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[Outreachy reports] · · 3 min read

Outreachy report #46: June 2023



Intern payments

In the last couple of months, I’ve been working on taking on tasks that are traditionally assigned to Sage. Our goal is to decrease or eliminate any disruptions to our processes when Sage is away. This month, I was responsible for sending intern payment authorizations for the first time.

Sage and I worked together so we could send the first batch together (along with documenting the whole process for future reference)—I sent subsequent ones on my own with some supervision. In the end, I was able to send all intern payment authorizations within a (very busy) week! Yay! 💪

We still have issues we need to work on:

  • An intern’s feedback is added to a .json file as soon as one of their mentors submit it. However, it is not removed from that .json file when we mark them as paid—we have to remove their metadata manually before sending a new .json file to Software Freedom Conservancy via RT. Sage has been working on code that will generate a new .json file accordingly.
  • Marking interns as paid can only happen via Django Shell or the Django Administration dashboard (the latter being more manual and laborious). It would be great if we could do that in batches.

1000 interns celebration

  • Our first event happened in Lagos, Nigeria, during OSCAFest. Omotola told us several past applicants, alums, and mentors attended the celebration! It’s incredible to see people we’ve interacted with for years suddenly materializing in the same space!
  • We’ll have several celebrations in the next week—Canada, Kenya, Camaroon, and India!
  • Our celebration at FOSSY will be on July 15! And Karen has proposed a keynote with Sage and I the day after.
  • We’re planning to host the virtual celebration in August.

FOSSY

My talk about systems thinking and FOSS was accepted to FOSSY! It means a lot to me—above all, I’ll be talking about the foundation of my work as a systems practitioner and the very philosophy that inspired programs such as Outreachy.

I hope my talk will inspire more systems thinking and practice within the free software community. I feel it desperately needs it as it undergoes transformations between generations of free software builders, makers, maintainers, and advocates. It needs systems thinking to truly honor the extension of its mission.

In the meantime, we’ve been preparing for our trip next Sunday. Due to our short layover times domestically, we’re going to skip checking our bags altogether. We’re taking a nocturnal flight so we can arrive in Portland by lunchtime. And we’ve been coordinating with Sage to spend some time exploring the city in the first few days, as we love to visit new places with the guidance of someone local to the area.

It feels surreal to say I’ll finally meet the people I’ve been working with for almost half a decade! I don’t think past me, who wrote the first report so many years ago, could even imagine that would happen one day. I’m hoping to come back to write the next report with amazing memories and even more motivation to work on the program that has changed and keeps changing my life (and the life of others) for the better. See you in Portland!