Layer5 participated as a suporting organization in the She Code Africa Contributhon which started on April 1, 2021. It was indeed a pleasant and impactful experience for both the mentors and the mentees from She Code Africa.
The She Code Africa hosts their Contributhon as an Africa-wide open source boot camp focused on building more women OSS contributors & creating more diversity in the African open source ecosystem by matching African women in technology with sponsors and mentors from Open Source organizations. During this boot camp, participants work with an open source organisation on a project for 4 weeks with the help of organisation mentors and get rewarded at the end of the boot camp upon successful project completion.
During the boot camp, Layer5 received a total of 8 mentees - all from Nigeria. These mentees were teamed up to work on the 3 project ideas selected by Layer5. Each project had an average of 2 members of the community who were delegated as mentors to oversee the contributions of the mentees. Often Layer5 MeshMates volunteer to be mentors.
Projects
Layer5 mentors prepared and organized a few projects in advance of the start of the boot camp, so that mentees might hit the ground running.
Layer5 Community Handbook
Layer5 Community Handbook is a curated Document with the ABC's of the community. In this project, mentees were expected to look for repetition pattern across existing docs thereby, creating a structured guide for interaction across all projects.
Mentors:Mentee(s):
Layer5 Main Website
This required the contributors to fix existing issues on the GitHub repository, while suggesting ideas to improve the website, which used Gatsbyjs and Reactjs. The layer5.io website is hosted on GitHub Pages and is a collaborative effort of nearly 200 contributors.
Mentors:Mentee(s):
Meshery CLI
mesheryctl is a command-line tool for Meshery, the cloud native management plane. Using Golang, mentees were required to design new CLI commands and attend to existing issues, focusing on enforcing the consistency of user experience with the command line client.
- Navendu Pottekkat
- Chinmay Mehta
The mentors were in constant communication with the mentees, taking their questions and rendering help when needed. At the end of the Contribution boot camp, it was heartwarming to see the mentees were able to make noticeable contributions to the projects. During the boot camp wrap up call, mentees gave presentations that revealed how impactful it was for them working on Layer5 projects.
Appreciation
In gratitude, we acknowledge the commitment and contributions of the mentees toward the projects and we won't forget our incredible mentors who were devoted to meeting the needs and answering to the mentees during this bootcamp. Also, we would like to appreciate Zainab Abubakar for having facilitated the She Code Africa Contribution 2021.
Anita Charles
