ask any questions you have in advance. Also ensure to click the "Notify me" button in the live stream link below to receive a reminder when it's time.

See you soon!

Join us for another community webinar with one of our own Segun Adebayo, where we get to talk all about open source and more open source!! Segun is the creator of Chakra UI, an award-winning React component library that has over 2.4M downloads per month. He’s also the author of several ground-breaking open source projects like Panda CSS, Zag.js, and Ark UI. Segun is a firm believer in open-source and is excited about building tools that bridge the gap between design and code.

In this live webinar you get to hear us talk about:

• Segun's career background and journey into full-time open-source.

• His experiences contributing to and maintaining multiple open-source projects.

• How he has sustained all his projects in the past years.

• How to build usable open-source projects for consumers.

• How to monetize your open-source projects.

• And lot's more!

Kindly, RSVP here to join the webinar and ask any questions you have in advance. Also ensure to click the "Notify me" button in the live stream link below to receive a reminder when it's time.

See you soon!

The open source movement is one of the most transformative technology shifts in history, creating significant economic and social impacts around the world. This survey, specifically focused on open source software developers in the Global South¹, is a major initiative to gather crucial insights from the community — and we want to hear from you! By sharing your thoughts, you’ll help global open source stakeholders better understand the requirements, priorities, and perceptions of software developers across the region. Your input will guide meaningful change and innovation. The survey will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.

Kindly click this link to participate and make your voice heard. Your responses will be collected until May 28, 2024, at 11:59 PM PT. Thank you for your valuable contribution!

¹ According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly comprises Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (excluding Israel, Japan, and South Korea), and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand).

The Eclipse Foundation provides a global community of individuals and organisations with a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. They have a proven track record of enabling community-led and industry-ready open source innovation earned over two decades. You can learn more about them using the link below. Cheers! 🧡

Introducing the Open Source in Energy Access Symposium

Open source technology and tools have been integral to the Energy Access landscape for some time—however, it's only recently that practitioners and organizations have begun showcasing its benefits, particularly in enhancing interoperability, cost efficiency, and maintaining high quality. With open source, there's even more potential to help reach universal Energy Access faster.

The EnAccess Foundation is an organization that supports open innovation, collaboration, and interoperability in energy access with a vision to create a world where everyone at all socio-economic levels has access to safe and clean energy. As a part of their activities, they're co-organizing their inaugural Open Source in Energy Access Symposium (OSEAS) with the World Resources Institute, plus support from the World Bank on the 7th to 8th May 2024 in Abuja, Nigeria at the Bon Hotel Octagon. The event will serve as a hub for researchers, clean energy entrepreneurs and businesses, distributed renewable energy companies, global policy makers, government agencies, open source enthusiasts, technology innovators, and other relevant professionals to collaborate and share knowledge. Getting together in person to discuss challenges and collaborating on solutions will mark an important moment in advancing Open Energy Access.

While registration has since closed to attend the symposium, special recognition has been given to members of Open Source Community Africa who wish to attend the symposium. Kindly send an email to symposium@enaccess.org to indicate your interest and you'll be granted a pass to attend physically. If you'd like to learn more about the event, you can explore the agenda for both day one and day two on their website.

Open Source in Energy Access Symposium Hackathon

If you're a tech geek, developer, indie hacker, student, or frequent hackathon participant with open source and software or hardware skills, you can participate in the hackathon happening on the 9th to 10th of May 2024 (just after the main event). Here's a quick summary of the different challenges to be brainstormed and solved:

You can learn more about each of the challenges on their website or Hackathon Discord server. If you're a member of Open Source Community Africa and you're interested in participating, kindly register using this form. Participating in the hackathon offers you a chance collaborate with various experts, garner new experiences, and win gift cards, electronic gadgets, and awards (valued up to 2000 USD) for all participants and the best team/solutions.

Conclusion

As a community, we intend to help integrate the art of open source contribution into the African tech ecosystem while strongly advocating for the adoption of open-source technologies and supporting the community with opportunities like these.

As promised earlier, here is the special gift:

If you reside in Abuja and would like to attend the Hackathon, we will cover the transportation costs of the first five persons to indicate interest (for two days—9th and 10th). To redeem this gift, kindly register for the hackathon first, join our community Discord server (if you haven't yet), search for bolajiayodeji, and send him a DM! This offer ends as soon as the first five persons are selected :).

We hope this partnership brings more opportunities closer to you as we continue to build and contribute to the growth of the open source ecosystem in Africa. Cheers! 🧡

Over the last 19 years, Google Summer of Code (GSoC) has enabled more than 19,000 GSoC contributors from 116 countries to work with over 850 open source projects and produce millions of lines of code since its inception in 2005. The GSoC program aims to:

• Inspire developers to begin participating in open source development.

• Help open source projects bring in new, excited developers into their communities who stay long after their GSoC ends.

• Give new developers exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., testing, version control, software licensing, distributed development, etc.).

• Create more open source code for all.

Programming online from home, GSoC contributors spend 12+ weeks on their projects, earning stipends upon completing their milestones. Volunteer mentors help GSoC contributors plan their time, answer questions, and provide guidance on best practices, project-specific tools, and community norms while helping integrate GSoC contributors into their communities. GSoC contributors receive an invaluable learning experience, an introduction to the global open source community, and something that potential employers love to see on resumes!

The GSoC contributor applications open March 18 - April 2 at 18:00 UTC. Reaching out to mentoring organizations now significantly increases your chances of being accepted. Join us next week (27/02/2024 at 05:00 PM GMT+1) in a virtual webinar where you can learn more about Google Summer of Code and how to get started from the Program Manager of Google Summer of Code, Stephanie Taylor.

You should visit this website for full details on the requirements for GSoC participation, program rules, and general information. Next, RSVP to join the webinar (you can ask any questions you have in advance in the form), and click the "Notify me" button in the live stream link below to receive a reminder when it's time.

See you soon!

Open Source Festival 2023, themed Sustainability for Growth, took place at Landmark Event Centre, Lagos, Nigeria from June 15th to 17th. A grand event with a total of 88 sessions from 81 speakers across the globe, the festival saw a remarkable attendance of over 2000 people from 19 countries. This remarkable gathering of open-source enthusiasts and professionals showcased the vibrant open-source community in Africa and the world. Here is a summary video of how the Open Source Festival 2023 went:

Sustain Africa: Thursday, 15th June, 2023

Sustain Africa is an exclusive event dedicated to fostering sustainability in open-source development, particularly within the African open-source ecosystem. The event brings together a select group of experts and stakeholders to delve into strategies and initiatives that can ensure the long-term viability and impact of open-source projects in Africa.

