 Today I will be talking about women and non-binary folks in Fedora. So this is my story. I would rather decided to stick to the questions, the format which was given for this presentation because if I'll start on my own, I can go on forever. So I rather decided to stick to the questions which was asked for this presentation. So this is a little bit of mine about me. I'm Amita Sharma from India and I joined Red Hat for 10 years before and I started contributing in the Fedora approximately seven to eight years before. I started my career in Red Hat as a quality engineer and then now I am working as a technical project manager in Red Hat. I'm a mother of a seven years old girl and I love, love, love traveling which I'm missing nowadays and this is my Fedora page where you can find some of the sessions which I have given in different events and conferences. So to start with the first question, how I get involved in the Fedora, this is the common thing which I heard from everybody's story that they get inspired from someone. So yes, my story is also similar. I got inspired by Adam Williamson, who is a very, very famous name in Fedora QA and as I told you, I used to be a tester. So this is the area which I felt is the easiest way I get involved in the community and I started contributing in the test days, started finding some bugs and interacted with Adam that how I can more involved in Fedora and I met him first time in Flock six or seven years back and yes, it was very, very inspirational and after some time contributing in testing after some after that, I think after two years or something like that, Matthew Miller posted a post about the diversity team and he asked a few questions in that post that why there should be a diversity team in Fedora and would you like to be involved and that is the point when I answered all those questions and yes, in the foundation was created for the diversity and inclusion team in Fedora, I am involved since then. So yes, it has been a long, long time and that is why the diversity and inclusion team is so close to my heart. Then eventually I got an opportunity to become the ambassador as well. So this is my story of how I got involved in Fedora. How do I contribute? I used to do a lot of things, unfortunately, I'm not able to keep up honestly. If you ask me today, I'm not able to keep up with many of these things because of the time because of life happens, but I try to do as much as I can. So these are things which I did testing, I participated in test days. I filed many Bubsila. So again, for the new contributor, it is the best, best way and the easiest way to start your contribution in Fedora, if you would like to do that, blog post, write your experience because you'd never know what will inspire somebody. You can be the inspiration for many others in future. So write your experience, that is what I have done. I write many blog posts and then I started my contribution in diversity team. I helped in organizing Fedora Women's Day in India, did other events like release party, etc. And then I got a chance to become a diversity advisor as well. So before jumping to the story of my challenges in Fedora, which I faced, this is my disclaimer that these challenges I faced seven years before and I would like to acknowledge that most of them have been gone now and now the story is totally, totally different. When I started seven or eight years before, there was hardly any women contributor locally in Pune or in India to support, to get that right support. And there were a very close group of male people who has a very particular mindset that if you are coding and if you are submitting some patches, that is the only thing which can be considered as contribution. So I felt there was no initial support or if you are a newbie, if you are a new person, you are a bit hesitant and you look up to your people who look like you, who talk like you and you expect some kind of support from them. And if you don't get the right guidance, you feel a bit hesitant and that initial right support is very, very, very necessary I feel. But fortunately, I got in touch with Adam and eventually I made friend out of my zone and then, yes, that helped me a lot when I started talking to some other people and not just to my local group. But as I told you that this has been changed a lot. If I asked Murray or somebody who can tell the numbers, you see the number of participants, the female participants in Flock 2014 or 2015, they were around 10 approximately. But if you count the number of female participants in even in the virtual flock which just happened, they are, they have grown exponentially. And I can see, stay that potentially these challenges has gone now. The other one which I would like to mention was the complex Vicky documentation. It was, let's admit that it was not, not very, very helpful. Yeah, it helped me. But if you look at those Vicky documentation, you go to one page, you need to click to, and there are so many hyperlinks, you click to another and you get lost in the, in the forest of that Vicky, you sometimes lost, lost your motivation to find that information which you are trying to find out. But now this, this also has been improved a lot. These were the things which I faced before. But today what I am facing is the 2020 as all of you are. I don't, definitely don't need to go into the details for that. And it is the common challenges which we are all are facing nowadays. Okay, victories. There are so, so, so many victories. I could not gather them into one slide. But yes, Fedora has given me a lot, a lot. I don't know how much I have given to Fedora, how much contribution I have given. But, but the amount of, you know, learning knowledge, experience, the Fedora community has gave me. It helped me grow as a person. It helped me grow in my career. Whatever I am today, in my career, Fedora has a lot of impact and a lot of contribution in