 Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm well you look stunning today. Thank you. It's Friday right after this. I'm going out so that's why Awesome. Oh my god. Yeah. I'm jealous of your plans. What do you have to tonight? No idea. I mean my friends have plans. I'm just going along with it That's that's what's up. Hopefully it ends like it didn't flock with music Showdown and some drinks. I hope the company is not as good as that. Well, it's awesome to see you. Thank you for coming to Fedora Women's Day and Presenting, I know you have, you know, some experience with Fedora, but you have even more to share about Other communities that you're involved with so I'm super excited to hear your story I'm gonna let you go ahead and jump off and then when you're wrapping things up I'll come back on and help moderate any questions I have prepared some slides here about journey in tech, as Marie said this is specifically for Fedora and my involvement with Fedora, it's basically how I started in tech and how I branched out to other stores and then to Fedora and then to client So I can cover them all and the writing and the history and what I would like to have with you is a big question on how I can share this with you I can share it all with you So we have something to come My journey in tech Can you all hear it? I don't want to share it like this No So we're we can hear it we can see the screen. Oh my gosh, I love this Here, this is gorgeous. The audio is a little bit choppy Okay, it's actually better right when you did that Okay, let me try this one. Can you hear me now? Yeah, that's that's much better. Yep If this doesn't work, too, I can put my headphones on Okay, if it doesn't, I'll jump back on. All right, I'm gonna leave it The first one, I do presentation myself I'm back again because it's really fuzzy Okay Okay, so this is my journey in tech prepare for some nostalgia here This was a very it was very fun fun to put together for me because I have been in tech for quite some time but I Stopped to think how I got here. So this was very fun To put these slides together. So here's also the nostalgia part Okay, so this was the first time I got introduced to tech This was our first computer. This is how it looked like because I don't have any pictures It was a Pentium 4 I think And it was actually my brother's computer. So I Had very restrictive access to it But when I first saw it, I was immediately drawn to it. I wanted to know how it worked What can I do with it? What are the possibilities? And the first thing that my brother taught me it was about Wikipedia And yeah, and when I learned about Wikipedia, I was mind blown I thought okay. I can search about anything and know anything I want So I would spend literally hours on Wikipedia and I had a notebook That I would keep near myself and then whatever I would read and wanted to remember it I would just write it down and This is how my journey tech started after this After this it was this is the beginning chapter after this came So that was in primary school. I was in the eighth or ninth grade And then came high school, which is this chapter the second one I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next But I really thought during my primary school I thought that I really don't like learning theory I didn't like just sitting and listening to the teachers and I didn't see any Applicable lessons there. So I thought that was very boring to me and I wanted some more practical learning So I found out about a school a high school that was electrical engineering high school Supposed to be for guys but for some reason in my country they also accept women although a few very few So I decided to go there and see how it looked like And I went to a tour and then saw the labs and I loved it I thought okay. I can explore more computers, which I really liked There was practical learning because it wasn't just theory We would actually learn about every piece of the computer about electrical How the electricity works and stuff like that I really really liked it and I can say I really enjoyed high school although I made a good friends although we were very few women there like we were four women and 35 male Oh, you can see me. Oh my god. I'm sorry. I can't look at the chat because I'm looking at the slides Can you see me now? I'm not sure. Okay. Cool. Cool. Sorry. I can't I can't look at both at the same time I will take a look at the chat later Okay, cool So this was high school The second chapter and then the third chapter which is university. I finished high school and I was Having some thoughts on what I could do next. I knew I wanted to study, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to pick So there were two main things that I really enjoyed which is computer science and Psychology I was always also interested in psychology and enjoyed reading books About psychology and I was also had this creative side of me that I could never apply To my school my high school because it was so focused on engineering So to pick between this two I thought Maybe I can just you know Combine creativity with computer science and that works Psychology is also I can learn more if I want to but I don't see myself practicing it So I went with computer science. This sounds a very easy decision Maybe right now, but at the time I had a lot of thinking about this Okay, the next chapter is The chapter of open source this was The first year of university when I first got introduced to open source Some people on my Where I live I live by the way in Kosovo and Pristina which is a very small and young country They were building a hacker space And I wanted to see what was going on there and I have