Gene Liverman: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the volunteer technologist podcast.
Here, we take a look at the different ways that people who are technically inclined volunteer outside of their primary job.
Today, I'm joined by Anita Ihuman.
How are you doing
Anita Ihuman: today? Fine. Thank you, Gene. Hello.
Gene Liverman: It's nice to meet you.
Would you here.
Would you, take a moment and introduce yourself to our listeners?
Anita Ihuman: Oh, yeah. Sure. So hello, everyone.
I am Anita Ihuman.
I am a developer advocate
at, a company called Metal Gear.
And,
on the side, I am also,
doing a lot of things in open source from
community management
to building programs,
to contributing to research efforts,
and, so many other awesome stuff that I would love to share here today. That sounds pretty interesting.
Gene Liverman: So let's maybe start with the first one you mentioned with some of the open source community work that you're doing. What are you doing in that regards?
Anita Ihuman: Yes. So,
I am con currently
on the CHAOSS,
board of directors,
and,
I got there as a result of my contributions to
the CHAOSS community
and, in
leading efforts around
onboarding,
documentation,
helping other persons get involved,
and, so many other areas like that. I also contribute to another open source community
called Layer
5 as a community manager,
where I also get people,
settled in with the project
and also navigate their way around
the cloud native community.
And, Keith, that's just about the community aspects of it.
Gene Liverman: So you mentioned the chaoss board of directors. Can you tell me what chaoss is? I'm not familiar with that.
Anita Ihuman: It's a community
that is focused on,
developing
metrics
and,
analytics
around open source
community health. Right? So the abbreviation itself stands for, Community
Health
Analytics in Open Source Software,
and that's, like, the long form for chaoss. It's a project under the Linux Foundation,
And so it has a bunch of other branches
within the project, but its core
purpose is developing
metrics
metrics models and,
softwares
that also
supports,
open source community health and standards.
Gene Liverman: So the chaoss project sounds like a pretty cool one.
What kind of things are you actually doing with it?
Anita Ihuman: Okay. So,
within the chaoss community,
I am part of the DEI working group
where we develop metrics
around,
diversity,
equity, and inclusion.
And some other things that we do within the working group is,
develop initiatives like the popular
events budget initiatives that a lot of, open source events tend to have received badges for for their DEI efforts for the various events.
We recently launched another
initiative,
the, projects
DEI project
initiative
to also badge
open source projects
for their DEI efforts.
And on the side,
we also
do a bit of research to understand how
open source communities
and,
diversity,
equity, and inclusion come to play.
Gene Liverman: That's, that's very important work. I'm glad to hear that y'all are working on it and putting a real focus on it.
You mentioned getting different badges. What does a project or work community have to do to get one of those badges?
Anita Ihuman: Well, honestly, it just
involve or revolves around
how much,
how intentional the project is about
the inclusivity
and then how much effort is put into
achieving those intentions.
And so we just bring our metrics
to help us,
give the community
organizers or the community
maintainers
um,
a picture so they can reflect on their efforts. Right? So our metrics are more of, like, a mural for them to look into and say, okay. This is how much we have done in terms of
DEI,
looking at these chaoss metrics. This is how much we have done. This is where we're at, and, this is where we can also improve in terms of,
our diversity
and, inclusion within our community. So
that is what the badges
basically,
Gene Liverman: use for or base basically signify. That's pretty cool. You mentioned doing some research with related to that. What kind of research do you do?
Anita Ihuman: Right. So,
sometime last year, we did,
a research to help us understand
the impact of these,
metrics, these DEI metrics
that we have developed because we have, like, over
200
metrics as as of now,
and we weren't quite sure how impactful it was in real time,
especially to the, persons that these metrics were developed for, which are
individuals who identify with underrepresented
groups.
And
as a result, we're not sure how effective our metrics were, and we had to go out to find out with, like, our interview,
interview campaign.
And so that brought about,
the research study, and we're able to come to
a good understanding
on
how we can improve and, how well we are doing with this, study.
Gene Liverman: Very cool. I'm guessing that that's leads into some of the community building stuff that you're talking about doing. What kind of community building and
related things are you working with?
Anita Ihuman: So,
I mentioned earlier
the Layer 5 community.
So I have been part of that community for, like, quite some time,
mostly because my open source,
journey started from there. And
so I,
got involved in as one of those interested in contributing to the project.
But then I also realized that I could also offer help, and so I got into
mentoring other persons,
onboarding
other persons, also,
managing efforts around, making sure that the community,
you know, scales,
also everything
involving,
getting people started when they jump into the community and all of that.
So, mostly, that is what I do within the Layer 5 community.