To gain insights into the discussions and outcomes of Sustain Africa 2023, you can refer to the community report using the link below.

Day 1: Friday, 16th June, 2023

The festival kicked off with the registration session, after which we launched into a series of workshops and talk sessions. The sessions were held simultaneously across multiple halls, ensuring that participants could choose the topics that resonated most with them. Here are highlights from the keynote sessions:

→ The first keynote speaker, Regina Nkenchor talked about the common challenges women face in the open source ecosystem and how to overcome them through her session on "Overcoming Obstacles as a Woman Contributor to Open Source Projects". She highlighted the importance of having a mental shift as a woman, which has to do with releasing limiting thoughts and embracing empowering open-minded perspectives.

→ Jan C Borchardt, in his keynote session "Open Source Design Strategies for Building a Sustainable Community" discussed some challenges designers face in open source, how structures can improve your organization and the essence of collaboration between the team. He also spoke on how designers can work on project issues with the help of design tags.

We had other workshops and talks with topics ranging from e-commerce, operating systems, IoT, data science, in-app notifications, data structures, Kubernetes, MLOps, APIs, SRE, Observability, and so much more. You can take a look at the event schedule (Friday, June 16) to see all the talks/read their synopsis or watch all the video recordings.

Day 2: Saturday, 17th June, 2023

Day 2 proved as engaging and captivating as the first, featuring a captivating lineup of keynotes and talks across various fields. We started the day with a Women in Open Source breakfast featuring a fantastic panel session from amazing women in open source sharing their experience leading in the space. After the breakfast session, we kicked off the other sessions. Here are highlights from some keynote sessions:

→ Samson Goddy and Ada Nduka Oyom gave a co-founders keynote, where they talked about how open source is already a driving force globally, empowering individuals and organizations. They also made us understand that open source isn't just about the project, but the community also.

→ A keynote session from Brian Douglas on "The Secret Sauce is Open Source", talked about the Internet being a powerful tool that connects us with like-minded individuals. He also made us understand that there are lots of opportunities in open source when we dedicate our time and effort.

→ Angie Jones took us through how Web5 plays a crucial role in decentralized platforms in her Keynote session "Refactoring the Web." She analyzed the 3 pillars of web5 and they are all open standards. Developers will be able to build decentralized applications on the Web5 platform, because of the little to no complexity in building them.

We had other talks with topics ranging from design prototyping, engineering for wellness, cloud engineering, security, systems design, protocol engineering, job hunting, and so much more. You can take a look at the event schedule (Saturday, June 17) to see all the talks/read their synopsis or watch all the video recordings.

Community and Partnerships

To extend our reach and impact, and enable access to the event, we partnered with some communities like She Code Africa, Google Developer Student Community (GDSC) Lagos, Web3Ladies, CHAOSS Africa, and People in Product, offering discounted tickets to their community members.

We are also grateful to TalentQL for offering us their space to host the Sustain Africa event. TalentQL is building world-class engineering teams with vetted software developers. They also offer engineering and product certification training via AltSchool Africa.

Event Feedback

This year, we had attendees, speakers, and sponsors share inspiring stories of networking, diversity, and career connections through our official hashtag, #OSCAFEST23.

Media

To see images, video highlights, and recorded sessions, you can check out the event gallery and our YouTube channel.

Special Thanks

This remarkable event wouldn't have come to reality without the tireless dedication of our exceptional core team, organizing committee, multitude of sponsors, and incredible event volunteers. A heartfelt thank you goes to our sponsors for their invaluable contributions that played a pivotal role in the event's success.

What's Next for Us?

In the next year, we plan to continue our mission of empowering Africans with open source technology through our chapters, creating sustainable programs, and connecting them to more opportunities and projects. To stay updated, connect with us on Discord and all social media.

A picture of the happy attendees of Sustain Africa 2023 :).

Quick Statistics

The event lasted about 3 hours and 30 minutes and the agenda was structured as collaborative, dialogue-based, outcome-oriented working sessions rather than presentations or lecture formats. This year, we had seven (7) working groups with an introduction of a new working group compared to previous years, including:

1. Open Source Software Development

2. Open Source Documentation

3. Open Source Design

4. Open Source Data Science

5. Open Source Marketing and Funding

6. Open Source Programs and Specialized Projects

7. Open Source Burnout and Mental Health

We had a diverse attendance in terms of gender and work status. 120 persons registered, and 74 were in attendance, including, Data Analysts, Program Managers, Technical Writers, Product Designers, Software Engineers, Developer Advocates, and Community Managers who are active OSS maintainers, contributors, or funders. The sustain event is invite-only as the goal is to gather experts in the industry and host conversations around the challenges and possible solutions to specific issues for each working group. In the end, we then shared the output of the sessions with the entire community, which is the goal of this report.

Here are a few charts with summaries of the important statistics:

Event Media Gallery

Kindly use the link below to find all the beautiful Sustain Africa 2023 event pictures in the "DAY 0 (Sustain Africa)" album.

Sessions Overview

As always, our overall goals at Sustain Africa are to:

• Map and compare visions for the long-term health of free and open software communities around the globe, connecting those who are passionate about these topics and supporting deeper ongoing collaboration and shared practice.

• Frame and workshop concrete sustainability needs and challenges, applying and prototyping strategies and practices that provide ongoing support and leadership in sustainability practices.

• Document models, strategies, and approaches to the sustainability of OSS projects and work toward a more sustainable future for OSS.

• Address the “hard conversations” tied to sustainability, including appropriate practices for companies participating in free and open communities and new developments in licensing and reuse.

Each working group had twelve (12) participants, one (1) note taker, and one (1) facilitator per session, with seven (7) rounds for each group in total. The table below describes all the working groups.

Session Notes

The event was hosted by Bolaji Ayodeji and started with a friendly and fast-paced kickoff that included welcome words from the host, overviews of the agenda, participation guidelines, meeting logistics, and brief participant introductions. The rounds of sessions then proceeded with the start of the discussions designed to explore the latest practices and learnings around sustainability in the different working groups. In the end, notes from each group were collected, participants summarized key outcomes from the event, and we discussed inventory action items, next steps, and post-event collaboration.

The sections below summarize the output and notes from the seven working groups.

Open Source Software Development

This working group was facilitated by Idris Olubisi. The goal was to get everyone talking and answer questions like “How can we make the software code of open-source projects sustainable, and how can we improve/sustain the process involved with writing, testing, releasing, deploying, scaling, and maintaining the code?”.

