From founding & running non-profit tech-community & being a sole women founder in a country of social restrictions, I would love to share the importance of having tech-community & how one can build/nurture it from absolute zero.
Can you help me in making a difference? Can we build a welcoming, diverse and inclusive community or can we be ONE? Allow me to share my experiences and lesson’s learnt to get involved in the Go community.
Lesson:
- You cannot succeed in one way alone. You need an audience. You need to help people to invest in your success. To pull yourself up by the bootstraps and forge your own path is noble but hardly does anyone practically do it alone. Ask questions. Make friends. Say “yes” to opportunities you get! What could possibly happen in the worst case - you’ll fail, your talk won’t be selected, you won’t be able to understand a concept in one shot. SO WHAT? Stop giving false excuses to yourself - you don’t have to KNOW-IT-ALL. You don’t need to be a Rob Pike or Dave Chaney to contribute to open source or go. Even a small contribution is better than no contribution.
Experience:
- It’s very scary being a beginner, but we should never forget that we were all beginners once.
The need for having a fresh perspective is indispensable for the growth of the community. My journey began when I started challenging myself for every possible aspect of organising a meetup:-
- My [thought process]: Never organized any tech-event, how will I do it?!
- My [action]: I struggled for days, & got the opportunity of conducting a collaborative meet up with other well-established local-tech-communities and finally organized the very first WomenWhoGo, Delhi Chapter meet up on 25th March'18 and now this community is 250+ members strong.
- My [thought process]: I have no experience in designing creatives, how will I make it? What if folks will not like it? What should the colours of flyers/posters be?!
- My [action]: Explored online tools, conducted user interviews and re-iterated process of designing creatives/flyers/posters. Over a period of time, they were loved by many!
- My [thought process]: I’m not pro in Golang. I can’t give talks. Also, I’ve stage fright. So, I just can’t be a speaker ever.
- My [action]: Asked college seniors/friends/posted on social media if they could give a talk during meet-ups. Sometimes received a positive response but most of the times struggled and I finally realized that I need to trash away my fears. Gave multiple talks, not only at local meetups but at the international platform as well for example at FOSDEM’19/20.
In nutshell, I realised that we have to be the change we seek. Community gives you the abundance of opportunities which requires patience, practise and perseverance.
Nothing makes me happier than if towards the end of my talk, we join hands and pledge to be open to everyone and make everyone feel as ONE and build/nurture our tech-communities! :)