Hello! I'm Maryam Yusuf from Nigeria. I have been selected as one of the 61 interns of the Outreachy (December - March) '21 round.

I will be working on Improving the Unified Kernel Test Result Database System ("KCIDB") a package for submitting and querying Linux Kernel reports. KCIDB is a KernelCI project. The goal of KernelCI is to use an open testing philosophy to ensure the quality, stability and long-term maintenance of the Linux kernel.

As part of my 3-month internship, I'll be blogging to share my experiences with Outreachy and KernelCI. I hope this will help anyone who is interested in applying to Outreachy, or interested in tech.

What is Outreachy?

Outreachy is an initiative that provides paid remote internships with open-source software projects to the underrepresented groups in Tech. Their aim is to bring diversity and inclusivity to the tech industry.

My core values

My core values are adventure, community, and growth.

• Adventure: I consider myself an adventurous person and value being adventurous. I love trying new things and taking risk on improving myself and helping the world to be a better place. I have a lot of exciting ideas piled up that I would try one day.

• Community: Community engagement brings drastic change and impact to the world. Imagine a world without the the open source community, we would not have achieved what we have today.

• Growth: I used to be so scared to step out of my comfort zone especially after rejection. I was scared to reapply for Outreachy when I got rejected in the last round, but I realise rejections are also part of growth.

Motivations for Applying to Outreachy

I came across Outreachy while I was exploring the Open source community after graduating from the University. I tried applying in 2020 but got rejected. One of my friends got the 2021 round for May, and encouraged me to apply again. I am definitely grateful to Hasana who encouraged me and helped out through my initial application process.

The second stage of the application was pretty easy as I am familiar with Python and the project I planned to contribute on (KCIDB) was also in Python. Although I had to learn a lot of things like the Google Cloud Platform(GCP) but it was interesting as learning new things is something I love.

I’m glad I didn’t let rejection stop me or else I wouldn’t be writing this blog post today.