And then on the side, I am also
managing another DEI working group under the open source,
opens the sustained open source
community.
So, basically, we just started
sometime last year
to,
discuss how
Sustain can get involved in the diversity
and,
inclusion
discussions, how we can drive efforts around that.
And we recently started working on, like, a DEI handbook
that can also serve as a reference for open source leaders
who are willing to, you know, get into this topic of DEI and also implement it within their communities.
It's more like a guide
that people could also use whenever they feel like they want to know or want to find out more about,
diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's pretty cool.
Gene Liverman: What kind of what kind of things are you doing with regards to mentoring?
Anita Ihuman: Alright. So, I think that's more on
so on the side, yeah, on the side, I have I am a technical writer,
and so I do a lot of writing from documentations
to articles
and so much more. And so, in terms of mentoring,
I have worked with some some open source
contributors to get them into contributing to the documentation
aspect of projects,
you know,
how they can contribute, pointing them to areas that can improve on their general writing skills.
And
within Layer 5 community, I was able to get
so many persons engaged by,
developing the
the community handbook,
which today is, like, the primary onboarding tool that a lot of persons are getting involved in. And so we were able to put together the community handbook and, have it
uploaded.
And I think that was part of, like, the mentorship.
Other than that, I serve as
there's this program called a Mesh Mates within the Layer 5 community,
and it's like
a pair,
mentorship program where you're,
paired up with someone to you know, who is more experienced to point you to directions that you're not very familiar with. And so I was one of the Mesh Mates within the Layer 5 community,
helping persons to navigate the project and also get involved with
the, contributing aspects of it.
Gene Liverman: That sounds pretty cool.
Can you enlighten me on in terms of what the Layer 5 project is? Or
Anita Ihuman: Yeah. So, layer 5 is,
a community,
an open source community that develops cloud native solutions.
And,
one of its
popular tool is probably Meshry, a cloud native
management platform
where you can, like,
view a variety of cloud native tools,
look at which one is more competitive for your software, and all of that. So they have offers, like, a bunch of solutions,
basically focused towards cloud native
technologies and all of that. And so that's what they do.
Gene Liverman: Gotcha.
So what got you into doing all this different
volunteer work around the organizing and all of the other stuff?
Anita Ihuman: Well,
at first,
like, every person who is trying to upscale,
it was the need to get hands on
experience both from real time projects. Right?
And, along the way, it became more of
making impact and making a difference
in these various communities.
Like, in Layer 5, I got
hung or hung on the idea that
I can also get into the cloud native ecosystem.
So that helped me in one way or another,
increase my knowledge on topics around DevOps,
cloud computing,
and,
also
gave me the drive to want to learn more by taking certifications
and all that
and which today I write mostly about as a technical writer.
And for the CHAOSS community, it was more on making a difference
because,
while contributing to these various communities, right, I could see areas that so many persons were,
you know, disadvantaged
as a result of, you know, certain,
biases
or certain
inequalities
and difference as a result of their differences generally.
And, when I came across the CHAOSS community to, you know, help community health at large, I just knew that it was going to be the right place for me to
put this knowledge that I have gained from other people's experiences
and make sure less people experience this.
And I think CHAOSS is doing an awesome job with that with
their metrics.
And I decided to take some of the knowledge that I have from working with the CHAOSS community
to the Sustain OSS where I'm currently working with a DEI
working group and all.
Gene Liverman: That's really cool. How receptive have you found the different open source projects being to finding out that there are ways that they could improve or that someone is coming in and recommending some improvements
to their
the way they interact with their community?
Anita Ihuman: From a personal experience,
I think
communities
have been open to, you know, accept feedback.
Have been open to change,
mostly because these communities have already realized that there are existing problems that they need help with. And so,
most of the ideas that I have brought up within these communities
are, like, ideas that fix some of these existing challenges.
And so I think they have been so receptive towards these topics that or suggestions that I bring up from my experience.
Gene Liverman: That's really good.
I know that's not always the case.
I've not personally experienced, but I've, you know, read various tech articles about communities that were not very open to change or not open to the feedback. And, of course, those communities, generally speaking, end up not
surviving the long term. The people who are doing the work usually end up just going somewhere else. So
Anita Ihuman: Well,
yeah, those communities
exist, but something that I got to learn as, during the course of that research study with CHAOSS is,
most of these communities that are not very receptive to change
often
larger,
communities
that have
have been built a long time ago.
And these, topics of DEI were not as at the time.