Participants first evaluated notable projects (with some built by Africans) as case studies, including Danfo.js, Novu, Datasist, Linux Foundation projects, Byfrost, DI Project, Latex, The Peer, NextCloud, etc. Next, the discussion revolved around how contributors can get hired to work on OSS full-time and how open-source project-focused community initiatives like the Kano’s All for Tech Initiative are essential.

Participants shared their thoughts on the challenges faced in maintaining and contributing to OSS, some of which include:

• Low reward and time consumption (since maintaining or contributing to an open-source project is mostly unpaid work).

• The difficulty in getting a paid gig or full-time role as an OSS contributor; it takes time, luck, and effort. Just a few companies are hiring full or part-time contributors.

The following solutions and general tips were discussed:

• Contributing to open-source projects might get you a job and help you build a profile that leads to your dream job.

• Contributing to some OSS projects requires a certain level of knowledge you might not have, which is considered a knowledge gap. You must then skill up before contributing (use the project as a motivation/means to learn something new if related to your career path) or contribute to areas of the projects with lower technical requirements (e.g., documentation, resources, ideas, suggestions, etc.).

• Always read the contribution guidelines, use the issue/PR templates, and communicate well when submitting pull requests.

• Contributors should send cold emails to the maintainers of OSS projects they’d love to work for, highlighting their skills and proposed added value. Projects with the budget could consider hiring on a freelance, part, or full-time basis.

• FOSSFox is doing a great job in collating jobs from numerous OSS startups. You should consider exploring the platform if you’re looking for a path here.

• Maintainers should consider monetizing your project with a commercial plan different from the free one. The revenue from this is a way to incentivize maintainers/contributors and running project costs.

• Open source is nothing without marketing. Maintainers and project owners need to put their projects out there. This involves investing in proper digital marketing through dedicated contributors or learning the skills if you have the time.

• Maintainers should engage in community outreach and awareness strategies (either through social media, relevant Discord servers, developer forums, etc.) to get more contributors.

• No one will use your product without knowing how to use it. Ensure to prioritize documentation at all phases of your project.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa and #software channels in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

Open Source Documentation

This working group was facilitated by Linda Ikechukwu. The goal was to get everyone talking and answer questions like “Who writes, uses, and updates the docs? What do sustainable-first docs look like?, and How can we write better ones?”.

Participants first evaluated some notable projects (with some built by Africans) as case studies, including Chakra UI, Nextjs, Django, MindsDB, Datadog, PostHog, Paystack, Stripe, CHAOSS, Prisma, Supabase, Airbyte, Slack, etc. Next, they shared their thoughts on the best documentation they’ve come across, what made the documentation pleasant, the worst documentation they’ve come across, what made the experience terrible, and suggestions projects can adopt to make their documentation better.

According to the participants, here’s what makes bad technical documentation:

• Usage of jargon (special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand). This can be confusing for beginners unfamiliar with a piece of terminology.

• Poor documentation structure. This makes it challenging to navigate and find information in a document.

• Ambiguous and bulky documentation pages with so much information. This usually overwhelms readers.

• Broken documentation search experiences. This usually does not yield valuable results.

According to the participants, here's what makes good technical documentation:

• To make content more accessible to beginners, avoid jargon whenever possible. If you must, it's helpful to explain any technical terms or acronyms you use.

• Conduct UX research or friction testing periodically for your entire documentation.

• Your documentation should be structured according to learning or knowledge stages.

• The homepage of documentation should follow a structured format with sections that answer the following questions:

  • What is this product (answering the questions' What, Why, Where, How')?

  • How can this help the reader?

  • Where can the reader go for each/different task/solution/problem?

• The method above provides a clear and concise way of organizing information for the reader. It allows them to understand the documentation and how it can help them.

• Content should be written in the second-person voice, directly addressing the reader as "you", creating a more personal connection between the reader and the text.

• Documentation should include a functional search bar to enable easier findability. With the rise of generative AI, it has become even easier to improve the search experience in documentation by allowing the reader to ask a question. The AI agent will then scan your documentation and return a semantic answer with clickable references. Different documentation platforms and frameworks support this now.

• Refrain from over-relying on text content. For technical documentation involving code, ensure that you provide code snippets that can be modified and tested within the documentation so the reader can preview the data/results.

• Include cookbooks, demo applications, video content, infographics, etc., where necessary.

• Document common errors and roadblocks.

The following general tips were discussed:

• If you’re starting out or looking to grow, explore the following projects:

  • The Good Docs Project: a collection of best practice templates and writing instructions for documenting open-source software.

  • Diátaxis: a systematic approach to technical documentation authoring. This system has been adopted successfully in hundreds of documentation projects across the world.

• Ensure you prioritize team coordination in your processes.

• Update the code snippets, code examples, or sections of all parts of your documentation as changes (especially breaking changes) are introduced in the software. For code snippets, invest in automated docs update systems where possible (especially for API-based projects with API references based on some schema).

• People who build projects should not be the ones to document them because of the curse of knowledge. If they do, it usually results in docs that are not beginner-friendly or user accessible.

• Differentiate which community inquiry is dynamic (temporary) and static (permanent) information. Temporary questions are those that people keep asking (across social or community platforms like Discord). Put those in an FAQ section so people can engage and update what works for them.

• Use the exact questions people ask as section headers in this FAQ document, as this makes for better SEO.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa and #documentation channels in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

Open Source Design

This working group was facilitated by Steve Anthony. The goal was to get everyone talking and answer questions like “How can we make open-source design and user experience sustainable? What does sustainability mean for code-adjacent territories?”.

Participants shared their thoughts on the definition of design in open source. According to their responses, open-source design involves providing value using design principles to solve problems. Usually, this will include collaborating with multiple persons and solving problems. Alternatively, it is a creative process where designers come together to work towards a project and create the design source files that will be accessible publicly. This includes processes and workflows, UI/UX research and design, and graphics design.

According to the participants, one of the biggest challenges that make it difficult for designers to contribute to open source is the need for more documentation specifically for designers. It's unclear if and how designers can contribute to specific OSS projects, and the project owners are to blame. The following general tips were also discussed:

• Explore Open Source Design, a community of designers and developers pushing for more open design processes and improving open-source software's user experience and interface design. Here, you'll find articles, the job board, events, resources, etc., targeted at developers and designers interested in working and designing in Open Source.

