Unlocking the Power of Open Source Contributions for Modern Career Growth

Linux, was my first exposure to the world of Open Source. It was non frivolous, easy to use and did the job of the OS without all the frills of being one. And similar to it, there exists a plethora of tools out there which fall under the umbrella of open source, no not free, open source, yes they are different. Well this conference for example is build around one such tool, Appium.

As human, we are all quite self – centered people. We always have excuse of not doing something, which goes beyond our comfort level. This is especially true when I talk about giving back to open source projects. But what if we learn that contributing to open source can open multiple doors for professional growth in terms of collaboration, networking, business and visibility.

I would like to showcase some of the open source projects and how you can contribute to them. You may feel encouraged to pick one, or chose any other to start. I hope through this talk people are encouraged to make an investment which returns manifolds for their professional growth in terms learning, networking, staying afloat with current trends and technologies, shine out in crowd and through all this also build a feeling of self worth, which is the highest goal in Maslow hierarchy of needs.

Through my own personal experience, and with permission from one to many open source creators and contributors, I would also show case some real life examples to learn from.

Please note most of the examples will be from the field of automation, testing, and related areas to which I have been exposed in my career.

The outline will look as follows -
a. Introduction
b. The world of Open Source with respect to Automation, Testing and similar related fields -
c. The business of Open Source, with respect to Automation, Testing and similar related fields
d. Where to begin - a bird's eye view of tools/platforms available for you.
e. Explore areas of contributing, getting associated with open source projects
f. Show case -personal experience of contributing to open source
g. Show case- people creators and contributors of open source, their reasons and success, road block
h. Q and A

The following are aimed to be learning outcome for the talk-

a. Understand how contributing to open source can help in professional growth.

b. Learn where and how you can begin contributing to open source

c. Learn, areas of contribution to open source, which are available beyond code contribution

for example - facilitate conferences around open source by participating as audience, speaker, reviewer, attendee.

-contribute to open source documentation

-found a bug while using open source, take time to raise the PR

-volunteer at events around open source

-using open source to teach people skills, saves lot of time and money

-leveraging open source in projects to solve technical problems-understand how to judge health of open source projects, this again in the end should be based on your decision, these could be used as some guiding factors

- uplift people creating and contributing to open source by just expressing a thank you, yes that is a contribution, at the end of the day those are still human, as of 2024.

d. Hopefully by end of it, one should learn to find the project that best resonates with them and contribute to them.