Hello everyone, I am here again with the last Blog of my journey as an Outreachy intern. For those who don’t know me , I am Neelima Mohanty , selected as an Outreachy intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) for the May to August Cohort. If you are new to my blog then make sure you read my previous Outreachy Blogs before going through this blog post.

Just 3 months ago I received an email at my inbox from the Outreachy organizers according to which I got selected as an intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team for the May to August 2023 cohort . And look today my internship is going to end in just two days . So I planned to take you all into a rollercoaster ride of my internship journey .

In the first month I was welcomed by my mentors Rob Savoye and Petya Kangalova where Petya introduced me about the HOT Community . Next I was assigned with many github issues from the projects FMTM and osm-fieldwork by my mentor Rob . I still remember Rob saying me “ Don’t get overwhelmed by seeing the number of issues assigned . Just pick one and start working now and you don’t have to complete all . Take your time and complete only as much as you can comfortably” . These words were so relaxing for me .

Throughout the months of June and July , I and my mentors worked together . I created PRs and they reviewed it , left comments . I worked on them and finally they merged them . One great thing that I always liked and appreciate is that Petya and Rob always respond quickly to my messages and Rob reviews my PRs in seconds in the most perfect way . I also worked with other members of HOT like Kshitij and Omran for another HOT project called fAIr.

In the last month of my internship Petya and Rob offered me an opportunity to be a co-speaker at the Lightning Talk for the FMTM project at Code for All Summit which I accepted and completed . It will be released on 20th September 2023 on Code for All You tube channel and social media handles. Do watch it .

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Hello everyone, I am here again with the 5th Blog of my journey as an Outreachy intern. For those who don’t know me , I am Neelima Mohanty , selected as an Outreachy intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) for the May to August Cohort. If you are new to my blog then make sure you read my previous Outreachy Blogs before going through this blog post.

This is the second last week of my Outreachy internship and I almost feel like I am a part of the HOT Community or in other words I feel like I know many members of HOT already. Apart from my mentors Rob Savoye and Petya Kangalova , the list of members whom I know are Kshitij Raj Sharma , Omran Najjar , Susmina Manandhar and Sam Woodcock . Informal chats with all these people made me more familiar with this community. Let me introduce all of them with you and what I have learnt from the informal chats with them.

Kshitij and Omran are part of the dev team for fAIr project of HOT . I learnt a lot from each one of them about backend and frontend of that project and understood their work to implement AI in the process of mapping .

I already have written about my interaction with Sam Woodcock in my 2nd Blog . But that was how we came to know each other for the first time . Whereas when I got selected as an Intern , he sent me a message introducing himself and told me that he would like to help me in my technical documentation work in FMTM if I face any issues . Then I came to know that he had been volunteering for FMTM since a long time.

And finally and very recently I met with Susmina Manandhar from Nepal who work as an Associate Project Manager at NAXA one of the partners of HOT . We together worked for two weeks and prepared the Lightning Talk Video of the FMTM project for Code for All summit. While in these two weeks , we met almost everyday and not just talked about work but she also shared about herself and her University days .

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Hello everyone, I am here again with the 4th Blog of my journey as an Outreachy intern. For those who don’t know me , I am Neelima Mohanty , selected as an Outreachy intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) for the May to August Cohort. If you are new to my blog then make sure you read my previous Outreachy Blogs before going through this blog post.

This blog post will help you to know me better and offer me job or internship opportunity according to my skills after I complete my Outreachy internship.

My skills and experience

Being a Computer Science and Engineering Student , I have learned a list of technical skills and am still learning more. As I believe that learning without implementation is worthless thus I have had experience of each skill that I have learned in the form of internships in various organisations. I welcome everyone here to have a look into my Resume to know about my experiences and skills in detail.

Opportunities I am looking for

I am looking for developer roles as well as technical writer roles . I will be interested to work and assist on job or internship related to any of the following domains : web development , app development , AI/ML , Cloud Computing or technical writing. I am eager to contribute my skills and assist in any capacity within these areas.