• Contributors should understand the projects you want to work on so you can propose ideas and collaborate more effectively and efficiently.

• Contributors should have the mindset of solving problems with passion.

• Maintainers should make design contributions available and properly document how you want designers to collaborate and contribute to your project.

• Create more awareness and advertise how designers can improve your project internally and externally with clear and actionable getting-started instructions.

• Advocate and promote proactiveness and community idea skill exchange. This involves introducing techniques that will enable contributors to effectively communicate and share ideas with others in a community group setting.

• Give designers enough recognition or validation through reward or recognition systems to help them build their careers.

• Give helpful feedback and legitimate opportunities for your contributors to practice and develop their skills.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa and #design channels in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

Open Source Data Science

This working group was facilitated by Gift Ojeabulu. The goal was to get everyone talking and answer questions like “How can we make open source data science and machine learning sustainable, too? What does sustainability mean for data engineering territories?”.

Over the years, the role of data science and adjacent data industries in open source has been rising despite the low projects and contribution rate compared to others. Participants shared their thoughts on how open source in the data space is not only applicable to software code but could be:

• Curating and building datasets and uploading them to platforms like Kaggle, DagsHub, Huggingface, or GitHub through web scraping, etc.

• Writing or contributing to machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) research papers, publishing research papers on ResearchGate, arXiv, etc., and submitting papers at conferences like Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP), International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), Neural Information Processing Systems (NeuRIPS), etc.

• The traditional way of contributing to open-source data, AI, and ML software tools on GitHub (e.g., Danfo.js, Datasist, DVC, HuggingChat (LLM), etc.).

According to the participants, here's how to sustain OSS Data Science and encourage more open-source contributions and activity in the data and AI spaces here in Africa, starting from Nigeria:

• Education and Community Building: Organize workshops, local meetups, conferences, and hackathons to introduce open-source data science tools and projects and foster a sense of community. These hands-on sessions can help participants gain practical experience, provide networking opportunities, and offer a platform for sharing knowledge.

• Active Online Forums and Groups: Create or promote online forums and groups where data practitioners can discuss projects, seek help, and collaborate. Platforms like Discord, GitHub, and dedicated Slack channels can facilitate this communication.

• Open Data Initiatives: Support and contribute to open data initiatives and platforms. This will encourage the release of datasets that can stimulate interest and provide real-world problems for the community to work on using platforms like Kaggle and Zindi. Also, we should invest in organizing data challenges or competitions to engage data scientists in solving practical problems using open-source tools.

• Infrastructure Support: We should partner and collaborate with cloud service providers like Nvidia, AWS, Azure (Microsoft), and GCP (Google) to offer credits or resources to data projects. This will reduce barriers to entry for contributors and maintainers who may need access to high-performance computing resources. You can look at our awesome-open-source collection (the "Infrastructure Support" section) to find some companies that offer free credits for open-source projects (we will keep updating as we find more).

• Mentorship Programs: Create mentorship programs to connect experienced data practitioners with newcomers. Mentorship can help individuals navigate the open-source landscape and contribute effectively.

• Industry Partnerships: Foster collaborations with industry players who have a vested interest in data science, ML, and AI, like Outreachy, Google Summer of Code, Hacktoberfest, Advent of Code, etc. These players may provide support, resources, or project ideas for open-source initiatives.

• Clear Documentation and Accessibility: Ensure that the documentation for your open-source projects is clear and accessible. This makes it easier for new contributors to get started and make meaningful contributions.

• Multilingual Support: Consider providing documentation and resources in local African languages to enhance accessibility and reduce the barrier of entry for potential non-English speaking contributors.

• Government Support: Advocate for policies that support open-source initiatives and data science education. Government support can be crucial in creating an environment conducive to open-source development.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa and #data channels in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

Open Source Marketing and Funding

This working group was facilitated by Regina Nkenchor. The goal was to get everyone talking and answer questions like “What is open source marketing? How do we market open-source projects? How much money goes into open source? Do you really need funding? What do you need funding for? Where to find funding? How to manage funds? What are the existing strategies? Do's and don'ts?”.

Participants shared their thoughts on how owners of OSS projects can sell their projects and attract both users and funders using some existing projects (specifically those built from Africa e.g., Convoy (YC W22)) as case studies. For example, some open-source companies (e.g., MongoDB, Supabase, HashiCorp, AppSmith, Cal, etc.) have attained incredible valuations. Over the years, we have seen similar but smaller projects rising to become companies, getting backers (financial sponsorships), generating MRR (monthly recurring revenue) from sales, joining Y Combinator, raising funds, etc. How can we keep this going and have more Africans participate?

According to the participants, here's how to sustain OSS Marketing and Funding:

• Take some entry-level marketing courses to learn the basics of digital and business marketing (copywriting, branding, SEO/SEM, social media, digital communication, public relations, etc.). This will enable you to utilize your existing skill sets or pick up new ones that will be useful in selling your project. No one will use your project if you don't show them why they should.

• Ensure you figure out the best licensing for your project from the inception to prevent further issues, especially if you will eventually commercialize your project. You can read this guide to learn about all the OSI (Open Source Initiative) approved licences or use this platform to choose which is best for your project by answering some prompts.

• If you're interested, kindly read this guide to learn more about the legal side of open source.

• Create the avenue for monetization as you grow the project. We recommend you set up a GitHub Sponsors account for sponsorships only and Open Collective for both sponsorship and finance/expenses management.

• If you want to commercialize your OSS project, look for good examples of existing projects generating some revenue and see the models they're using. You can also look at this curated list of monetization approaches for OSS.

• We need to create more educational opportunities to train OSS maintainers on how to generate revenue from their projects (this becomes a mix of FOSS–Free Open Source Software and COSS—Commercial Open Source Software). At Open Source Community Africa, we will work on creating more of this in the coming months to aid community members.

• Increase dependency-based freemium. A freemium model is a business model where you offer a basic version of your product for free and then charge for additional features, benefits, or services. This is typically the route many OSS projects go.

• If you're already generating revenue and have premium (paid) users, ensure you are adding new features for them.

• Companies and individuals that use different OSS projects should give back through financial sponsorships (grants or donations). There are so many ways to do this now, either through Open Collective, GitHub Sponsors, etc.

• Upfront investment can help projects to scale and remain sustainable. OSS Capital is doing an excellent job on this currently, and it would be great to have more African projects grow enough to reach this funding phase. If you project is grown enough to become a startup, you can also apply to OSS Capital's COSS acceleration program (Git Round) or even YC.

