Mentored Sprints for Diverse Beginners

A NEWCOMER’S INTRODUCTION TO CONTRIBUTING TO AN OPEN-SOURCE PROJECT

TL;DR

✨ We are running mentored sprints for diverse community members for the fourth year in a row at PyCon US ✨

When: May 18th, 2024, during the main PyCon US session.

11 am - 3pm EST in Room 402.

👉🏽 Apply to be a mentor on the day or feature your open source project: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSerOF6IyQdypzOrSe67hptaz2fcKSqCAFChfqtTFPW472Dibw/viewform?usp=sf_link

👉🏽 Apply to participate as a contributor (sprint on the day): registrations will be handled through the PyCon US registration system as an add-on to your ticket.

If you are not an underrepresented community group member and want to take on the sprint, we encourage you to bring someone from an underrepresented group with you.

👉🏽Volunteer for our Git Helpdesk: Help new contributors with git/GitHub, such as cloning repos, creating branches, committing, and resolving merge conflicts. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSerOF6IyQdypzOrSe67hptaz2fcKSqCAFChfqtTFPW472Dibw/viewform?usp=sf_link

No previous mentorship experience is required.

📖 Check out our online handbook to learn more about our approach to sprinting: https://mentored-sprints.netlify.app/

ABOUT THE SPRINTS

Open source projects such as Python and its multiple stacks (web, scientific, etc.) are a collaborative effort from many community members. The constant involvement of the numerous maintainers, contributors, and users makes open-source software sustainable and keeps the community 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 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 fourth PyCon US 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 open-source partner projects.

To achieve this goal, we seek to work with many Python projects and maintainers interested in mentoring these individuals. In return, we will provide guidance and advice on preparing the projects for the day and better serve a diverse range of contributors.

WHY DO WE NEED A MENTORED SPRINT WHEN WE ALREADY RUN SPRINTS WITHIN PYCON US?

The PyCon US sprints offer an excellent opportunity to get contributors and developers together and squash some bugs in a relatively short period. However, with this happening at the end of the event, many people, particularly less experienced developers, cannot 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 who 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 where they can learn, collaborate, expand their network, and celebrate their victories at the end.

Furthermore, it is an excellent opportunity for several open-source projects to get practical advice about inclusion and serving a diverse global pool of contributors. And perhaps establish longer-term mentor-mentee or contributor relationships.

WHAT PROJECTS WILL YOU BE SPRINTING ON?

PyCon US is the biggest Python conference organized yearly; thousands of developers, teachers, maintainers, and aficionados attend the event. As such, it provides a unique opportunity to bring creators, maintainers, and users together 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 particular package can provide directed, effective, and in-person mentoring to a group of individuals. The attendees feel more confident and usually leave with a higher sense of accomplishment.

GETTING INVOLVED

OPEN-SOURCE PROJECTS AND MENTORS

The call for project and mentor applications will be open from the 28th of February, 2024, until the 6th of May, 2024. We encourage maintainers, contributors, sustainers, and developers of any package attending PyCon US to participate in this mentored sprint.

If you are not a maintainer of a project but would still like to mentor, please register using the project and mentors form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSerOF6IyQdypzOrSe67hptaz2fcKSqCAFChfqtTFPW472Dibw/viewform?usp=sf_link

CONTRIBUTORS

The call for contributors (individuals willing to participate in the sprint) will also open on the 28th of February and remain open until all spaces are filled (this is a first-come-first-served event). We encourage anyone interested to attend. If you are wondering if this event is for you, it is, and we would love to have you participate in this sprint.

WHEN ARE THE MENTORED SPRINTS?

This mentored sprint will occur on Saturday, May 18th (Room 402 from 11am - 3pm EST).

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 organisers@mentored-sprints.dev