Outreachy report #48: August 2023
We are thrilled to finally welcome Tilda Udufo, our mentor advocate, into our team this August. As of today, the majority of the Outreachy team is located in the global south!
One of the first things Tilda and I talked about when we had the opportunity to meet each other was how I wasn’t as involved with her hiring process as the other organizers, and why.
I had the privilege to interview Tilda in the final stages of our community mananger hiring process. When it was time to find another Outreachy organizer, I immediately suggested her name alongside the name of another Outreachy alum I had interviewed at that time. I had a feeling we’d all agree that Tilda was a great fit for the role given her experience as Public Lab a mentor and coordinator, but I wanted other organizers to interview her and be the judges for themselves. It ended up triggering a series of subsequent interviews and conversations I didn’t participate in much because others already knew my position: I wanted her to join our team. I was just waiting for others to be convinced it was a great (and the best) choice for what we had envisioned for this role.
When we were delivering our keynote speech at FOSSY, I couldn’t stop thinking about the day we’d finally announce it. I was so excited about the prospect of having another Outreachy alum in the team, and one that had gone through the updated process of becoming an intern—when I applied to Outreachy, I applied through that legacy GNOME system! While much of my experience as an intern is quite universal and still relevant, I couldn’t wait to work with an alum, a mentor, and a coordinator who could offer a much fresher perspective into our processes.
When it was time to define who would be Tilda’s primary mentor, I volunteered (and Sage and Omotola both agreed I’d be a great choice). In addition to introducing Tilda to our processes and tools, I’ve been having sessions with her where we talk about the overall free software culture and what kind of opportunities she’d like to pursue as an Outreachy organizer. As I mentioned plenty of times throughout the years, organizing Outreachy is a such a rich experience because we all get to explore different roles in the technology industry within the same organization.
As I told Karen during our meeting about integrating Outreachy into Software Freedom Conservancy, it’s quite rare to move between so many roles so freely within an organization—and that’s such an opportunity for an Information Systems undergraduate. We have fields of preferrence, yes, but every once in a while we get to wear different hats, becoming more holistic, generalist technologists. It makes me so proud of being an Outreachy organizer!
December 2023 cohort
We’ve also welcomed four more initial application reviewers this month. Omotola, Tilda and I onboarded them through a meeting where we showed them the most important tools they’d be using, reviewed one initial application together, and answered any questions they had. Additionally, I documented every step, including a post-meeting email that reiterates key information given at the meeting, so other organizer can facilitate future sessions on their own.
May 2023 cohort
Interns with standard internship dates finished their internship last Friday. Omotola ran an experimental Outreachy social hour to give everyone an opportunity to hang out with each other and celebrate their successes. It was a hit!
As for me, I spent (and I’m still spending) most of my time this month untangling some of the most difficult cases in the May cohort. Some included absent mentors, absent interns, and hurdles we have to overcome when having a mentor replace another in the middle of an internship. I’ve successfully taken over the responsibility of authorizing payments, and I want to develop a new framework for reviewing feedback now that we have primary advocates for interns and mentors in our team.
Another framework I’ll propose to the team when Sage comes back from their vacation is a system of fallbacks and safeguards that guarantees we’ll have coverage in every critical area of the program while one or more team members take time off. I want to pay special attention to the development of special procedures for times when all or the majority of Outreachy organizers are traveling and/or attending a conference at the same time, taking into account how exhausted some of us may feel at the end of our trips and other professional time commitments. We had to modify a couple of intern chat dates and deadlines due to the exhaustion post-FOSSY, and my goal is to prevent that from happening again.