• Ensure you build a reliable project. One of the significant issues with some OSS projects is that they need to work better (UX or features-wise), like their proprietary counterparts, which leads to misconceptions that FOSS projects should not be trusted. Build a solid project that is usable and reliable enough for a user to want to use it and pay for it.

• Marketing is an iterative process. There is no perfect solution, so learn from the best and keep adjusting till you find the ideal mix.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa channel in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

Open Source Programs and Specialized Projects

This working group was facilitated by Brian Douglas. The goal was to get everyone talking and try to answer questions like “GSOC, GSOD, Outreachy, Hacktoberfest, etc., as a way of increasing contributions. How does sustainability relate to academic and specialized projects with different needs and users?”.

Participants shared their thoughts on how most existing programs focus more on developers than designers and other fields. They considered what authentic participation in different contexts/organizations looks like and, more importantly, how we can drive this authentic participation forward.

According to the participants, here's how to sustain OSS Programs and Specialized Projects:

• Explore Open Sauced, an intelligence platform for OSS contributors and maintainers. With OpenSauced, OSS maintainers can get actionable insights into their team's contributions, contributors can expand their resumes through open-source contributions, and companies hiring can discover the best talents doing open-source.

• Explore all the existing efforts and programs of the OSI (Open Source Initiative) to protect the open source ecosystem. The OSI helps build a world where all can enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of open source software by supporting institutions and individuals working together to create communities of practice in which the healthy open source ecosystem thrives.

• Projects should begin monetization or seek funding. This will enable them to invest money into growing different aspects or programs of the project.

• Follow your national authority and ensure your project and program don't violate national regulations. If possible, get support and partnerships from the relevant national bodies of your country to grow your project. Several countries have existing bodies to support impactful research and OSS work that solves social problems.

• For example, The Digital Public Goods Alliance (United Nations-endorsed) now exists in partnership with GitHub, OSI, Unicef, etc, to facilitate the discovery and deployment of open-source technologies, bringing together countries and organizations to create a thriving global ecosystem for digital public goods (projects that have high potential for addressing critical development needs and urgent global challenges and help to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs)). The goal is to make such projects discoverable, sustainably managed, and accessible for government institutions and other relevant implementing organizations.

• Communities like Open Source Community Africa and She Code Africa should invest in organizing "Contributhon" activities for Africans that will support different technical fields to contribute to OSS projects related to their expertise/interests. This will help decentralize the results of existing OSS programs since this will be demographic-focused and help specialized projects get more users and contributors.

• Open Source Community Africa has hosted an Open Source Challenge in the past. We will improve and continue the program in the coming months, in addition to more hackathon activities at the yearly Open Source Festival.

• Just like was discussed in the marketing and funding group, OSS projects should invest in marketing. This will aid awareness, user/contributor acquisition, and funding.

• Invest in getting your project to trend on GitHub, if possible. This might be a vanity growth metric, but it could be helpful to get more visibility, users, and contributors. This will include activities like ensuring your project is well documented on GitHub (well structured and beautiful to behold), finding ways to share the project on developer forums/newsletters/social media to garner attention and possible acquisitions, and asking friends/existing organic users to help you do the same.

• If you're running an OSS program for your project, find someone (with more expertise) who can champion the program more than you. This will enable you to focus on other things and support the new person, leading to all-round success.

• Terrible onboarding and a complicated user experience are usually a recipe for OSS project failure. Invest in reducing the barrier of entry (e.g., using effective contributing guides, good first issues, effective support channels, etc.) and ensure your project has a good user experience.

• Contribute to the growth of yourself and your team members and ensure you expand your team as the project grows. The more hands on deck, the more results.

• Prioritize diversity and inclusion (DEI) in your team and community.

• Kind feedback makes people feel like their contributions are valid.

• Always ask questions, even the stupid ones.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa channel in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

Open Source Burnout and Mental Health

This working group was facilitated by Ruth Ikegah and Ada Oyom. The goal was to get everyone talking and answer questions like “How do we take good care of our body while actively contributing and maintaining? Where do we draw the line? What challenges do open-source creators face? Useful strategies and health tips”.

Participants shared their thoughts on a reflection of the past at a time when they were doing well in their project; what went well, and what were you doing at that point that made it well? According to the participants, you’re beginning to experience burnout when you experience the following for a prolonged amount of time:

• Reduced interest in stuff you like to do.

• No creativity.

• No excitement.

• Physical fatigue.

• Short-term memory.

• “Leave me alone” attitude.

According to the participants, here’s how to sustain OSS Burnout and Mental Health:

• Strive to bring in more people to aid the development of a project. This will ensure the work is delegated across multiple persons, reducing the chances of burnout.

• Always remember that it’s okay not to be okay.

• Encourage members of your team to be vulnerable.

• Practice an open and accessible leadership system.

• Contributors and maintainers can engage in the following activities to curb burnout:

  • In cases where burnout results from being overwhelmed by expectations/deliverables, planning, scheduling, and writing things down helps. Write journals to reduce stress and depression.

  • Find new hobbies aside from your 9 - 5 work activities.

  • Exercise, go to the gym, or engage in physical activities.

  • Talk about how you’re feeling to someone. This could be your friend or a therapist. Ensure you’re seeking help.

  • Always pause and process how you’re feeling.

  • Be kind to yourself and others.

  • Reflect on what is best for yourself before committing to new work.

  • Ensure to set working hours for all projects and activities you’re committed to.

  • Know your limits and take breaks.

  • Don’t feel bad about saying no.

• Avoid toxic work cultures. Usually, these are places where the over-demand for respect and the entitlement mentality exists.

• Check out Jono Bacon 12 stages of Burnout—a practical guide for avoiding burnout and living a happier life.

The next steps include experimenting and implementing the proposed tips and solutions as an individual, community, team, or company. Also, ensure to join the #sustain-africa channel in the OSCA Discord Server to continue the conversation and collaboration.

OSCA x Sustain Podcast Series

At OSCA, our goal is to grow and sustain the open-source ecosystem in Africa. One of the ways we do this is to showcase the fantastic work people are doing in Africa to drive more support and awareness. We partnered with our friends at the global Sustain OSS Podcast with Richard Liiauer for a special suite of Sustain x OSCA Podcast episodes which you can listen to below:

Summary and Conclusion

Perfection isn’t the best way to build open-source projects; let's keep learning and iterating. We hope you have learned something new you can apply to your project from this report. We look forward to you continuing the conversation in your respective projects/companies and implementing the ideas shared. At Open Source Community Africa, we commit to helping Africans thrive in the open-source ecosystem as maintainers and contributors. We will continue working with community members, OSS maintainers, stakeholders, community leaders, sponsors, and companies across Africa to ensure we sustain the projects rising from Africa.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment below to let us know what you think. Also, join our Discord Server if you haven’t yet. Cheers!