But then they survived through that period,
and so it's more difficult for them to, you know, open up to the change
and to topics like this because,
there's always this, notion that if I existed through this phase without this, what makes you think I can't make it to the next phase
with, with all these as well. Right? And so, like, from the what I gained through that research is,
newer open source communities are a lot more receptive to topics
like this,
new,
opinions,
a lot more than the
older and larger open source communities.
Gene Liverman: With the older communities,
have you you and the group started finding ways to show them the value and why they should care about it? Is that where some of the metrics come in?
Anita Ihuman: Yes.
Very correct. That's where some of the metrics come in
and also discussing more on
ways that research could come into play
to showcase
how
how DEI in general
can impact open source communities.
I feel like, there are a lot of research studies that showcase
disparities that exist within communities,
inequalities
that exist,
but the
very few of these, research studies capture,
how much growth comes from open source communities that have accepted
some of these topics. Right?
And, I think,
research is a way that could also be used to
showcase. A lot of persons rely on facts. They want to see, okay, where is the evidence?
Gene Liverman: Oh, absolutely.
Anita Ihuman: Right. So how much growth was there, and, how were they before this topic was introduced? So, like, having that fact readily available
could help a lot of persons, you know, change their notion on these,
you know, ideologies generally.
Gene Liverman: That kinda makes sense, especially in an open source community. A lot of times, it's very data driven,
be it
the data from the poor request or issues that are opened or
the data from the track record of how things have been going. And with no data, it's just one person's opinion, you know, until proven otherwise a lot of times. So that makes a lot of sense. Right.
So I have one other question for you. I noticed from
our conversations before the recording that you're located in Nigeria.
And
so many of the projects, at least the ones I'm aware of,
kinda seem to be focused around either the United States or somewhere in Europe.
How have you found that working with projects that are both
geographically in a very different spot and frequently in a very different time zone
than where you are both from a
just dealing with the time differences and from
different cultures because so many of times these projects also reflect the cultures of where they're kinda founded out of.
Anita Ihuman: Right.
That that's an interesting question.
And to be honest, at first, I I found this challenging.
Like, the first
one year to 2 year, I was still trying to figure out the time differences,
how to communicate so it doesn't come off as offensive
because,
there's certain
ways you would communicate to someone
from
Nigeria that
a lot other persons will see as, oh, that is offensive.
I didn't realize that, but getting into the open source community, I was like, oh, so this is a problem. I have to adjust to it. And then the time differences, sometimes you feel like, oh, this time is convenient
Gene Liverman: for a call, and then you check the time, and it's, like, 2 AM my hour. And Yeah. That that does make for a little bit of an awkward conversation at 2 in the morning. Right.
Anita Ihuman: And then I have to okay. Should I stay up till 2 AM, or I should just, you know, let it go and catch up? But
I figured that having to bring up these differences
made the concept of open source
more open source. Because
introducing that, okay, these things are different from my own point of view or from where I'm from.
May some of these open source communities
adjust to,
you know,
contributors from this part of the world as well. Like, for Chaos community,
we had to create
a group called the CHAOSS Africa
specific,
to, you know, support more persons that are coming from the African ecosystem.
So we have CHAOSS
Africa, persons from Angola,
persons from,
Rwanda,
Kenya, so many other African countries, and not just Nigeria.
And so it's a lot easier for us to relate amongst ourselves and, you know, make contributions because we can relate to it.
And then we take some of these contributions to the general community
when the the meeting times, you know, align with ours and everything like that.
And for other communities, you just have to learn to, you know, communicate your differences,
and so the community is able to,
also adjust to it. And I've seen that for some of these communities like layer 5,
I witnessed that there was a lot of improvement to the code of conduct
to, you know, adjust to make other persons more comfortable,
to make, more other purse other persons also more, you know, feel more welcomed
and supported within the community. Because sometimes
you jump on an issue and then the
doesn't reply to, like, after
12 hours. And you feel like, oh, maybe they they not reply because I, from this part of the world, and they don't support me or they don't accept me. But that's not the case. Right? It's just a time difference. You probably didn't know that. And so having to, like, adjust the code of conduct and also get maintenance from different parts of the world
made it easy for us to, you know, collaborate
and also, like,
for me to also bring in more persons that are willing to contribute to these communities
from my own part of
getting into the community. Yeah. I really like
Gene Liverman: the ideas you were talking about there because
what kind of went through my head is it's making open source open
to everyone, not just to
the little area that it started out in, and that's a that's a very good thing. The diversity through a project
makes for a much better outcome in general.
Anita Ihuman: Right.
Gene Liverman: Cool.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I really appreciate it.
Anita Ihuman: Thank you so much for having me, Jean. This was an interesting conversation. I agree, but an enlightening one also.
Right.
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