Speaker
Description
Open source communities are very good at helping people make their first contribution, but many struggle with what happens after onboarding. New contributors often join with excitement, complete an initial task, and then lose direction because the next steps are unclear.
This talk explores how communities can design clearer contributor pathways—from first contribution to long-term growth.
Using practical experience from community work in the Fedora Project and mentorship programs like Outreachy, I will discuss real onboarding gaps and how communities can fix them with simple structural improvements.
We will cover:
- How contributors typically discover open source projects
- Common drop-off points after onboarding
- How mentorship and documentation influence retention
- Practical models for helping contributors grow into maintainers and community leaders
This session focuses especially on emerging open-source ecosystems in Kenya and similar regions, where interest in open source is rapidly growing but contributor pathways are still evolving.
Attendees will leave with actionable ideas for:
- Structuring beginner-friendly contribution workflows
- Building contributor growth ladders
- Creating sustainable community support systems
The goal is simple:
Communities should not only make it easy to join—but also easy to stay and grow.
Justification
This talk directly supports UbuCon Kenya’s goal of growing the local open-source ecosystem by focusing on contributor retention and community sustainability. Many new contributors attend events like UbuCon but lack clear next steps afterward.
By sharing practical models from real community experience, this session will help:
- Community organizers design better onboarding systems
- Maintainers support new contributors more effectively
- New contributors understand how to grow long-term in open source
The content is actionable and relevant across Linux, documentation, cloud, and community tracks.
| Where are you based? | Nairobi |
|---|---|
| Technical level | intermediate |
| Submission type | Talk |