some friends That were involved in open source and were building the hacker space So I went and saw what it was happening there because I was very curious And this is what I saw basically I went to the hacker space I was the only girl there and There was a lot of terminals And I just didn't know if I fit in there I was I was very curious of what they were doing But since I was in the first year so I didn't have any programming experience So what did I do? I did some exploration I did some exploration So not in front of everyone in the hacker space But I got introduced to the world of Linux through those guys So when I came back home I wanted to explore what open source is about what Linux is And I watched YouTube videos and I also decided to give a try Some Linux distros Which are called flavors or And to me that sounded like so interesting like ice cream flavors or something And so I decided to try some of them I put some digital machines on my computer And the first one fun fact the first distro I tried was popular Linux And then Linux Mint I think Debian and then I had OpenSUSE and then Fedora which I ended up keeping Yeah, this was that I now knew which I didn't know before And I thought okay I can read that I have the opportunity to contribute and change things And propose about new things But how do I do that? I have no idea At that time I was Through my friends from Obeña They had Fedora community And still have And I they invited me with a link on telegram And one day they shared a link for Outreachy I clicked on it randomly and saw what Outreachy is about And it was the perfect thing I was looking for Because for those of you who don't know Outreachy is just like Google Summer of Code Basically approaching new contributors And helping them get involved for the first time contributors But since they saw that on Google Summer of Code There were no participation from underrepresented folks They decided to do Outreachy Which is focused only on underrepresented folks And another problem that I had on Outreachy I thought it was a great idea And I went through every project they had listed on their website But the problem was I didn't know to coding Because I was still on my first year ending my first year I'm not sure of university So I found out that Outreachy also had some non-technical Contributions which is really nice So I took a look at them and found the perfect one for me I found Grom which was looking for usability testing I had no idea at the time what usability testing was And I thought at the beginning like why do we even need it But later I found out that we do need it a lot And there's actually a whole career that it's built upon The user experience of applications So anyways I looked at what usability is And how to apply it to software And then I ended up doing some contributions for Grom And I did my internship on Outreachy for three months Which was a great experience There I found out about design part of the open source Basically how much open source software needed good design And usability and user experience improvements I got exposed to that And I also got exposed to other communities Like open source design, Fedora, Debian So I saw a lot more variety on open source During my internship and during this chapter The other chapter which is the fun one It's this one This is when I have finished my internship And as I said I saw the need for good design work In open source software And the need especially for user experience improvements On open source software So that it would be easier to use And that way in my mind more people can use it So my strategy was I thought let's do a workshop or talk Or something like that So I can reach out to more communities And explain them that improvements of user experience It doesn't have to be hard or a lot of work I wanted to simplify for them in a few steps And how they can, everyone actually can contribute To their open source project By doing improving user experience With a very simple way And I did that in a few conferences And one of them was also Flock Which I ended up having a great time And what I learned also during this time Was the non-tech side of open source Which was the community part Because even before I had kept in touch with the communities But mainly through written format Which is not the same as meeting them in person And seeing them that they are not just a nickname They have faces, they have personalities And that was so much fun And to see all the communities For example at Flock Like how they were very connected to each other And they knew each other for years sometimes But still were very welcoming to new people I felt very nice there So yeah, I did this for some places And during the events I would also do, for example, usability testing To help, as I said Open source software project To improve the user experience So I would do usability testing on the halls With some participants And then whatever they would need to test most I would do that, for example On Flock, I remember doing a usability test For the badges website And then I made sure to compile all my findings And give them back to the community So that they can take action on them Okay, let's see if so far everyone is hearing me And I'm good Okay, I think so Just checking Okay Next chapter The next chapter for me was working on open source I was approached by a small company That does design on open source to work for them And to do basically what I was doing until now Trying to improve user experience And doing user research, some UX design And I really, since I really enjoy that I immediately accepted it And I had the opportunity during this time To work for a lot of open source