Originally published at: Fedora Week of Diversity 2024: With Nikita Tripathi – Fedora Community Blog
Article co-authored by Chris Idoko and Jona Azizaj
Today marks Day 3 of Fedora Week of Diversity (FWD) 2024! This exciting week-long celebration is dedicated to honoring the diverse voices, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives that enrich our vibrant Fedora community. Throughout Fedora Week of Diversity 2024, the DEI Team will be showcasing the incredible stories and journeys of our members through engaging interviews and captivating social media spotlights. Join us in celebrating the unique contributions and talents that make Fedora Week of Diversity 2024 a truly special event!
Contributor Stories
Today’s Contributor Story comes from: Nikita Tripathi
What’s your Fedora story? Take us back to your beginnings with Fedora!
Hi, I’m Nikita, and I’m about to graduate with a BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee. My journey with Fedora and open source began almost simultaneously. It was during the summer of 2022 when I applied for Outreachy, and I got selected for the Fedora Badges Design Project to join as a graphic design intern. I got to know more and more people in open source during my internship. My main point of contact was Marie Nordin, who was managing me along with Smera Goel. They helped me understand more about the Fedora community, how it works, and how it has changed through the years. Marie was a great mentor, and she built an image of Fedora in my head that was compelling. Flock 2023 was the first in-person Fedora event I attended, and through it, I got to know even more people involved in open source.
Fedora’s appeal and your contribution style: Tell us both!
I mainly contribute to the graphic design issues of Fedora, like Badges or any other requests, but it was mainly Badges where my graphic design journey started. What stood out in Fedora to me was the inclusiveness of the community. I’ve not seen any other organization that puts in the effort to get people involved as much as Fedora does. I really like that Fedora takes initiative and helps people get to know each other, even if they do not belong to the same team, which helps in cross-collaboration, concurrent engineering, developing a sense of ownership, and increasing community inclusivity.
What initially drove me to Fedora was design because I needed experience, both to learn more about design and how to work in an organization. However, what made me stay was mainly how the teams were, how well they behaved with me, and how we interacted. In a nutshell, I came for the design but stayed for the people.
Fedora day-to-day: A walk-through of your Fedora involvement
I normally go to GitLab for my Fedora contributions. I check the issues and focus on the ones that require graphic design. So, I go through GitLab, search for something I find interesting, and if I have the time to work on it the same day, I bring it to my local system and start working on it.
However, lately, I haven’t been very involved because of my final year exams and projects. But when I do find time, I contribute to the Fedora Design issues on GitLab. Oh yes, I also helped as a general mentor for Outreachy. This year, we had a lot more contributors compared to previous years, and I have some things I want to share regarding the same, so I put them up in my proposal for this year’s Flock.
Image by Emma Kidney. CC BY-SA 4.0.