What makes me Unique for your organisation?

Below are some of my interpersonal skills which I consider as my strengths for an job/internship opportunity:

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Hello everyone, I am here again with the 3rd Blog of my journey as an Outreachy intern. For those who don’t know me , I am Neelima Mohanty , selected as an Outreachy intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) for the May to August Cohort. If you are new to my blog then make sure you read my Blog 1 and Blog 2 before going through this blog post.

Recently a person named Berra Karaman messaged me on LinkedIn that she is interested in applying as an Outreachy intern and wished to know more about my application and journey .

On reading her message , I thought that not only she , many other applicants also must be wondering about applying to Outreachy and some may also be thinking to apply to work at the organisation I am working at as an Outreachy intern. So , I decided to introduce my community to a newcomer who decides to apply in HOT(Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team) as an intern in the upcoming Outreachy cohorts.

Here are some important perks of being an Outreachy intern at HOT

• Skill Enhancement

This is a place where your skills are not only appreciated but also allowed to implement them at a fixed paced , not too slow and not too fast. My mentors never compel me to hurriedly complete a task . Of course deadlines are set and we together try our best to complete the tasks in an efficient manner before the deadline but if it gets completed partially then we again conduct a meeting , discuss the agenda and make changes accordingly to the schedule in order to complete the work .

• All about Open Source

Other than working on the project , I get to learn a lot new things related to open source and the community . For instance , my mentor Rob Savoye shared his experience of attending the SOTM-US-2023 and Petya Kangalova shared every single details of the open source conference FOSS4G which she recently attended . They give me tips regarding these conferences and the open source community.

• No Gender Discrimination

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While everyone struggles , I chose to embrace the struggle.

Hello everyone, I am here again with the 2nd Blog of my journey as an Outreachy intern. For those who don’t know me , I am Neelima Mohanty , selected as an Outreachy intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) for the May to August Cohort. If you are new to my blog then make sure you read my Blog 1 before going through this blog post.

How many of you have come across new terms while contributing to open source communities? I guess everyone has . And do you remember how did you cope with it? As you think of all this , I will narrate you one such experience of mine during the contribution phase of Outreachy during March 2023 .

While raising a PR to add comments to the code of the osm-fieldwork repo as part of technical documentation , my mentor Rob Savoye reviewed it and said me that he liked the thought of adding comments to the code but it was not the right way. I would like to quote his words “Thanks for adding comments. We usually don’t need to comment write() and open(), as it’s obvious. If you want to get really deep into commenting source code, we want to add support for sphinx.This adds a comment block for each class and method. This would require you read and gain some understanding of the code itself, which is not a bad thing. We use sphinx for other python projects.”

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Hello everyone, myself Neelima Mohanty , currently pursuing my BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from Odisha University of Technology and Research , Bhubaneswar , Odisha , India. I am a Sophomore (2nd year) . I have been selected as an Outreachy intern at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) for the May to August Cohort.

My Core Values which motivated me to apply to Outreachy

* Learning and Implementation

Once Benjamin Franklin had said “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Almost all the tech skills that I have learnt till date have implementations tied along with them. My internships , trainings and small projects are all evidences of the fact that I believe in a continuous and comprehensive process of learning and implementation. I applied to Outreachy on the same ray of hope that each time I make a contribution I will learn something new and implement it.

* Transparency

Quoting the line of Dalai Lama “A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” I always like the workplaces which are transparent and where the process of judgement is crystal clear . Such a place is Outreachy and also the organisation I had applied for (HOTOSM) along with my mentors Petya Kangalova and Rob Savoye. The three steps of Outreachy Open Source program – initial application , contribution period with final application and the internship period shows how Outreachy follows transparency and this really impressed me.

* Teamwork

“Teamwork makes the dream work” said by Bang Gae. During the contribution period of Outreachy , I came across my amazing mentors Petya Kangalova and Rob Savoye who guided me along every step and are still guiding me. Talking to them I felt like if I get selected , we will form a great team together. And here I am with me dream fulfilled.

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