projects Which feels very good And to know that I could help to improve them I have here some examples Just a few of them So I can show you what user experience is about Or for non-designed folks here Just to get an idea of what I do So for example, this one is I have worked with Thunderbird Which if you don't know is an open source email client Lately they have been integrating PGP encryption As a built in feature So I've been helping to do the design And the research part of the design Just to make sure that everything is The user experience is smooth You can see here is the On the right side is the research part And then you can see the mock-ups here And the heat maps that you see In the bottom with the colors They are from the usability testings Because I talked to a few users That had used any email before And compared it to the user experience Of Thunderbird with PGP integrated And I wanted to see how they are comparing it How is the user experience So you can see everything is detailed And also had been written down by me In very detail with screenshots And how to improve it in suggestions And all of that The next one is for example I2P which I don't know if So I'm just here I don't know how much you all know About the application So I'm just going to quickly introduce them I2P is basically like Tor They had a browser extension before Which looked like this Like the before And then we did user research I talked to users and to the community there To see what they needed And started building the design Doing the fidelity of wireframes And this is how the design ended up looking Which I think it's nicer than it used to be So this was basically every design After this we got Briar Briar is an application for again open source Which is based on security They had a much complicated approach To connecting with users Connecting with each other Then traditional applications Like for example what's happened Viber and stuff like that So we worked with them I did a few testings To see how it goes And they are still in the beginning But we are improving each iteration So this is basically my work I'm always open to seeing And finding out other ways How to help open source software Improve its user experience I'm always open to that But this is basically my journey And how it looks In the last slide I just wanted for If anyone here is very new to open source Or they are not sure why they should do it You saw my journey And maybe my reason So I just wanted to maybe quickly Highlight some other reasons And there is a lot I wrote here just a few of them But now reading it I can imagine other ones Coming from my own For the first one is Getting real world experience I think that's very important And open source allows you that If you are in the beginning of your career For example it doesn't matter Design or whatever Coding You have the opportunity To not do just some work Based on a homework That you were given in a course But here you can just apply Everything you know And learn everything in real time With real problems Which is very important I know in the design But I'm sure for every other area And the second one is Connect with people from Of the same interests For me I live in a As I said in a very small country Basically in my country There is no one that does UX research Which is what I do for a job So I felt very lonely at times Not having someone to share my ideas And what I'm thinking about My profession And in open source You have a lot of people working Who have other UX researchers In my case That I could talk to And they have communities And I can discuss more About my profession And I'm sure this applies To everything else The other reason is Working on large scale What I mean by this is I'm not talking about every software But mainly in open source The software, the projects And the software is huge So you have the opportunity To collaborate with a lot of people And that's something You cannot learn in practice If you're just working On your country With a smaller group of people Here you have the opportunity To connect to a lot of people Also you have the opportunity To learn how to work remotely I think this is now more accurate than ever Because everything has gone remotely these days So I think this is even more appreciated About open source now Because you can basically Everything, almost everything Is done remotely So you can learn how to Approach the remote working part Through contributing on open source software The other thing which You can see here I have mentioned three times Community and friends Just because I think it's very important And on open source communities You have this sense of belonging To a community And also when there are People that accept you And they are friendly Here I'm talking specifically about Dora Because I remember How they accepted me And immediately I made a lot of friends Just by attending one conference So when you want to Join an open source group Just make sure you see How they are connected And if you fit in there But this is why I would recommend Joining Dora Because I'm sure that they are And they have done a lot of efforts Actually to make the community more diverse And also make a lot of friends As I said again Dora emphasizes the friends part Which I like and it's really important You will make a lot of friends And if you are an introverted person Or shy or reserved Like I know I am This is a great way to open up Because people will approach you And ask about what you do And that way you will learn How to talk to people And how to make friends Yeah, this is it I don't have any more slides You can find me at Dora On Twitter or anywhere If you want to talk more Okay