Open Source: How Does this Garden Grow? 🌱

Over the history of free and open source software, we have gone through quite a few metaphors for open source projects: from homesteads in noosphere to puppies, roads & bridges, gardens, forests, and orchards. Regardless of the preferred comparison, open source aficionados and historians agree that behind every large open source project is a thriving and resilient contributor community. In this talk, Inessa will share her insight on the art and science of fostering resilient open source communities and communities of practice at large. 👩🏻‍💻 SPEAKER: Inessa Pawson Inessa is building bridges between people, open science, and open source software, advocating for diversification of contribution pathways to open source and supporting its human infrastructure. She is an active contributor to the Python ecosystem (NumPy, Scientific Python, PyOpenSci, SciPy conference, PyCon US Maintainers Summit, PySWFL, PyLadies SoFlo) and broader open source (Contributor Experience Project, CHAOSS). In her role as Open Source Program Manager at OpenTeams, she leads initiatives focused on widening the contributor pipeline and bringing funding to more open source projects. Inessa is perpetually fascinated by incentive design, collaborative intelligence, and jazz.