 Hello everybody. I am Niharika and I'm Manus and we are from India, which is still a developing country And we have been contributing towards open source for about two to three years now and while we were having fun doing that We definitely faced a lot of Limitations and resistance as I would like to say But it wasn't so this talk is as highly personalized as it is It's also a very general view of what's the Kind of situation that actually prevails in Mostly India, but there are some very Right, so there are some really strong talking points for other nations or other developing nations Which don't currently hold as much truly for India and by that I mean like for Africa It's a whole new situation, but in India it is an Indian Southeast Asia It's a little more Revolent than most and all these things are like limited us in what we could have achieved Right, so just by a show of hands. How many of you right now think that you're from a developing nation? All right, so that's basically like 50 percent. It's cool So we've been claiming all this while that we are from a developing nation We contribute to open source and we face a lot of limitations So though throughout the talk, we would first talk about what kind of groups are basically being affected by This limitation and what these limitations are then we would go on to tell We would talk about how people Definitely thought that yeah, these are limitations that are happening in the world So we should overcome that so they made a lot of student-friendly or People-friendly open source programs right promote more contributions from students Students minorities or people who just that who they thought that should be more involved in open source because everyone wants young developers And then we would analyze the kind of participation that these student-friendly open source programs receive And we would have we would find a really interesting trend here And we would then basically convince you that even though the agenda for these open source programs was a very noble one Somehow it's basically ultimately Lacking in its very sense something is going very wrong somewhere Which I do not know how much the people who are not in a developing country realize Because we feel that this happens behind the behind the It is like a very mentality kind of thing right and these things are Something that I do not know if people in non in developed countries really understand And then we would just have a general brainstorming session on how the situation can be improved What or changes have to be made or can be made Like so like we said there are two different types of groups that are being affected There's these are broadly the ones that we feel are hugely affected by these limitations The first we would talk about our students University core structure values marks. Let's just take India for an example the very essence of success in Indian Education system means a high pointer a high GPA very good marks in your Core structure solely you are basically set for your life. You will get a job. You'll get married You'll get set and that is it you do not Indian families Indian parents Indian mentality does not account for what's happening What change you're making in the world because in India? It's a developing country itself. So they think money equals success How you are a person doesn't really count I mean even during marriage when proposals come they do check your mark sheets. It's that kind of And we're not talking about caste system here. It's a completely different topic right, so that and so over here pointers make a make a lot of Make a lot of decision as to who you are as a person if you're a success or a failure so let's say for example, I'm a person who Takes time out of my college work and contributes to an open source organization Maybe multiple of them. So I have basically I have Worldly skills I can contribute to real code in the real world, which is definitely impacting a lot of people But I am doing this out of my course college core structure So maybe I'm performing Averagely in my college coursework, but at the same time I'm I'm sitting in my place at home locally and making a huge impact People don't get that as opposed to there's someone who wrote learns College courses day and night scores a 10 GPA gets into an IIT, which is basically an MIT for it It's it's like it's like IIT is like the benchmark for success So if so like for me, we'd really you know be personalizing How you are like for example if I'm to get into computer science at one of these schools Then they would only check my marks in maths and chemistry I mean chemistry is not even remotely related to computer science and however good I am But I won't get into those only those with like good marks in chemistry or physics would get into It's that kind of thing right so what was stressing over here is that we study courses which aren't even relevant to us and That counts but when we do things out of the coursework that are relevant to us that Universities do not recognize that at all So I am an outreachy intern and it has this Concept that I could use my outreachy intern as a university project But that would only work if my university accepts my outreachy work as a project the mentality So that that is the fourth point over here either faculty is unaware or they're unsupportive What's happening over here is that so if we have semester projects or which are either two months long or six months long we So they expect either a research intern or they expect an industrial intern or they expect projects under them Which might pertain to machine learning or IOT or anything But if you go and tell them that I am why I will be contributing to an open-source organization