Awesome Yeah, can you hear me? Okay, cool, thank you for that story I really enjoyed how you took us Back to the start And I was having memories Of my first computer Remember when we had the family computer In the middle of the house And we all had to share it And all that's so funny I was also getting nostalgia in there Yeah, thank you for that story I love that you're doing You're not doing coding, right? Did I understand? Yeah I'm a similar person Here in the open source world Doing design for many years And now I do community work But it's definitely I don't know, it's interesting But at the same time You have this entire background You know how computers work And you went to an engineering school So I'm just super impressed with your story So cool to learn all of that stuff for you So Natasha is asking What can a newbie do in Fedora? I knew it So first, I'm just talking here On my experience I mean, maybe other people Can share also their first experiences Because I attended an event That was organized by the Fedora ambassadors And they do a great job On explaining what the options are Because in the beginning It's very hard to know Because Fedora is a very big project So you can't know everything You can possibly do And then they will help you And guide you in a way Where do you fit in? For example, in my case I did in being more of a people's person Or maybe something more creative In design And that's why I ended up Joining the diversity and inclusion team And also the design team But this is how you get started Other ways, if you are not Able to approach an event like that I would suggest either virtual events like this Where you can ask specific people more Or maybe even joining on telegram groups Or just visiting Fedora Wiki pages There you have set-by-step guides On how to join everything And if you have questions You can just think specific people And they can help you I hope that answers your question Yeah, I'm just going to follow up with We will be thrilled to have you Basically, if you show up in a channel And say, hey, I'm new here There will be like five people who say Oh my gosh, hi, welcome What can we do for you? So it's definitely a very welcome place I would say, yeah, connecting with humans Right? That's the way to get Into open source in a more meaningful way More connected to like your personhood So any other questions? I'm just going to give a chance to do the chat I don't know if you were in the opening Or the intro remarks, but We are working on making A cool video based off the content That we're recording here So I have a script If you're comfortable reading it So part of it is in your native language And part of it will be in English So if you could stop sharing your screen I will copy and paste I just wanted to say If you had any other Albanian speakers here You've probably got the Albanian part So if you don't want to double that Because I think we just had I think we just had someone do Greek Okay, yeah But it's not about doubling It's about having your part Okay So we will have you part of the video Give me one sec Let me copy and paste Should I stop sharing the screen? Okay So Nick, put it into the chat So I'll do mine to show an example So in your native language you'll say My name is Renata I am from Kosovo I am a woman and I speak Albanian In Albanian and then you'll say We are from different countries But we'll put it in English Sound good? Okay, so the second part is in English Let me highlight the second part So I don't mix it up Can I try it right now? Okay, cool So my name is Renata I am from Kosovo I am from Kosovo We are from different countries We speak different languages We are different cultures But Fedora announced us with open source Awesome You did great Very cool Oh, we have another question Have you done UX for Fedora? So to explain my This is To explain my role, my job It's UX research Which means I don't actually Do the high fidelity design The detailed work I do the research part Which is doing the testing To see if something is easy to use And then report those findings And maybe do even little Mockups on low fidelity So to answer Your question I did UX research For Fedora badges During flock 2019 Where I did usability testing With a few people from Fedora And I did a report Which I think very shared here That is basically the UX part of me Doing for Fedora A really cool update For the people who are here We actually opened By Masha We actually opened A bunch of tickets For some new Outreachy applicants To try to tackle some of these badges Things, right? Some of these usability issues Meanwhile We had an outreach intern over the summer Working on the back end of it To move it to Badger Away from Terrier So hopefully It's kind of like all going to come together But as we all kind of know These kinds of projects They take time and they take passion And people really put some time in there So we hope to see All the fruits of this labor Eventually But the report is so Like detailed And you can tell it's just great There's a lot there To make the badges site so much better Yes, thank you For the update I already saw The work that someone did I think from Outreachy For the design I didn't have time to check everything in details yet Which I plan to do I would like to keep up with my report And everything that goes through the badges And see how it goes Yeah, that's like You're planting seed To watch the tree grow All right Well, I hope you have An awesome night out Coming up at our Women's Day And chatting with us And we'll see you soon Thank you and thank you everyone For joining and for Leaving questions and comments here Thank you so much Can't wait to see you in person Bye