TL;DR
✨ We are running mentored sprints for diverse community members at EuroPython this year ✨
When: 21st July, 2023, during the main EuroPython conference (Time 10:30 - 13:00) but you take as many breaks as you want.
Room: Open Space
👉🏽 Apply to be a mentor on the day or feature your open source project: email cheuk@europython.eu
👉🏽 Apply to participate as a contributor (sprint on the day): fill in this form.
If you are not a member of an underrepresented group of the community and want to take on the sprint we encourage you to bring someone from an underrepresented group with you.
👉🏽Volunteer for our Git Helpdesk (4 volunteers needed): Help new contributors with git/GitHub, such as cloning repo, creating branch, committing, resolving merge conflicts. fill in this form
📖 Check out our online handbook to learn more about our approach to sprinting: https://mentored-sprints.netlify.app/
About Mentored Sprint
Open source projects such as Python and its multiple stacks (web, scientific, etc.) are nothing but a collaborative effort from many community members. It is the constant involvement of the numerous maintainers, contributors, and users that make open-source software sustainable and keep the community as a whole going.
Walking the path from user to collaborator, and thus contributing to an open-source project, can sometimes be intimidating especially for newcomers. From a technical perspective, interacting with web-based hosting services (such as GitHub, GitLab, etc.), branching and opening pull requests can be overwhelming if these are not everyday actions of your workflow. The correctness of the code and potential bugs are other common obstacles and fears any newcomer might face. Not to mention the time and frustration accumulated over the task of finding a ‘beginner-friendly’ issue to work on.
We also recognize that some groups are traditionally underrepresented in the open-source community and we would like to support them in their open-source path. We are running the mentored sprints for individuals from underrepresented groups willing to start contributing to Python projects. This event will provide a supportive, friendly, and safe environment for all the attendees and partner open source projects.
To achieve this goal, we are seeking to work with a number of Python projects and their maintainers interested in providing mentorship to these individuals. In return, we will provide guidance and advice on how to prepare the projects for the day and to better serve a diverse range of contributors.
Why do we need Mentored Sprint?
The EuroPython sprints certainly offer a great opportunity to get contributors and developers together and to squash a number of bugs in a relatively short period of time. However, with this happening at the end of the event many people, particularly less experienced developers, are not able to stay around for this additional time, or cannot easily justify attending an event for an extra day or two. In addition, a good amount of the people that attend the sprints are often comfortable doing so and in many cases have made multiple contributions to open source before or are, in fact, developers or maintainers of open source projects.
This mentored sprint focuses on providing less experienced developers with a supportive environment in which they can learn, collaborate, expand their network, and celebrate their victories at the end of it.
Furthermore, it serves as a great opportunity for a number of open-source projects to get some practical advice around inclusion and how to serve a global and diverse pool of contributors. And perhaps establish longer-term mentor-mentee or contributor relationships.
What project will you be sprinting on?
EuroPython is one of the the biggest Python conference organized every year, thousands of developers, teachers, maintainers, and aficionados attend the event every year. As such it provides a unique opportunity to bring together creators, maintainers, and users for a few days.
By running similar events in smaller conferences we have learned that the attendees (and projects) get much more out of it by having maintainers, organizers, and attendees working together. This way the maintainers of a certain package can provide directed, effective and in-person mentoring to a group of individuals, and the attendees feel more confident and usually leave with a higher sense of accomplishment.
Projects that have shown interest in appearing in the mentored sprint:
GETTING INVOLVED
OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS AND MENTORS The call for applications for projects will be open until the 8th of July 2022 and we encourage maintainers, contributors, and developers of any package attending EuroPython to participate in this mentored sprint. Please email cheuk@europython.eu
CONTRIBUTORS The call for contributors (individuals willing to participate in the sprint) will also open until the 8th of July 2022 11:69pm AoE and we encourage anyone interested to attend. If you are wondering if this event is for you: it definitely is and we would love to have you taking part in this sprint.
WHEN IS THE MENTORED SPRINT? This mentored sprint will take place on Friday, 21st July, 2023 (Time: 10:30 - 13:00 at Open Space)
GETTING IN TOUCH If you would like to contact the organizers for any business related to the mentored sprints please send us an email to cheuk@europython.eu