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Jacqueline Binya
Jacqueline Binya

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My first ever Hacktoberfest Event experience

Its been a day of since we held our Hacktoberfest in Bulawayo event, the first one of its kind in my city Bulawayo in Zimbabwe and I was the the event's orgarniser.

My intentions in organizing the event although I myself am a total newbie to open source were: I am currently on a drive to improve my soft skills. I am especially focused on public speaking and technical writing.

One thing in my short techie life I've learnt is that you always have to be constantly learning and evolving. You must set challenges for yourself which might seem impossible to achieve and just take the plunge.
All you have to do is be humble enough to ask questions, collaborate and implement feedback basically just get things done. No matter how huge a task might seem to be, nothing is impossible to achieve.

That's been my story over and over again in my coding journey. On paper Im a woman, a mother and in my 30s. But I still got my first professional gig as a junior software developer, in 8 months with no background in programming.

So I went out and got things done and sought the assistance of anyone whom I thought could help. And in the end we had an epic team. The Tech Village was kind in enough to host the event, and we had brilliant speakers onboard: Alistair Holmes, Micheal Dera and Jeff Chiveya and the local techie community came in numbers to participate.

The speakers came up with the most brilliant and informative presentations, throughout out the whole event I was totally captivated kept at the edge of my seat. And am proud to say I'm now an open source convert!

Although I played a small part in yesterday's event. I did a basic intro to the event. I overcame my fear of speaking publicly. Despite sweaty palms and heart palpitations I did it!I overcame my anxieties. For me just that is a feat on its own. I know surely as I continue to volunteer to speak more I will improve.

Thank you for reading my story.
Now let me get back to working on my PRs;)

Top comments (3)

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pachicodes profile image
Pachi πŸ₯‘

That is awesome! Great job with the public speaking, I hope one day to be brave enough!

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Ebrahim Batran

Congrats on your first time of public speaking. Proud of you!

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jacqueline profile image
Jacqueline Binya

Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that.