Episode 146: Anjana Vakil on the Recurse Center, Outreachy, and Learning to Code

Guest Anjana Vakil Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman Show
Notes On today’s episode, Richard and Justin have joining them as
their guest, Anjana Vakil, who’s a Freelance Developer, Software
Engineer, and Developer Advocate doing some amazing stuff in the
world. Anjana takes us through her journey into tech that started
out at the Recurse Center, which led her to Outreachy, the
internship she did as a Software Engineer at Mozilla, which was
pivotal in shaping her career, and how diversity scholarships she
received helped her as well. She explains why sharing what she
learned as an educator is so important to people who are trying to
learn new skills, and we hear some of the great benefits of why
people should sponsor an Outreachy project. Download this episode
to learn more! [00:02:37] Anjana fills us in on the Recurse Center
and Outreachy. [00:06:11] We learn what Anjana studied at the
Recurse Center when she was there. [00:09:25] We hear if licensing
ever came up for Anjana as something she was interested in along
her journey, and how she interfaced with open source code as she
started learning about all these things you could do with computer
languages. [00:14:02] Richard wonders if Anjana thinks support is
necessary in order to get involved in open source and keep the fire
alive of learning, and she tells us how she feels about equity in
open source, getting people into it, and how to make it happen.
[00:21:12] Anjana shares tips for people who are in open source
projects that want to help out and why it’s so important to help
people. [00:27:00] We learn how having the internship with Mozilla
was so pivotal in shaping Anjana’s career. [00:31:42] Anjana shares
how working at Mozilla was a formative time in her tech career and
how sharing what she learned with other people was such a great
accountability moment. She also talks about the benefits of
sponsoring an Outreachy project. [00:40:45] Find out where you can
follow Anjana online. Quotes [00:17:31] “Programs like Outreachy
and Recurse Center show a way to level the playing field and make
it more accessible for those who have constraints on their time or
finances.” [00:19:00] “Another great source of help, that I got
along the way, was diversity scholarships to attend conferences in
the tech space.” [00:34:55] “It really takes so many different hats
to successfully run a sustainable, large open source project.”
[00:39:12] “Coding is a human interaction.” Spotlight [00:42:10]
Justin’s spotlight is Warp. [00:42:46] Richard’s spotlight is Irvin
Hwang. [00:43:19] Anjana’s spotlight is Outreachy. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) Richard
Littauer Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Justin Dorfman Twitter (https://twitter.com/jdorfman?lang=en)
Anjana Vakil Twitter
(https://twitter.com/AnjanaVakil?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Anjana Vakil GitHub (https://github.com/vakila) Anjana Vakil
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anjana+vakil)
Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/) Outreachy
(https://www.outreachy.org/) Bang bang con
(https://bangbangcon.com/) Sustain Podcast-Episode 78: Stormy
Peters: Sustaining FLOSS at Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office
(“Mentions Outreachy”) (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/78) Sustain
Podcast-Episode 72: Eriol Fox on Open Source Design and Sustain
(“Mentions Outreachy”) (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/72) Warp
(https://www.warp.dev/) Irvin Hwang (https://irvin.quest/) Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by
Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest: Anjana Vakil.