Breaking Barriers: Triumphs of Cultural Diversity in Global OSS Communities – Rajas Kakodkar & Nikhita Raghunath, VMware
This session explores the remarkable journey of Indian contributors within the global open source community, where they have experienced a six fold growth in projects like Kubernetes. From understanding the catalysts behind this surge to extracting valuable insights, the talk delves into the strategies and initiatives that have propelled India into a key player in the OSS landscape. The discussion will dissect the following collaborative efforts, community building initiatives and hardships related to language, cultures, timezone, accessibility. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the socio-technical factors fostering this exponential growth. – How to build a regional mentorship culture – How to equip contributors with leadership skills – Effective strategies for async communication addressing timezone and language constraints – How democratizing access to OSS conferences and events helps in representation and outreach – Promoting OSS within enterprises given regional nuances Additionally, we will highlight the role played by OSS Foundations such as LF and CNCF to sponsor and support contributors, address their evolving needs and have a truly global reach.
