Two New Context Working Groups Launching Next Week
In addition to our Corporate focused OSPO and our App Ecosystem Working Groups, we will be starting 2 new context working groups next week. Say hello to our new groups:
- University OSPO
- OSS Scientific Software
Meetings for these groups will start this coming week, and the details for joining can be found below. Welcome to our new CHAOTICs!
CHAOSScon NA 2023 – It’s a Wrap!
We wanted to extend a warm thank you to all the attendees (in-person and virtual) of CHAOSScon NA 2023 this year! This was one of our best CHAOSScons yet, and we were thrilled to host you all. We had around 30 folks attend in person and several hundred online, and we saw new friends and old. For those who were unable to attend, or for those who just want to relive the magic, the Linux Foundation recorded the sessions for us and will be posting them on their OSSNA platform. We will also be sharing a summary of some of the takeaways from the conference, so stay tuned for that. Thanks again for making the event awesome, everyone!
CHAOSScon Africa Registration and CfP Open!
We are absolutely thrilled to be hosting our first CHAOSScon Africa! This one-day event is happening in Lagos, Nigeria on June 14, 2023 from 11:00am – 3:00 pm WAT. Tickets cost N2000 and you can learn more about the event and register here: https://chaoss.community/chaosscon-2023-africa/
The CHAOSSAfrica Community is also looking for speakers for this event! The CfP is open to CHAOSS Africa community members and it closes on May 12 (that’s today!). You can submit your talk proposal here.
Our CHAOTIC of the Week is Kingsley Mkpandiok
This week we are highlighting Kingsley Mkpandiok, who has done amazing work for CHAOSS!
A little about Kingsley:
Kingsley is a freelance User Experience and Brand Identity Designer who is deeply committed to the advancement of open-source design. With extensive experience in both B2B and B2C product design, he has a remarkable ability to understand user needs and behaviors. In addition to his freelance work, Kingsley serves as the design maintainer at CHAOSS Africa, where he has made significant contributions to improving the rate of designer contributions to the project. He is also a dynamic contributor to the Open Source Community Africa Festival.
Kingsley is driven by his passion for inclusivity and is devoted to making the open-source design space more accessible, diverse, and collaborative for any designer who wishes to contribute.
What Kingsley’s currently working on at CHAOSS:
I’m thrilled to share that I joined CHAOSS about 9 months ago, and it was my first dive into open source. I quickly fell in love with the community!
Today, I have the pleasure of being the design maintainer at CHAOSS Africa and an active contributor to CHAOSS Global. My work includes creating and maintaining design guidelines to ensure the project’s visual identity, reviewing and approving contributions to ensure they align with our design guidelines and project vision, managing design-related issues and bugs, collaborating with developers to ensure consistency across platforms and devices, keeping our design assets organized and up-to-date for all contributors, evangelizing our projects and design philosophy through events, blogging and networking, etc, and most importantly, ensuring the design working group is accessible, diverse, and collaborative for all designers who wish to contribute. (Also worthy of note that under my leadership the CHAOSS Africa design working group became the most active working group 😀).
I’m truly passionate about the work we’re doing here and excited to continue growing with this amazing community.
Kingsley’s advice to newcomers to open source:
- Start small: Start with small tasks or issues that can help you build confidence and get familiar with the project’s codebase, design guidelines, or any other tasks related to your area of contribution.
- Ask questions: Don’t be shy! The open source community is full of helpful people who are eager to assist and guide you along your journey.
- Read documentation: Take the time to read the project’s documentation. This will help you understand the project’s objectives, structure, design, and coding conventions.
- Communicate effectively: Clearly communicate your intentions and progress with the project maintainer or fellow contributors to avoid confusion or duplicating someone else’s work.
- Be patient: I wasn’t able to make any contributions until after my first 2 months of joining the community. Learning open source can take time, so don’t worry if you don’t grasp everything right away.
- Open-mindedness: Don’t underestimate the opportunities for adding value to the community, even when you don’t see any specific task assigned. In my 9 months of experience, I’ve found that there are always ways to improve the project if you keep an open mind. So, stay curious and explore the possibilities!
Special thanks from Elizabeth and the CHAOSS Community:
It is no exaggeration to say that Kingsley has been responsible for skyrocketing the design team at CHAOSS into the stratosphere! Before Kingsley came along, there was no coordinated design effort, no coherent design team, no design strategy, and we were in need of many design assets to use in our website and social campaigns. Kingsley jumped in and is now leading our design team on several important projects. Besides running the design team, Kingsley is also a regular at several other CHAOSS meetings and has contributed to the CHAOSS blog, and it’s wonderful to have him around. We are so incredibly grateful for all his contributions and the time and energy he’s spent over the last 9 months getting to know the community and helping others find their way. Thank you from all of us, Kingsley! ❤️
If anyone wants to keep up or connect with Kingsley, you can find him on Twitter (@iamkingsleey), Linked In (iamkingsleey), or on his website (kingsley.vzy.io).
Upcoming Meetings
All calls use our CHAOSS Community Zoom link (https://zoom.us/my/chaoss). All meetings listed here are in US Central / Chicago Time Zone, currently on Daylight Savings Time (UTC -5). You can convert to your local time here. You can also subscribe to the CHAOSS Calendar or watch for meeting reminders that are posted daily in the #general channel in Slack.
Monday, May 15
7:00 am Getting Started with Augur (no agenda)
Tuesday, May 16
9:00 am Office Hours for Newcomers (no agenda)
11:00 am CHAOSS Community Meeting (Minutes and Agenda)
Wednesday, May 17
8:30 am Community Knowledgebase Audit Team (ad hoc, temporary meetings)
10:00 am Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Working Group (Minutes and Agenda)
11:00 am 🥳 University OSPO Working Group 🥳 (Agenda coming soon)
Thursday, May 18
9:00 am CHAOSS Africa Community Meeting (Minutes and Agenda)
11:00 am OSPO Working Group (Minutes and Agenda)
12:00 pm 🥳 OSS Scientific Software Working Group 🥳 (Agenda coming soon)
