To give everyone a context, the interns here at Outreachy, write an update blog every two weeks. This little activity keeps the wheel moving smoothly, and documents the different experiences of different interns so they all accumulate as a very good resource for the future aspiring participants. When I was applying for Outreachy, these blogs are the first things that I went through. And lo and behold, here I am writing the very first of my intern blogs tonight!! In this post, I will primarily be talking about who I am, what drives me, and how I got here!

First thing's first...

I am Nazia, from the breezy coastal city, Chittagong in the South-Asian country Bangladesh. In the 24th iteration of the Outreachy cohort, I got picked as 1 of the 66 interns to contribute to some of the proposed OSS projects. For the next approximately 13 weeks, I will be interning for the mighty Wikimedia Foundation. Mentored by the duo of research scientists Martin Gerlach (based in Berlin, Germany) and Isaac Johnson (based in NYC, USA) we will be working on developing a Python library that can rapidly read HTML-code from Wikimedia Enterprise dumps and extract key aspects like text, links, and templates. This will remove the technical impediments to working with HTML-dumps, allowing scholars and others to benefit from this valuable resource.

Prior to this internship, after graduating in the late half of last year, I worked as a Junior Machine Learning Engineer at a local RnD firm (Giga Tech Ltd.). We were working to build a Natural Language Processing (NLP) ecosystem for the Bangla language, which suffers from a severe scarcity of quality data and other relevant tools. This particular obstacle has been very familiar to me since my undergraduate thesis days when I was also working on Bangla newspaper data and experienced firsthand, the issue with Bangla resources. Thus this particular Wikimedia project piqued my interest very much and I ended up applying only for this one project (Not Recommended!).

A little about the process!

Stage 1

I came to know about Outreachy a couple of years back through a senior of mine. Back then, I didn't feel ready for it. I didn't feel ready while I was applying this year either. But I was in a personal predicament where I had to leave my job and move back home, so I can take care of my mother. Out of desperation, I completed the INITIAL APPLICATION (and realized that I have a lot of anger about how I was oppressed by my peers and the overall system for years. Sounds a bit cliche, until I actually started writing the events down in the application.). I tried to avoid all the flamboyance in the application and was honest about the overall situation. That helped I believe because I got through the first phase.

Stage 2

The second phase was the CONTRIBUTION STAGE. The project list for the cohort was made public by Outreachy and after several days of jumping through the organizations' websites, their project descriptions, skills requirements, mentor information, etc and I found Wikimedia to be nicely aligned with my aspirations. The contribution phase was the most interesting stage for me because it gave the participants particular tasks to complete and I love doing tasks, I guess? xD It was also the most difficult part for me because Ramadan was going on, and I had a full-time job then as well. So, every day I will fast, go to the office, return absolutely exhausted in the evening, then have breakfast and sleep until 10 pm. Then I took some coffee, worked on the tasks until it was time for [Suhoor] (around 3.30 am), and woke up at 8 am absolutely exhausted to join the office.

This went on for weeks but I couldn't stop working on the tasks, because they truly excited me. I spent hours just looking at the data samples and visualizing their structures. There were several asymmetries in these dumps and I had to really rake through my brain to handle such edge cases. I completed my first iteration of the task in 2 weeks and sent them for mentor feedback. Then I added further elements to it based on their suggestions. Overall, I felt that I was actually learning to use my brain and think about a problem without getting frustrated and hopeless about it. Another nice aspect of it is the open collaboration between the participants and the mentors. Everyone was very concise about their blockers and somebody else always chimed in to demystify the issues in a few minutes. It was really fantastic to be in such interactive participation during the whole phase.

Stage 3

After at least 1 contribution is submitted, the participants have to submit a FINAL APPLICATION. This consisted of several questions about previous Open source experiences, plans regarding the project, and other relevant topics. This is one of the most important parts of the whole process and as usual, I felt that being honest about everything is the best plan.

And then?

And then after the deadline, you have to wait several long weeks in anticipation waiting for the results. When I got the mail, I was pretty numb in excitement. All the things I have to do following this email rushed to my head. I had to wrap up my office work, empty my current housing, sell unused furniture, move back home with all my belongings, and spend time with my partner who I won't be seeing for a long time, while also completing all the tax-related paperwork within a single week. Even right now, I am stupified by how I actually managed to do all these within the time range. A lot of the gratitude goes to my colleagues, peers, seniors, and my partner who always cut me slack and pulled my weights more than often! So yeah, here I am Wikimedia!!

To be fair ...

I honestly did not expect to make it this far, with my subpar skills and vague ideas about things. I remember how half-heartedly I had submitted the initial application fearing I will never live up to the expectations. But Boy AM I excited to take on this challenge!! After the first meeting, I absolutely love how my mentors are so experienced, yet open about the different aspects of the project. They are trying to accommodate my comforts, future plans, and interest in the project timeline too! I can't wait to see what we make for the community!