The OSCAFest 2023 Hackathon culminates in an exciting pitch and award ceremony during Open Source Festival 2023 on the 16th of June 2023, during which the best teams will showcase their projects to a distinguished panel of judges, and winners will emerge.

Event Details

Registration: Starts 22 May 2023.

Duration: 4weeks.

Location: Hybrid (Lagos).

Prizes: $5,000 USDC Prize Pool:

• 1st Place: $3,000.

• 2nd Place: $1,500.

• 3rd Place: $500.

Who Can Participate?

This hackathon is open to all individuals and teams from various backgrounds, including developers, tech enthusiasts, and students with innovative project ideas.

Note: You can participate Solo (alone) or in a team with a maximum of 5 members. We are also happy to help you find a team from our discord channel.

Hackathon Timeline

• Week 1 (22 May 2023): Registration, onboarding on the discord channel, and team formation.

• Week 2 & 3(29th May - 12th June): Project Development and Mentorship Sessions (Virtual).

• Week 4 (13th June - 16th June): Final Pitches and Judging.

How to Participate

To participate in the OSCA & Axelar Hackathon, register through this form 🚀 and join the discord channel here 🚀, where you can meet potential team members and access resources, you can leverage.

Judging Criteria

• Use GMP’s callContract or callContractWithToken to provide valuable interchain functionality as part of your DApp.

• Projects will be judged on viability, creativity, and how essential being Interchain is to your DApp.

• You must share the source code of your DApp (open-sourced on GitHub or GitLab).

• Please include the following in the readme.md / bounty.md of your application:

  • You must share an AxelarScan link with a completed Interchain transaction.

  • You must share at least two positive or negative experiences you had with learning and using Axelar.

Why Participate?

• Onboarding and mentorship sessions from industry experts.

• Connect with professionals, fellow participants, and potential collaborators.

• Demonstrate your problem-solving abilities, creativity, and technical prowess through your innovative projects and solutions.

• Compete for a chance to win amazing gift items from OSCA and Axelar.

• Up to $5,000 cash in winning prizes and other incentives.

Official Hackathon Hashtags

• #oscafest23hackathon

• #oscaxaxelarhackathon

Follow us on social media handles, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn for the latest updates, announcements, and resources leading up to the event. Cheers!

What you can do

Here are nine things you can do in open-source as a Software Tester.

1. Understand what Open Source is and how it works

Familiarize yourself with the concept and principles of open-source software, including its licensing, which allows for code visibility, modification, and sharing. Explore popular platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, which host open-source repositories.

2. Find Suitable Projects

Narrow down your search to open-source projects that align with your skills and interests. Look for actively maintained projects with a strong community and clear guidelines for contributions. Engage with open-source testing communities to seek project recommendations and guidance.

3. Analyze the Project and Testing Needs

Thoroughly examine the chosen project, studying documentation like the README file, contribution guidelines, and issue tracker. Understand the project's goals, architecture, and specific testing requirements. Identify areas that require testing, such as functional, integration, security, speed, or usability testing. Familiarize yourself with the project's testing frameworks, tools, coding standards, best practices, and quality standards.

4. Start Small and Help Report Bugs

If you're new to an open-source project, it's best to start small and share bugs as your first contribution; begin by contributing to bug reports. Utilize your testing skills to carefully test the software and report any issues you encounter. Provide developers with clear and concise information, including relevant details about the environment, such as the operating system and browser version.

5. Contribute to making Test Cases

Create and share test cases, which play a crucial role in ensuring software functionality. Craft test cases for various scenarios and features, including positive/negative, edge, and boundary cases. Contribute your test cases to the project's documentation or submit them as pull requests to the test suite. Seek feedback from the community to improve your test cases.

6. Participate in Testing Efforts

Engage in dedicated testing activities organized by open-source projects, such as testing cycles and events. Help identify and report bugs, verify fixes, and validate new features. Conduct test runs, perform exploratory testing, and provide feedback on software performance and functionality.

7. Collaborate with the Community

Embrace the collaborative nature of open source by actively participating in discussions, sharing comments, and leveraging your knowledge and skills. Join project-specific email lists, chat rooms, or forums to engage in conversations related to testing, quality assurance, and software development. Contribute ideas, experiences, and insights while exploring best practices, methodologies, and testing tools.

8. Contribute to Documentation

Contribute to the improvement of open-source project documentation. Update the README file, expand the repository's literature, or create testing tutorials and guides. Strengthen the project's testing and quality assurance materials.

9. Continuous Learning and Growth

Open-source projects constantly evolve, requiring you to stay updated and sharpen your testing skills. Keep abreast of the latest testing tools, systems, and methodologies. Pursue online courses, webinars, and workshops that focus on software testing and quality assurance to stay current with industry trends and best practices. Conclusion: As a software tester, your involvement in open-source projects can make a significant impact. By understanding open source, selecting suitable projects, contributing to testing efforts, collaborating with the community, and continuously learning, you can help improve the quality and reliability of open-source software.

Conclusion

As a software tester, your involvement in open-source projects can make a significant impact. By understanding open source, selecting suitable projects, contributing to testing efforts, collaborating with the community, and continuously learning, you can help improve the quality and reliability of open-source software.

This survey is currently closed; please keep an eye out for other opportunities in your email or the Discord community.

Researchers at the University of Arizona are conducting a survey for a research study on African Open Source Communities titled Understanding Maintenance and Thriving in Open Source Communities in Africa. Please read the information below to learn about this study and the eligibility criteria.

This study aims to explore open-source communities and their members in Africa. They will gather information from you and other African open-source community members about your participation and how you view your community.

To be eligible to participate, you must:

• Be an adult (18 years of age or older).

• Not hold citizenship or residency outside of Africa.

• Live in and be a citizen of an African country, excluding countries with regulations or sanctions that do not allow us to conduct research or pay participants at this time. The excluded countries of residence or citizenship include: Botswana, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Malawi, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

• Participate in the Open Source Community Africa or any other open-source community.

• Speak, read, and write English at an intermediate (e.g., conversational, working) level.

This research will help open-source communities in Africa (including YOU) and beyond thrive, and we encourage you to be part of that. The survey will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. As a thank you for your time and effort, you will receive a US $5 Virtual Visa Gift Card sent to your email at the end of the survey.

