Congratulations on being accepted for the December 2019 to March 2020 Outreachy internship round!
Sounds exciting, isn’t it?!
On November 26 I received an email from Outreachy that I got accepted as an intern for mUzima project “develope an HTML drag and drop form builder for mUzima mobile application forms” which is something I was looking forward to so bad
Now let’s go back in time to the moment I read about Outreachy
In September, I read about Outreachy internships and it felt like it is everything I needed and wanted, I’ll finally get the chance to contribute to open-source, which is something I was eager to start for a long time but I always felt overwhelmed, I’ll work on real-world projects and I’ll have mentorship to help me get better
So I decided to go for it and apply
What the hack is Outreachy anyway?!!!
Outreachy provides three-month paid internships to work in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
Outreachy internship projects may include programming, user experience, documentation, illustration, and graphic design, or data science.
Who can apply?
Anyone who faces under-representation, systemic bias, or discrimination in the technology industry of their country is invited to apply.
To be eligible for an Outreachy internship you need to go through 3 steps
Initial Application
The first step you need to do is submitting your initial application
The initial application only contains some questions about the kind of discrimination you’re facing and about your availability for the internship as you will need to dedicate yourself 40hrs/week
Nothing was hard about this step just needed some self-reflection
Contribution Phase
Once your Initial application is approved you will move to the next step which is, pick a project and start contributing
Picking a project was a little hard for me, I always have a hard time making decisions anyway, because all the projects are very interesting so I spent some hard days until I decided to go with mUzima’s project.
mUzima is an adaptable, open-source, Android-based mHealth platform for use by health care providers and patients to manage health data in areas with low to zero connectivity, mUzima provides a secure platform for users (providers/patients) to access and capture data in off-line mode to synchronize later with the main Health Information System.
The project is to create a drag & drop form builder for mUzima’s app so health providers can easily collect their patience’s data
So mUzima is using tech to make life better which is the most thing I like about tech
I started by introducing myself to the amazing community on mUzima’s Jira and then the contribution phase began
Every Outreachy applicant was required to complete at least 3 tickets and test one from other applicants
I was kinda frustrated at the beginning but with the help of the project mentors Simon, Benard, and Ada I was able to finish the whole required tickets
THANKS A LOT
I had a very fruitful month working with mUzima
After contributing you need to record your contributions on Outreachy website
Final Application
After recording at least one contribution you will have the permission to submit a final application for the project
In the final application, you will describe your experience with the project community and other open-source communities you worked with and also provide a timeline for how you’re going to deliver the project
The application was pretty straight forward
That was my experience applying to Outreachy
and of course, the next three months are going to be on fire 🔥🔥🔥
