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Sarthak Sharma for XenoX

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Launching OVULI - A Shoutout to All Women in Tech!

I am privileged to be working with some exceptionally inspiring, ambitious, and hardworking women. That said, women in tech is a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately. We've come far, but we're still not where we need to be, and we have nowhere near the level of representation needed for women from all walks of life to thrive in this industry.

Let's change that.

Numerous studies have been conducted on how diverse teams are more creative, experimental, good at managing deadlines, and generally more productive. Creativity comes more easily where there is heterogeneity, because different people are likely to see something from different perspectives.

So today, I'd like to introduce a tool we've built, which is my contribution to the wider movement for women in tech.

What is Ovuli?

Ovuli is a simple ovulation cycle calculator that you can access from your terminal. It's a simple command line utility that allows you to see when you may be ovulating. As menstrual periods differ from woman to woman and even month to month, this tool can help you find your most fertile days.

Ovuli terminal gif

Check out Ovuli here. It's super easy to use. Just install it using:

npm i -g ovuli

Then you can dp the following things:

  1. Calculate your ovulation cycle on the go with the command:
    ovuli

  2. Calculate and save your data for later using this command:
    ovuli save

  3. Check your saved data and do further calculations based on it using this command:
    ovuli check

Please note that this ovulation calculator isn't 100% accurate. No such calculator is, because they're based on averages. But they can give you a comfortable range of fertile days, and there are signs of fertility you can use to predict your most fertile days more accurately.

Learn how to use an Ovulation Calculator here!

Why is Ovuli?

Why is Gamora gif

My main motive behind building this tool is to promote women's health, show solidarity with women in tech and encourage them towards more active participation in open-source development.

I am happy that this idea resonated with my fellow team members and they helped me build it. Ovuli is just a small step in the right direction for us, so if there has been any errors or missteps on our part, please be gentle with us and show us how we can improve this. That would be greatly appreciated!

Ovuli is on ProductHunt today!

ProductHunt Button

We just launched Ovuli on ProductHunt as well. If you like it, please show some love and leave your thoughts on ProductHunt. I'd love to hear what you have to say. πŸ™πŸΌ

Calling all women coders to take this forward

Ovuli is completely open source, and I'd like all the women coders who see this to take the development of Ovuli forward. We need more of you in tech and in open-source development! So here's the Ovuli repo:

GitHub logo sarthology / ovuli

Ovulation Calculator and Calendar πŸ‘©πŸ»β€πŸ’»

Note: If you are looking for the Ovuli-cli app then go here

Welcome stars of GSSoC, over the course of few months we will be creating magic here from our hard work.

We are creating an Ovulation Calculator and Calendar mobile app. This app is going to support 20+ official Indian Languages.

If you are as excited as I am, Open up your terminals πŸ‘©πŸ»β€πŸ’»πŸ’ͺ🏽

Prerequisites

Before running this locally you must have these installed

Installation

To run locally

yarn install
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then

expo start
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Note: Don't use npm

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

License

MIT License






If you like Ovuli, do contribute to the project! Fork this repo and make it your own. Heck, you can even make a GUI app using this if you feel like it! If you have any features in mind, you can shoot me a message or tweet on Twitter @sarthology.

Ladies, I really want to hear your suggestions on how to improve this, so please do let me know!

A few women I want to thank

Firstly, I want to thank a few women I know who are an inspiring presence in my life. Thank you Jess for creating this brilliant community and taking care of it so thoughtfully. Thank you Yoren for always being supportive of my efforts and helping me conceptualize Ovuli in the first place. Thank you Zoe for building cool things and writing awesome articles that always spark my creativity!

Secondly, Ovuli was made possible with the help of some of my fellow women coders in Team XenoX πŸ”₯ These women are full of talent, drive, and passion for what they do. I'm really happy to have worked with and mentored these smart ladies, and am constantly moved by their work ethic. So here's a shout out to Shilpa, Latika, and Nishi.

What's next for Team XenoX?

I'd really like more women to be part of Team XenoX as well. We don't want it to be a boys' club, do we now? If you're a woman who is interested in programming and web-development, our doors are open! It doesn't matter how experienced you are; newbies and veterans are welcome alike.

This year, I am committed to mentoring at least 5 women and helping them achieve their true potential in tech. It's high time the tech landscape changes for the better, and I'd like nothing more than to be a catalyst and a contributor to this change, however small.

So this is what I'd like to leave with... If you need any mentorship or are simply looking to contribute more in open-source development, join us at XenoX Multiverse or simply drop me a message on Twitter!

Help us do better! πŸ’―πŸ’™

women solidarity gif

Top comments (9)

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marceliwac profile image
Marceli-Wac

Hi Sarthak! I think it's a great idea to create something free and useful for those women who know their way around a CLI! I'm a male but having studied the topic of cycle tracking recently as part of my PhD course I think it would be great if this could be expanded to track other parameters that change during the ovulation cycle (basal body temp., respiration rate, heart rate and others like cervix position etc.). Of course not everyone will have a chance to measure these, but in the spirit of accuracy and empowering those who will, this might be a step in a right direction! Or at the very least, a chance for someone to contribute to this project and 'spread the word'! Great job Sarthak, keep it up!

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Great idea, You can add a feature request on Github. πŸ™‚

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wrldwzrd89 profile image
Eric Ahnell

Huh, a Git and terminal-based ovulation calculator... I suspect this is a first, as all prior calculators I have encountered are either GUI-driven or not stored in version controlled repositories... in many cases, both. What a wonderful tool!

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Thanks Eric πŸ˜ŠπŸ™πŸ»

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emma profile image
Emma Goto πŸ™

It's great that you're trying to get more women involved in open source!

Coders who are women and who are actively trying to get pregnant is probably a very very small niche though. Maybe your tool could be expanded to period tracking in general, or estimating when your next period is due to start.

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Thanks for you nice words. 😊
Also, We tracking periods and also showing next period estimate currently. Though command for viewing historic data is still not there.

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nessoila profile image
waiting for xmas

Great initiative :)

I'd like to remember that not all people that ovulate are women.

Here you can find some more information about how to be inclusive while talking about period and ovulation:

everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/trans...

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yoren profile image
Yoren Chang

Hey Sarthak - just gave it a try and love its simplicity! It is always really nice to talk to you and learn new stuff from you ;) Also good to know so many great women contribute to this project.

Look forward to seeing more great stuff coming from your team!

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Thanks Yoren😊