Nevertheless, Sewvandi Coded in 2022🎙

I had an incredible chance to conduct a podcast together with Arshad Zakeriya, a DevOps Consultant and AWS Community Builder.

This was my first podcast, and I talked about Women Who Code.🎙

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3paKiFB
Anchor: https://bit.ly/2Z2v4qU
Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3aM1E3d
Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/3AQcOi0

Here's a quick rundown of what was discussed in the episode. ☕️

How my life turn into the field of technology.

How did this thing begin?

• What limitations do girls face when it comes to choosing a career in technology
• Why does society believe that boys are more skilled of technical tasks than girls?
• What sort of knowledge level did I have when I choose software engineering bachelors?
  • My first ambition is not to become a software engineer. [ It was to be a doctor 🙂 ]
  • Basically, I'm just familiar with O/L Information Technology.
  • Because of the chaos that occurred in 2017 against private medical schools, I felt compelled to choose SE.
• I had a lot of competition with my batch-mates because of the knowledge gap that we had.
• University syllabus content is not enough.
• I chose open source volunteering to expand my knowledge, satisfy my curiosity, and get involved in the development side of things.

How did open source volunteering become my favourite hobby?

• My very first event participation was in 2018(In my first year) and it was about google crowdsource organised by SLIIT FOSS.
• I never imagined I'd be on the board of SLIIT FOSS that day.
• From year 2 onwards, I became a volunteer in my university's open-source communities.
• And stepped into the local communities of Sri Lanka.
• I have to admit that the first impression that I got from was the best impression I had.
• I had some days where I had to lie to my parents in order to volunteer for an overnight hackathon.
• Many days I didn't even have my parents' permission to join my volunteer events or any other extra activities / competitions. It was so heartbreaking to say that they were just concentrating on my semester grades. Usually, they don't pay much heed to my other achievements.
• Volunteering helps me to improve my public speaking skills.
• Volunteering makes it possible me to expand my knowledge of development.
• Volunteering has given me the confidence to say yes to any challenge.
• Volunteering made me to meet people in my industry who were a good fit for me.
• Keeping up with the tech communities are more enjoyable than I thought.
• My volunteering experiences are really paid off. It led me to multiple opportunities that I could never imagine.


I continue to code because…

• It has a combination of all the things I like imagination, critical thinking, technology, social interaction, learning, and regular challenges.
• I enjoy helping other girls and guiding them that there is no reason to be afraid of coding.
• Being a girl doesn't mean that they can't get jobs from IT industry.
• I can stay up to date on new technologies and compete in coding competitions.

I want to brag about...

• When I decided to switch jobs, I had to do my best to make an extra effort on the coding challenge and the interview.
• I initiated first female open source community (SLIIT Women In FOSS) at my university because I wanted to see an improvement in female contributions to development.
• It wasn't a straightforward road to find the courage to complete all the projects because the content was getting more and more challenging.