We look forward to your participation; thank you!

Introducing the Bootcamp

The BootCamp will last eight weeks, with applications starting on the 26th of September, 2022. There will be a Beginner and Mastery track; the top three Beginner projects will get bounties of $5,000, $3,000, and $2,000, respectively, while Mastery projects will get bounties of $10,000, $7,000, and $5,000. The top Mastery projects will also join Polygon's Accelerator program for more mentorship and funding. In addition, there are other cash prizes and swags for all participants. You can learn more about the program by reading this announcement from Polygon.

Also, experts in the blockchain and web3 industry will be mentoring participants and judging the projects. So yes, it will be a very valuable and interesting Bootcamp.

So, if interested, you should apply here right away!

Conclusion

Suppose you're applying from the OSCA Community and you're a member of our Discord Server. You should join the #polygon-africa-bootcamp channel to communicate and converse with other community members joining the Bootcamp. Hopefully, you can all help each other as you learn, build teams, and build projects together in the Bootcamp. And as always, the OSCA core team will be there to answer any questions you might have about the program 😉.

Goodluck Champ! 🧡

Acording to Wikipedia, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large websites, or other collections of information.

Version control systems like GitHub and Git help to track changes to an open source project effectively. In the 2-day workshop organized by OSCA(Open Source Community Africa) Awka in collaboration with GitHub Student Community Unizik and IGHub (Innovation Growth), Onitsha provided hands-on training on open source contribution using Git and GitHub.

How did the event go?

The event was a huge success as it received positive reactions from the registration phase to workshop days to post-event Pull requests being made 🚀. Within the 2 days, we taught basic Git commands and had people make their first open source contribution during and after the workshop.

Day 1

On the first day, our facilitator Maduka Kennis explained to the attendees what Git is, why it is important, and the difference between Git and GitHub. After a thorough explanation, he taught them the meaning of some basic Git commands and why they are important to a project. Then, he went on to show how to use these commands while working on a project and also creating/pushing to a remote repository on GitHub. Some of the Git commands he covered include:

- git init
- git push
- git pull
- git checkout
- git branch
- git clone
- git stages (staged and committed)
- git commit
- git add

The first day ended with attendees creating their first remote repository and pushing a README file to the repo.

Day 2

For the second day, the attendees applied what they learned yesterday in contributing to the open source project that was created for the purpose of learning during the workshop. The facilitator Kingsley Nworie showed how to fork and clone a project repo, setup the local environment, follow the contributing.md file, create a new branch, and send a pull request(PR) using the workshop repo.

The attendees then sent a PR during the workshop and after it. The pull request have been merged and the attendees' details can be seen on the project site.

Links to Event Resources

• Find speakers slide for the first day
• Access the recording for the two days can be found in this playlist.

Appreciation 🙏🏽

I want to appreciate the collaborating communities Ig Hub and GitHub Education for accepting to do this with OSCA Awka.

Special thanks to our facilitators Kennis and Kingsley for their time and effort in making the workshop a success. Thanks to the OSCA Awka team for planning this event and getting things ready. Thanks to everyone who tuned in to the workshop. We appreciate your time and we hope that you will contribute to more open source projects soon.

Event photos 📸

Attendees' feedback

There was a lot of feedback during and after the workshop.

Kindly fill out this form to give us feedback on the event and also join our communities. Thank you!

Our socials 🌐

Follow us on Twitter:

• OSCA Awka
• IG Hub
• GitHub Education

Conclusion

The workshop is an introduction to encourage more open source contributions. There is still more to teach and learn. Our next event will be to collaborate with an open source project to drive more contribution to their project (codebase and documentation). Follow us to get the notification when it is time.

Till next time ✌🏼

Conferences are about interacting with others learning, networking, generally having fun, and enjoying meals with each other. OSCAFest is one of those conferences that leaves a mark in your life and it shows through your work. You can ask Dominion what he achieved based on the previous one and you'd understand what I mean better.

The Open Source Festival is special because it's a conference tailored for Africans by Africans to create more awareness of open source and encourage/increase open source contributions by Africans to the technology ecosystem that is the backbone of what we have to this day. The open-source community has different chapters all over Africa for this specific need as well. Maybe it's the novelty of it being the first conference I attended after the pandemic, but something about it was epic.

Open source is sort of a cake that is never-ending and non-decreasing where everyone gets a piece. Everyone is welcome, from technical writers, product managers, community managers, designers, and developers you name them. It's an open space where you get to pick what you want to contribute. As Prosper said it perfectly, whether you came for money and stayed for money, whether you came for passion and stayed for it, it's all okay, your reason does not matter but your contribution does. The field appreciates and thanks you for your service.

The sessions were all-inclusive from the speaker lineup to the arrangement of the schedule of activities. My schedule was quite busy because I had already nitpicked the must-attend sessions, people I looked forward to meeting, and all the questions I wanted to ask were all set. Yes, I knew what I wanted prior, It's always said that when an opportunity presents itself to you, you maximize it. I had already reached out to some of the people I had plenty of questions to ask so that I would not also overwhelm them. These people were kind enough to have conversations with me, some of them actually insisted that we should continue the conversations in person, which made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Some encouragement, shoot your shot, I want to lie to you and tell you that I was not nervous but God's honest truth I was scared that I would not get any feedback or negative feedback, then I remembered I have nothing to lose and shot my shot. It turned out pretty well because I had a 100% success rate. Plus I made new connections that I had not considered before. People want to genuinely help each other succeed only if you ask nicely and without feeling entitled to their time or response.

Highlights of some Sessions

Here's a quick recap of some of the interesting sessions I attended.

Primer on Blockchain and RSK by Gino Osahon

This session took me from zero knowledge of blockchain to understanding the different terms used and what they mean. In addition to terms, I also got to understand RSK(Rootstock) and how it adds value to the network and serves as the most secure contract platform in the world.

Open Source Paths In Learning Mixed Reality Development By Tayo Madein

I always wondered how to create mixed reality applications and turns out Tayo took us through the documentation on Babylon JS, what you need to know, the foundational components and building blocksfor the common spatial interactions and user interface. Something new I learned is that you could use the 2D version of HoloLens to style mixed reality toolkit controls in Figma for user interface layouts and storyboarding.

Sourcegraph: A Must-Have Developer Tool For Open Source By Michael Bali

Sourcegraph allows you to search and explore your organization's code on the web with integrations through indexing. The product is also open so if you want to get into the how and what. They also have a VS code plugin so you could search your codebase or other repositories from your IDE.

