Women Who Code Delhi Mentorship 3.0 -Week 1

“ Regardless of our title or years of experience, we can learn from each other. Through mentoring and by being open to learn we can reach our ultimate potential.” –Lily Benjamin

Recently, I came across a post from Women Who Code Delhi. Women Who Code is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers. They were inviting applications for their Mentorship Program 3.0. Through their LinkedIn page, I learned about great mentors who have done great work in their respective fields. I applied to the program and fortunately, my application was accepted. I was delighted and really excited about the coming weeks.

We were divided into a group of 3 mentees and were assigned a mentor. My mentor was Saumya Singh, who is working as a Software Engineering Intern at Red Hat. She has been the winner & runner-up of 5+ hackathons including Smart India Hackathon 2019 and Delhi Police Hackathon. She has also mentored several hackathons and has been an active open-source contributor. Honestly, it is hard to list all her achievements in 2–3 lines ;)

So we had our first mentor call and it went great. I got to interact with my fellow mentees and learned a lot from our mentor. She was very friendly. She told us about her journey of how she got into Android Development and went on to achieve so much more. She also told us about various opportunities that helped in her journey.

Some of them were:

1. GirlScript Summer of Code: GirlScript Summer of Code is a 3 month long Open Source program during summers conducted by GirlScript Foundation, to help beginners get started with Open Source Development. Throughout the program, participants contribute to different projects under the guidance of experienced mentors.
2. The GHC Scholars Program: They provide funding for women who are undergraduate, graduate, or faculty members to attend their celebration and participate in professional and academic seminars, networking opportunities.
3. Redhat Women in Open Source: It is an award program through which Red Hat celebrates women working in open source.

She also told us about Connect With Google Challenge and Google Code-In. For our task, she asked us to learn more about these opportunities and apply for them. She also agreed to help us with our application. She asked us to apply to GirlScript Summer of Code since they were inviting applications now. She also discussed the importance of open source and collaboration.

This ends Week 1 of this mentorship program. It was a great one, for sure. I am thankful for this opportunity by Women Who Code Delhi and our mentor, Saumya, for being so helpful and understanding. It is an excellent opportunity to learn, collaborate, and network. Looking forward to the coming week!