Open source mentorship programs: what’s in it for you as a mentor, maintainer, or mentee? (panel)
338 | Fri 02 Aug 4:30 p.m.–5:15 p.m.
Presented by
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Emily Lovell
https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~emme/
Dr. Emily Lovell is an OSPO Incubator Fellow at UC Santa Cruz. Her research and teaching use novel domains to invite broader participation in computing, with her postdoctoral work focusing on newcomers to open source. Emily previously served on faculty at Berea College, where she developed and taught courses on open source contribution and computational craft. She has a S.M. in Media Arts & Sciences from the MIT Media Lab and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Santa Cruz.
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Program Manager at NumFOCUS's Open Source Science Initiative as well as a perpetual contributor to open source projects, companies, and organizations that enable open science.
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Kevin Wang
@KevinKWang
https://mentorsintech.com/
Kevin Wang is the founder of Mentors in Tech, a program that helps overlooked tech students at smaller, less well known, accessible and affordable colleges navigate and launch their careers through structured industry mentorships, integrated open source capstone projects, and tailored recruitment.
Mentors in Tech’s work has been recognized as one of the 20 Promising Practices to Advance Quality, Equity, and Success in Community College Baccalaureate Degree Programs by the Community College Baccalaureate Association. MinT has also been featured on the Clayton Christensen Institute blog as well as Microsoft Alumni News. MinT is the recipient of the 2023 GeekWire Geeks Give Back Award and MinT’s work with partner community colleges was published at ACM SIGCSE 2024.
Prior to MinT, Kevin founded the Microsoft TEALS Program that has helped over 1,000 high schools in the US, Canada, and Mexico build successful, diverse, equitable, inclusive, and sustainable CS programs. Kevin’s work in TEALS has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, Geekwire, and Univision. The founding and growth of TEALS is the subject of a Yale School of Management case study.
Kevin has a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and a graduate degree in education from Harvard.
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Tyler Menezes
https://tyler.vc
Tyler Menezes is the Executive Director at CodeDay, where he works to provide welcoming and diverse opportunities for under-served students to explore a future in tech and beyond.
Born in Canada but raised in the Pacific Northwest, he briefly attended the University of Washington before dropping out to start a Y Combinator and venture-backed social video startup in 2011. This, combined with stints working in machine learning at Microsoft Research and as a programmer at several Seattle startups, led to his work finding data-driven solutions to increasing CS diversity and enrollment since 2014.
Emily Lovell
https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~emme/
Kevin Wang
@KevinKWang
https://mentorsintech.com/
Tyler Menezes
https://tyler.vc
Abstract
Mentorship can be a powerful tool for cultivating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive tech pipeline. For mentors and maintainers, investing in these relationships can help to grow and sustain their technical communities. Meanwhile, mentees can benefit from a sense of belonging, alongside technical learning and professional development.
Join us for a conversation about four mentorship initiatives serving as onramps to open source, especially for those minoritized in tech; these include a variety of models for bridging community colleges, research universities, and HBCUs with industry open source. We’ll discuss how these collaborations have been beneficial to everyone involved, and how such efforts can be beneficial to you as a potential mentor, maintainer, or mentee. We’ll then open up the floor to questions and conversation about mentorship in open source — and how you can get involved.
Session takeaways:
- Key considerations for launching a new mentorship initiative within your own project, organization, or community
- Existing programs you might engage with as a mentor or apply to as a mentee
- An invitation to join a growing cross-sector interest group on this topic
Mentorship can be a powerful tool for cultivating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive tech pipeline. For mentors and maintainers, investing in these relationships can help to grow and sustain their technical communities. Meanwhile, mentees can benefit from a sense of belonging, alongside technical learning and professional development. Join us for a conversation about four mentorship initiatives serving as onramps to open source, especially for those minoritized in tech; these include a variety of models for bridging community colleges, research universities, and HBCUs with industry open source. We’ll discuss how these collaborations have been beneficial to everyone involved, and how such efforts can be beneficial to you as a potential mentor, maintainer, or mentee. We’ll then open up the floor to questions and conversation about mentorship in open source — and how you can get involved. Session takeaways: - Key considerations for launching a new mentorship initiative within your own project, organization, or community - Existing programs you might engage with as a mentor or apply to as a mentee - An invitation to join a growing cross-sector interest group on this topic