Open Source on Jessica Tegner

PyLadies in Open Source - PyLadiesCon 2024

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I joined a panel at PyLadiesCon 2024 about PyLadies in open source, together with Melissa Weber Mendonça, Yaa Nuamah Kusi-Fordjour and Natalia, hosted by Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe.

If I sound extra strange in this panel, it’s because I was kinda sick when this was streamed, but I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.

Hidden Figures of Python | Episode 4

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We interviewed Jessica Tegner from Denmark to hear about her journey in technology, from modding Minecraft servers to becoming an open source maintainer.

Playing video games like Minecraft led her to learn programming and to solve problems with coding and technology. She lost the rest of her vision in 2018, but it does not stop her from continuing to tinker with tools and technology. In fact, it motivates her into creating and improving tools to be more accessible to the users.

Jessica is the maintainer of the popular Pypandoc library, which is a Python wrapper for the Pandoc library. She was selected to be a part of the first cohort of the GitHub Accelerator program.

Jessica has spoken at several conferences but aspires to do more, and especially at Python conferences. She wishes that events and conferences would have more accessibility information openly available. Be sure to listen to the episode to learn all about Jessica’s inspiring story!

Beyond the Trend Authentic Approaches to Fostering Diversity in Open Source

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Open source is only possibly through open collaboration, and collaboration is only successful through open-mindedness to new and different perspectives.

Wait haven’t I done this before?
The answer is yes. And that’s because I got to give this talk again, all be it in a shorter version, at the Open Source Summi North America 2024.

How to Lead Open Source Projects and Teams with Better Feedback

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

How do you help your contributors and co-maintainers get better? How do you decline someone without breaking their spirits? How do you make sure that contributors flourish and learn, while still pointing out areas of improvement in a constructive and non-destructive or disheartening way?

Being an open-source maintainer means, you are also a leader, and leaders ask these same questions every day when leading teams. However, providing feedback isn’t as simple as it seems. In this talk, you’ll learn the differences between positive and negative feedback, and what effect it has on the receiver. You’ll also learn various methods to rethink and reframe how to deliver feedback, along with concrete steps to implement them right away. This will be coupled with personal anecdotes and stories from Jessica’s professional life as an open source developer and personal life and advocacy work as a blind woman in tech.

Beyond the Trend Authentic Approaches to Fostering Diversity in Open Source

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Open source is only possibly through open collaboration, and collaboration is only successful through open-mindedness to new and different perspectives. Yet, there are still many challenges when it comes to diversity in open source. How do we intentionally diversify while still being genuine? What can we do to make it feel authentic

and not just like we are filling quotas? Join this talk to learn how to avoid common pitfalls of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) efforts with concrete examples that can be implemented right away, and get a new perspective in diversifying open source, as Jessica shares her journey as a blind woman in tech.

We will dive into how we make our project, team, or workplace more diverse by following a story from someone in multiple minority groups, shedding light on some of the right reasons to diversify with concrete examples that can be efficiently implemented right away.