Maybe it's Mozilla, which is so highly named a Fedora and I even if I say that I'm getting paid for it And I'll get a proper internship letter in the end They would just do they just wouldn't recognize it they would say no not not something you would do here try it out later It's just that bad. It's very common everywhere So what we are trying to stress over here that all this while we were saying that okay We are contributing to open source Please convert our effort into course credits and they said no So we're like okay fine. We want we don't want course credits But at least give us some compensatory leaves. Let us go to conferences You know if put sugarcoating it we are kind of representing our college So be proud and let us do that and on a good level we're representing India And you know we're being actually productive over here, but they just don't do that And this is exam not not rescheduling exams is one thing then there are Most of the conferences in USA happened during majority of the colleges is N semester exams and You which is basically don't get to go over here. What's so the second group? That's affected are Fetcher, sorry freshers or jobs, which is which are like people in between jobs All right, so this is actually So In India there are a lot of financial companies that Offer jobs to people right after they graduate and find fintech companies translate to a lot of money Just when you start working, but it also Translates to what are they really doing are they really putting an actual impact in the world at the same time these people's Way of selecting Candidates has nothing to do with your resume. They only go for your pointer Exactly, so I have sat in so many interviews Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley JPMorgan Chase I mean I could go on and on and I have this huge resume where I try to list down all my open source Contributions and they basic and or even let's just not even say open source Extra-curricular activities, which I know count so much in developed nations because you're putting the effort to do something different from your Usual coursework and they basically put aside all of that and then they make you sit and make they expect you to Clear their customized coding test in spite of whatever achievements you have in your open source You're not coding system other your software engineering skills communication skills They don't really matter at the start itself. They will check your grade pointer and then based on that they will shortlist you and With all the other things like attendance and everything if you are going to work on your actual software engineering skills And your gate point is going to go around so there are so I would actually said in 98% of the companies that are in India Even if they're MNC's they they select Not looking on your resume. They might shortlist you. I do not know for on what basis again but it's they just do not care if you have open source contributions and that I mean so That just I mean, what do we do? You're not supporting us anywhere, but here we are still Contributing in spite of all this resistance social and then Remote jobs, which is so popular In the love nations that say but if you say remote jobs, I hear Indian parents saying you don't have a job That doesn't even qualify And you don't need to work. You don't need to get a job. That is what I Mean students don't need that you should focus on your studies Even though one could balance both equally Also, like I know as this is a personal thing if I if I grad like when I'll graduate if I say that I have a remote job Which is paying me more than any other job that I'll you know any under industrial job My mom might even disown me for that matter. I do not know So so I mean that basically boils down to the third point that even we it's all extra time that we're taking out to Contribute to open source. I know all of you are doing that too But we just don't have that support and there's just zero recognition So conferences like these are somewhere where we understand. Yeah, so there's a bigger picture to all of it. So whoo-hoo And then there are programs some of which are local in India like girl's script And there's the Chinese one of Alibaba some more of code and then there are the international ones like Google some of code outracky is Summer of code hacktoberfest. I mean these programs are supposed to promote and they do achieve a lot of things but then When all the other factors come in, I mean, I think some of these programs are very misused and These are the statistics These are gets and this is This is the student statistics if you could see like India has the highest number of students every other And then if you look at the mentor statistics, like it's United States is all the way to the top than Germany and then India and the thing here is people The only reason Students are so much compared to everyone else and they don't continue as mentors I mean, they have to face such limitations that they can't contribute to programs later they can't continue their contributions and You can clearly see that and the mentor statistics and this is the outrack even Point out one thing that I'm not saying. I mean, this is not a generalized Sorry, I mean I'd like to rephrase that It's a generalized notion that Indians basically would get attracted to the handsome stipend that outreachy and Google Summer of code is giving them It's also the one of the pros that these Programs have is that they're very very flexible, which I absolutely love which I think you wouldn't get in any industry Sure industrial jobs have perks, but this is you get paid handsomely. There's just so many there are You get over 10 conferences you get to extend your