Nevertheless, Sewvandi Coded in 2022🎙

#wecoded #podcast

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.🎙

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.

DEV Community