Docs save lives: How To Create Useful Documentation For Your Users Using Digital Psychology Principles By Linda Ikechukwu

We went through what good and bad documentation look like and the reasons why the user is the main actor in the documentation process. In addition, I learned about the psychological frameworks that influence how people consume information online and how to use this information to cater to the needs of the user using documentation.

Documentation as a Service: How We're Changing The Game At Xata By Tejas Kumar

To make good developer experience documentation needs to be a priority. This was an exciting talk about how Xata keeps documentation fast, up to date, and impactful. For instance, their documentation is generated from code and based on user feedback. It should be noted that when creating documentation you should adopt a service mindset and reduce human error.

Leveraging Tech: Building On Existing Skills To Achieve A Career In Tech By Udokaku Ugochukwu

We went through why people join tech but don’t land a job, utilizing the skills we have to network in the industry, and how to approach the job-seeking and application process. Not all applications may be successful as a result, we went through how to manage the rejection and remain focused.

Breaking Into Product Management With Open Source By Shebuel Inyang

We learned about gaining experience as an entry-level product manager by using an unconventional route. This is through leveraging open-source products and projects. In order to avoid the trap of applying product management skills to an open-source project and instead express them as questions.

How To Indulge Your Need For Technical Writing As A Developer By Idris Olubisi

This talk was an introduction to technical writing and how to be consistent as a writer, be open to learning new things and take notes.

My OSCA Story By Dominion Ero

This was a personal story of how volunteering for OSCAFEST20 changed his life. The lessons, network, and friendships from the conference supercharged his career. The aim was to motivate people to not just attend but seek and develop meaningful connections during the conference.

Opening Doors With Open Source By Anjana Vakil

We got to learn about how Anjana got into tech from her transition from an English teacher to a developer advocate at Hasura. She also highlighted how you could not only use but contribute to open-source software at work. An emphasis on the role of mentorship as a community asset in both open source and companies was made.

The Future Of Cloud-Native By Chris Aniszczyk

Cloud-native involves building and running applications to take advantage of the distributed computing provided by the cloud delivery model. The talk highlighted the history and future of cloud-native from virtualization to containerization and the likelihood of shifting to Wasmcloud, a distributed platform for writing portable business logic that can run anywhere from the edge of the cloud. Besides this, I also got an outline of how to learn cloud-native by learning the following:

• The basics of Git, Linux, and, open-source
• Containers and Docker
• Prometheus
• Kubernetes

The Golden Ticket: Becoming A Superstar & Impactful Open Source Software Contributor By Prosper Otemuyiwa

Open-source contributions are needed now more than ever because software is largely dependent on open source and maintainers need all the help they can get. This talk also highlighted ways you could leverage to contribute to open source:

• Finding & fixing vulnerabilities in the software you use,
• Boost code health by integrating tools that keep bundle size in check,
• Be faster at code onboarding by contributing to making demos and documentation
• Code reuse by contributing to already existing libraries.

The focus should be on making contributions to create an impact and being a superstar will come.

Sustain Africa

The Sustain event was more of round table conversations and discussions around the sustainability of people and resources on how free and open-source software is developed and maintained. This year it was held at TalentQL. Between me and you, the office was really pretty :).

Moving on to the discussions the highlighted topics were:

• Open-source documentation
• Open-source design
• Open-source data science
• Open source marketing and funding
• Open-source programs and specialized projects
• Burn out and mental health

You can read more about Sustain here. I also got to interact with the Postman, Github, Paystack, Fincra, atsign, Github, and Polygon sponsors booths. I may have patronized stickers for my people from them.

I must mention that meeting and interacting with other OSCA chapter leads across from Africa for the first time in person was exciting.

Conclusion

OSCAFest was worth attending. If you are planning to attend OSCAFest next year remember it's not all about the sessions, it's also about the interactions you will have, the people you will meet, and the things you learn. You can find the slides of all presentations here and recordings of the sessions here.

Thanks for reading!

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.

Adopting a Product-led Open Source Community Mindset

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.

Open Source Community as a Tool for Career Growth

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

Special thanks to our sponsors

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.

Our socials

Follow us on Twitter @_oscaabuja to get more updates on our future meetups.

Open Source Community Africa, changing the perception of Africans from just the billion users to the NEXT BILLION CREATORS

OSCA Awka and OSCA Ile-Ife had a 2-day online event to help technical writers get their games up, and land paid jobs as technical writers. It was also structured in such a way that absolute beginners could also be exposed to how to get started and become technical writers.

How did the event go?

The event went smoothly for the two days and was held on google meet. We had two speakers, each speaking on different days. The talks centered on:

• How to get started as a technical writer.
• How to land a paying job as a technical writer.
• How to improve as a writer.
• How to support open-source projects.

We also had fun while learning; we played some games and also did giveaways to the winners.

Day 1

Shedrack Akintayo talked about how beginners can breakthrough through technical writing and shared resources and habits that will help them succeed. In addition, he shared tools that make the job of a technical writer easier.

Day 2.

As a technical writer contributing to open source will supercharge your career growth, so said Idris Olubisi, the speaker for the second day. He shared different open source communities beginners can join, and how to navigate new communities they find themselves in. He also mentioned that while contributing to open source, quality counts more than quantity.

We also have a recording of the event 😉

Links to speaker slides

• Slides for the first day can be found here.

• Slides for the second day can be found here.

• Also, a recording of the talk for day 1.

Attendees feedback(s)

As expected, there was a lot of feedback from the attendees because the two speakers were amazing and answered all their questions. Below are some of the feedback we received on Twitter.

Appreciation

Special thanks to the speakers Shedrack and Idris for their time and effort to make sure the attendees learned a lot and gained value. I also want to thank members of OSCA Awka and OSCA Ile-Ife for attending the event. Shoutout to all who attended the event from different parts of Africa.

Special shout out to the core team of OSCA Awka and OSCA Ile-Ife for putting the event together.

Event photos

Our social

Follow us on Twitter @oscafrica @oscaawka @oscaileife to get more updates on our future meetups. Also, you can join our Discord chat here to connect to all Open Source Community Africa members. To join OSCA Awka or OSCA Ile-Ife, fill out this form.

Conclusion

Contributing to open source is very important as it can help you gain valuable experience. You also get to work with people outside your community and make friends beyond the project. As a technical writer, there are many opportunities that you can leverage, and there are many ways you can give back to the community.

Thank you for reading to this point.