internships you you have Regular talks with your mentors. It's it's wonderful, but somehow this is being abused What Coming people don't have the approved amount of leave like That would have been amazing material for this Exposing People pay so that they can be coarsen to get into these programs It's that kind of thing that there's like some context 10% or 12% they charge of your total stipend It's that bad and then even if the applicants these are just the applicants but in the end as I said only hardly 10 or 15 people get in because they are in it's ineligible To the terms and conditions that are set by the organizations mostly because of the limitations that are there like Attendance those attendance criteria like outreachy has 40 days compulsory leave 40 days gap should be there, but then that is not possible in many Universities and they won't even give you that I mean I I'll admit so outreachy happens like twice a year and They kind of changed their rule somewhere when I started applying last year And they said that only if you're an Indian or you're from the northern hemisphere You can apply only in the May in the summer round and not in the December round And that just changed when I decided to apply in the December round I was so heartbroken. So I just tried to try to Manipulate my timing so that I could get selected, but it just didn't work out. So I Would also like to say it like so I was talking about abusing these all these good noble Initiatives that people thought would help develop in countries. So what's happening is like? We have so we have so many scholarships for girls that that promote open-source contributions or just normal or you know participation in global coding competitions and what the perks are of these is that you get to attend Conferences and the most the most basic Example of this is a Google conference and Anita Borg or Grace Hopper conference But to get eligible to get to that conference You have to clear the coding round, which is a global is on a global platform and efforts really competitive. So I have personally known so many people girls who have made Boys who are amazing coders do write these tests because these are all Online so no one knows who's writing these tests. They clear they get amazing ranks and they go there for free It's it's just past the point where I do not know how much diversity Outreach are you doing and and people have no idea how to? Distinguish where the diversity part is coming in West and with the abusing part coming in like they have no way of distinguishing or preventing that and I think that's something that needs to be worked upon You get a free tour, that's it There are yeah, so like what's happening over here. There are open source organizations I don't know if I should really name them, but there is a lot of Nepotism They are and these these come from people who are on really high posts and these organizations aren't some small open source Really right and they what they do is that so I feel that if you're a GSOC intern in one organization So here's the here's the basic line in India The users saw those statistics to so many contributors that means there's so much competition in India in spite of all the limitations So we could basically break through all that to get in now. We have these organizations that that Offer previous GSOC interns to work on the same project again Even though they haven't contributed for over a year and then there are these new GSOC developers who are trying to get into The program, but they just do not know what's happening behind the curtain So it just got harder to hardest to just get in so what should be done is that a People employers just start recognizing OSS contributions. I know red hat We were talking and then I know the red hat does Recognize right so they recognize OSS contributions if they're listed on the resume in India It has started to happen, but you would see this culture in startups. So that's really prevalent They look for open source contributions. They value it Basically whatever we talked about Now that needs to be done. We need extra credits for our project The point is we won't choose to name it now, but just no one does anything about it because maybe they're scared Maybe they don't care. I don't know But it's really affecting a huge population of Contribute new contributors. I'd like to say, yeah And even university should begin to support students now because I mean it's hurting students in the end because even though like there are like how much 100k some graduates of engineering every year The that graduate students, but then the problem is hardly one percent of them get employed And that's because they lack skills and the only reason they lack actual skills are they don't get to Experience what actual software engineering is before in college itself. So no one is going to hire them Without telling the college administration No that's also me Yes And then these are the Like just started this one just started to contribute on get a brand only I mean most people do begin Contributions, but once they realize the time limitations and everything that comes in they stop That's okay, but if you are at the start itself a grading students based on their mark sheet and Not even letting them in for the interview However, good the others like actual softening skills may be not just Google like every other company in India then I mean At least Google is now supporting. I mean Google now supports it Google does not check if you directly do When you directly apply they don't ask for your market that much and they look after all your other skills But all other companies I mean they just don't if you want to reach out to us and back 23 on get up and see my Twitter