Mentored sprints for diverse beginners: a retrospective and future plans

Open source relies heavily on the community for its sustainability and success. As a result, multiple initiatives aim to bring together community members, developers and open source projects in the form of conference sprints, yearly events (e.g. Hacktoberfest) or unconferences. However, many projects currently struggle to engage with a diverse set of contributors in the long term.
Over the last year and a half, I have been working on running mentored sprints for diverse beginners as conference events and as standalone sprints over the year.
This unique approach has proven very successful, so much that these sprints are becoming a permanent event at PyCon US and PyCon UK and are being adopted by other conferences across the world.
In this talk, I will share my learnings from running this kind of sprints, the logistics behind them, some impact stories, and the plans for the future of the mentored sprints and how you and your community can get involved.

Transcript

1. Here is where your presentation begins Slidetitle here Tania Allard, Ph.D Developer Advocate @ Microsoft @ ixek / #DevRelCon Mentored sprints for diverse beginners
2. bit.ly/devrel-sprints Slides
3. What are we covering? 01 02 Why mentored sprints? Background and motivation The sprints Defining goals and structure 03 Next steps Scaling up @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
4. Background @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
5. Mycommunities • Scientific computing, HPC & Research • Machine learning / DS • Open Source @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
6. Big focus on code The fallacy of meritocracy Open Source fails The privilege dichotomy @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
7. Creators / knowledge drivers How is the broader population being brought into the loop? Who is benefiting from the open source ecosystem? Maintainers, core developers, decision makers Open source consumers / objects Those whose interests are served @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints Some people of open source
8. Creators / knowledge drivers Open source consumers / objects Some people of open source Those whose interests are served @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
9. Sustainability Somany battles Diversity and inclusion Funding and compensation Agency @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
10. https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/scopatz/nf-project- inequality/blob/9b83df3090c9b9b1b953d2905d428b71165ce607/nf -project-inequality.ipynb underrepresented @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
11. Thestart @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
12. First time contributors Mentor with a mentor scheme Sprints -beginner The scope Main event – users, developers, core teams Underrepresented groups Attendees Time and location Mentors @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
13. TheA-B-C Short and long term Mentoring Impact Beyond ‘just’ code Safe Everyone can thrive @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
14. @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
15. @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
16. 2019 Hacktoberfest PyConUS Mentored sprints Hacktoberfest PyLadies umbrella 2018 2019 PyLadies NW UK, Her + Data, PyData, Hatchery programme PyLadies NW UK, Her + Data, Python NW, PyData, RLadies 2018 SciPy / EuroScipy 2019 Parallel track to main sprints sessions PyConUK Hacktoberfest 2017 CodeFirst Girls – Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
17. What’snext? @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
18. 2019 Hacktoberfest PyConUS Hacktoberfest PyLadies umbrella 2018 2019 PyLadies NW UK, Her + Data, PyData, Hatchery programme PyLadies NW UK, Her + Data, Python NW, PyData, RLadies 2018 SciPy / EuroScipy 2019 Parallel track to main sprints sessions PyConUK 2020 Standalone, Conferences Projects Hacktoberfest 2017 CodeFirst Girls – Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints Mentored sprints
19. Conferences • PyCon US • Scipy • DjangoCon Europe • PyCon UK • Scipy Latam • PyCon Latam • UseR • Research software engineering conference 2020 @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
20. The future Sustainability Impact from previous events Mentored sprints in a box Longer term programmes Follow up Scale up @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
21. @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints https://blog.jupyter.org/the-jupyterhub-and-binder-contributor-in- residence-56708d1e3069
22. Partnering up @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
23. Sustainability Somany battles Funding and compensation Agency @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
24. Your community? @ixek bit.ly/devrel-sprints
25. Thankyou tania.allard[at]microsoft.com @ixek