that. Because it, it gave me so many skills to develop. It helped me grow as a person. It helped me learn so many new things. Because everything or every, every new feature around the world, which comes, I think Fedora is the first one to adopt that. And we, we are the fortunate people in the community to learn it. And it gives you a platform where you can talk to so many different people around the corner. And it helps you in your communication skills. It helps you in your people's skill. It helps you, you know, in your presentation skills. I think this is the best place. If you start early, this is the best place to, you know, get the right experience, not in just in the technical, you know, technical area, but in so many other areas. I can keep on talking, but there are some very specific, which I would like to highlight is the public speaking. I got many chances to speak in public. I, I got many compliments. I used to get many compliments in. I would like to take this opportunity to say, mention this that Sumantro, he told me that he got inspired in one of my sessions, which I had given in my first vlog around Fedora QA. And it was a huge, huge compliment to me. And yes, I improved. I grow over the over the past many years. And because Fedora has given me so much, so many opportunities to speak in public, public to share my knowledge. And just imagine you are speaking in front of a crowd, which is from the different corner of the world. And they are throwing the questions at you. And you are able to answer those questions, how much brilliant experience it is in itself. Okay, this one is the greatest. So friends is one of the four foundation of Fedora. And this is the closest to my heart. My friends act like an anchor in Fedora. You know, life happens, and you get trapped in many different things, and you don't get chance to do the things which you love to do. So I love dancing, I don't get time to do it. I love Fedora, but I don't get time to do it. But my friends remind me, okay, I got I received this message from Murray, that we are doing this presentation, would you like to take or this opportunity or would you like to share your story? I said, why not? Because I'm not into too much touch of the figure right now that what is happening? I know the Fedora Woman Day was happening, but I didn't know about these sessions chipping me and I was so thrilled that okay, I can definitely I can do it. So yes, my friends are my anchor who, you know, keep reminding me that this is the thing you can still do and I love to do it. Yes, so I think more than anything, I would say this is the best part of Fedora and yes, the title we all love titles. So Fedora gave me the opportunity to become the ambassador and diversity advisor because the initial journey was not very easy. So yes, the victory tasted much more sweeter. Thanks to Fedora, it makes me capable that I could help more women to come and become the part of the journey. So when I organize some local Fedora Women's Day, there are many women around whom I helped or I can say I could support the support which I was looking initially for myself and which was missing for me. I definitely made sure that I could be that support for the other women around. So yes, this is what I feel is a victory. Quickly how we can improve in the Fedora, these are very rough for the raw ideas, I would say. We do a lot of things, but currently if you look at the 2020, how it is going, I think we should definitely do some sessions or some kind of counseling for the contributors to help them in their mental health because currently it is a very stressful year, I would say. If we can do something around it, that would be very good. I also feel that whenever there is a bit of longer gap in my contribution, I feel a little difficult to bounce back completely because many things keep changing in Fedora and that is the beauty of it, that it is the first adopter of the new things, which is good, but which is little difficult for an old contributor to bounce back. So if we can give some resources, we can develop some material or some documentation or some recordings for people to be up to date or to bounce back, that will be very helpful. I know we have this every Fedora appreciation day, but this is the time when we can give rewards more frequently to the contributors, just a few good words, even matters a lot. So this is the thing which I think we should revive, especially during this time. Constant touch is very, very important. So if you are active in Fedora and you feel that you see that your friend is missing somehow, you can send them messages. As I quoted you, one example that I keep receiving messages from my friend, this is happening. Would you like to take a part in it with some easy things? So that constant touch also keep you motivated to continue. And some kind of counseling and mentoring, sometimes you're just going to a rough patch of life. And this is something I feel if we can ask or request in Fedora that this is the ticket, that is the functional part of it. Maybe we can open a ticket that I need a little bit of counseling or guidance or a little bit of mentoring. If we can open that ticket and request it from Fedora, that will be very, very helpful. Some of the very raw ideas for improvement, otherwise we are doing as a community really great job. I was thrilled. I was amazed by looking at the number of the people who contributed in our virtual events. And it proves and it shows our success as a community. So thank you very much. I'll stop sharing my screen to take any of the questions if anybody have. Hi. I think I took a longer time I think. No, that was great. I don't see any questions in the chat but I have questions. So my first one is when did you first get involved in tech? Like what was your like how did you get interested in tech and how did you end up at Red Hat? This is very funny but very honestly I joined Red Hat