Written by Maryblessing Okolie, Open Mainframe Project 2024 Summer Mentee
Hey and welcome! In this article, I touch on:
- How I got into the Open Mainframe Project as a mentee
- What Mainframe Open Education (MOE) is
- The tasks and goals I had for the first phase of my mentorship
- My achievements so far
- What I’ll be working on in the remaining weeks of my mentorship
- My conclusion
It was 4:54 p.m. on a calm Wednesday I got the email from the Linux Foundation’s Yarile Ortiz that I’ve been accepted into the Open Mainframe Project Mentorship Program. If you guessed that I screamed from the top of my voice, then, you guessed right. I was filled with so much excitement cause I didn’t think I would get in. Previous attempts had been unsuccessful due to a mismatch between my skill set and available projects requiring specific programming expertise.
What is Open Mainframe Project?
Open Mainframe Project’s goal is to make the mainframe an active, integrated, and essential part of modern enterprise IT, consumable by mainstream developers and users, and driven by a vibrant open source community. It has incubated so many projects in the past years including the MOE Project. You can learn more about Open Mainframe Project and its projects here.
Now, what is MOE?
MOE is an acronym for Mainframe Open Education and it’s a project under the Open Mainframe Project. In simple terms, Mainframe Open Education is a community that focuses on ‘open sourcing’ mainframe learning roadmaps and community knowledge transfer.
If I got a dollar for every time I said ‘mainframe,’ I’d be rich now. Jokes.
So, you’re wondering, what’s a mainframe? Well, I could easily tell you, but I also want you to check out the article; A Beginner’s Guide to Mainframe to learn about it. If you’re a student, you should also check out this one; Why Students Should Contribute to the Mainframe Open Education Project. Both were written by me. Yeah, I know, self-promotion. But they offer valuable insights.
Our overarching goal is to make mainframe education and resources readily available and easy to understand
I settled into the team as I was added as a member of the core team. We meet every other Friday to discuss updates and progress from all stakeholders involved. My internship timeline is June through August (yea, I’ll be wrapping up soon. I know) and my tasks were broken down into the nine (9) weeks get to spend with the team.
Below are the tasks assigned to me for the first half of my mentorship and the goals for each one.
Week 1–2 I was tasked with reviewing the MOE Gitbook and providing feedback to the team.
- The goal is to understand the overall project, mission, and objective. Identify areas written well and areas that need additional help from the Mainframe Community so we can build a communication plan and increase awareness to the Mainframe Community on where we need their help.
Week 3 I was tasked with creating a social media engagement plan and promoting the Mainframe Open Education Project
- We hope we can use the social media plan to execute and increase participation from student User Groups and contributors by 10%. Although we haven’t fully utilized this plan, we believe it’s a good plan in the right direction.
Week 4 I was tasked with creating a social media calendar
- We believe that the social media calendar will complement the engagement plan, helping us track social media and community posts and contents
Week 5 I was tasked to continue promoting the project
Awareness is a core part of our vision for the MOE project and talking about it is one way to do so.
My Achievements
- I worked on a detailed review of both the MOE web page and the project’s Gitbook, and I look forward to them being implemented.
- I created a social media engagement plan to help us drive more engagement and increase student participation. Mentors and the team are very happy with it.
- I joined one of the Student User Group’s webinars where I got to share my journey getting into mainframes and the mainframe open education. I bet it inspired someone on the call and you should watch the recording! Watch it here https://youtu.be/MlWGQrmwfJ0?si=HaorHSp9BlvRnORb.
- I wrote two short and easy-to-digest articles which you can read here and here.
- I spoke about open source and the mainframe open education project in my community and I felt great about it.
- I recently had the opportunity to speak about open source at a community event. I took the chance to highlight the Mainframe Open Education project and encourage audience participation. There were over 60 people in attendance by the time the event was over.
What are the plans for the remaining weeks of my mentorship?
I have a few more weeks to go and I’m happy to have come this far. Below is what I’d be actively working on for the rest of my mentorship.
- Engage MOE Student User Group (Week 6)
- Review MOE Web pages (Week 7)
- Revise MOE Web pages (Week 8)
- Review and complete any prior outlined task (Week 9)
In addition to my ongoing tasks, I’m committed to expanding the project’s reach.
We’ve successfully launched a closed group for our student user group, fostering a more intimate space for interaction and support. We’re already seeing positive engagement as we work together to achieve our mutual goals. In collaboration with my colleague Tiiso, we’re working to establish an ambassador program
Lastly, I’m meeting with open source enthusiasts at the campus here in Nigeria and I can’t wait to have a good chat with them about mainframes and the MOE project.
In conclusion….
My experience with the mentorship program has been incredibly positive. The workload has been manageable, and I’ve truly enjoyed our weekly team meetings. I’m fortunate to collaborate with such a talented group of individuals. I’m eager to deepen my understanding of mainframes in the coming weeks and contribute meaningfully to the project’s goals. Stay cool until next time!
Stay tuned
Mentees will be blogging about their experiences. Stay tuned here and the Open Mainframe Project social channels for updates.
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