because my husband joined Red Hat. So that is why I switched to Red Hat. But then I saw the local people going to these conferences, contributing and speaking publicly about their contribution. And I was doing the same thing. Fedora is upstream for us and Red Hat uses the packages and the features of whatever Fedora does. So I'm doing the same thing and I just need to test the different packages. So that is the only switch I need to make. So it was my day job but I just need to switch the version of the packages I was testing in Red Hat to Fedora. And I learned it from one of the Adam Williamson blog posts. And yes that was my you know you can say the kick start of my contribution in Fedora. Very cool. So before you worked at Red Hat were you also doing testing? No I was a developer in a different organization. Okay so you were a developer before then? Yes. So did you go to university for technology? Yes I am a computer engineer by my degree so yes well my education is in technology. Very cool. Same like when you first got started that there wasn't a lot of local support and I was going to ask like how has that changed and you know because you were saying it's different now. And I was but then you kind of addressed that and he said you know I reach out to the new people. I'm the one they're trying to promote Fedora. But I guess like I'm just curious if you have any more like feedback on that like if you have to talk maybe about the events before then locally I think people will be interested. Sure so if you don't find that right kind of I would say if there is something missing locally never never hesitate to broaden your circle reach out you know reach out to different people there are so many helpful I very honestly there are every kind of people in every community everywhere right there are people who are close mindset there are people who are a little bit hard and then there are people who are very very supportive. I look at Matthew like he's the FPL and he's a very you know he's the top leader in Fedora but you reach out to him you talk to him you you feel like you're talking one of your friends I mean that kind of people exist in Fedora you look at Murray how cool she is she is also one now she is you know one of the very important person in Fedora and at a very elite position but still you can reach out to her you talk to her anytime so I would say don't hesitate to reach out to the people if you are not finding that support locally reach out to the different people and you will definitely get that support and even much more than you are expecting that is so true that is so true and I definitely have people um reaching out to me on a variety of topics and I love hearing from them and it's usually about some idea that they have I find it very very interesting moving from the community to this role you know you have ideas as a community member and you kind of look for some what's the word approvals right and you're like all these people need to approve this thing we're doing I'm just I'm personally for you guys but I'm willing to not only say that's a good idea and help you improve it or just give you resources to make it happen so that's that's what's changed um let me see uh there's a question here from the chat from your experience with Fedora what is your top tip or advice for a new entering project today I would say for me test day was the easiest thing uh so there is ample amount of uh information for the test days they there is a calendar which test next test day is happening so there is a new feature in Fedora you already uh if you have already installed Fedora there are a step by step very clear instructions how you should be testing that particular feature there are very clear instructions how you can open a bug in the bugzilla if nothing is working as expected so this is the easiest thing I would say but if that is not uh where you are interested in uh I would say uh find that right mentor or find that right person in in the group which uh in which you are interested in if you are in design team look at the pegyar who is who are the people contributing over there reach out to them everybody is so helpful and so open to uh you know guide you and we'll be happy to guide you so that is the thing you can do it you can do awesome I I think that's great advice um like for me I was lucky enough to get involved through an internship but it really doesn't take a ton of time to get involved in Fedora you can just do little things and just slowly kind of get to learn the the landscape as you all um over time so so I don't see any other questions in the chat but we have been um doing a script which you probably saw um based on the the the Budapest video we made so I'm going to put the script in the chat so the first part just like the Budapest video will be in your native tongue um and the second part will be in English um so the one part that we added to this is I am a woman for example um and the one that we had at Budapest didn't include that part but this time we are a woman I am a woman I am a non-binary person you know so that's the addition and I'm just curious what language will you be speaking um Hindi Hindi that's what you are referring to have or do you want me to do something else oh I mean I think you should do the series says how about Punjabi so you actually did have um Smirai yesterday speak in Hindi um for this so if you are able to do a different language but Hindi is also great whatever you whatever you're feeling comfortable with but I'm gonna mute myself just to give you all the sound space and go ahead when you're ready you could do extra takes whatever you want okay uh I'll do it in Punjabi but I am looking for a word for woman in Punjabi um okay I'll do it in Punjabi so should I start hi um sorry we are from different countries we speak different languages we are of different cultures but Fedora unites us with open source we are Fedora