Women in Machine Learning and Data Science
WiMLDS Mentorship Program’21
Second Meet
“It’s never too late to follow your dreams, and there’s no time like the present to start.”
WiMLDS
WiMLDS is a 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission is to support and promote women and gender minorities who are practicing, studying or are interested in the fields of machine learning and data science.
They create opportunities for members to engage in technical and professional conversations in a positive, supportive environment by hosting talks by women and gender minority individuals working in data science or machine learning, as well as hosting technical workshops, networking events and hackathons.
Our second meet focused on various opportunities we can grab.
Open Source Opportunities
We started with Google Summer of Code. Our mentor briefed us about FAQs in applications like “Why do you want to apply for this scholarship”.
Steps to contribute to GitHub were explained:
- View projects and copy codes
- Modify code
- Make suggestions
Basically our task is to choose a project we wanted to contribute to and then choose what to change. GSoC pairs us with a mentor who helps us accomplish our goals.
Our next step in the application is the Proposal. Some things to mention while writing our proposal are:
- What do we plan to do in 3 months.
- The basic layout of our planned contributions
- A timeline- that outlines the weekly tasks and goals
And finally we should remember to get it reviewed by our mentors.
Other Open Source Opportunities like Outreachy Mentorship Programme, GirlScript Summer of Code and, Hacktoberfest were introduced to us.
Scholarships and Competitions
Our next focus was the amazing scholarship opportunities out there:
1. GHC
The GHC Scholars Program provides funds for women who are either undergraduate students, graduate students, or faculty to attend our Celebration. Women who get selected as scholars gain access to career and academic workshops, networking opportunities, and memories that will last a lifetime.
2. WTM
Google’s Women Techmakers (WTM) program aims to create gender equality in the tech industry by encouraging women to excel and take lead roles in this field. The aim of this scholarship is to build a world where women can carve a niche in tech.
3.Nutanix
Nutanix strongly believes in the power of diversity and we want to increase the ratio of women on our engineering teams. So, we’re creating scholarships to help young women develop the skills they need to pursue their passion of computer science.
4.Google Udacity
Udacity provides lifelong learning for millions to acquire new skills they need for the jobs they want. Udacity scholarships make this opportunity more available for learners all around the globe.
5.LearnIt Girl
Each accepted mentee gets a mentor to help them through discovering their new language and coding their great project. Don’t worry if you don’t know which language to choose: we will help you! During 3 months, the mentee will work on their code on GitHub to be able to show their amazing great in the end to the rest of the “Learn IT, Girl” community”
These scholarship tests check our knowledge on basic DSA and Algorithms whereas Online coding competitions (like-codejam, kickstart, imagine cup, hacker cup ) require an advanced level understanding of the same.
Hackathons
The great thing about hackathons is that not only are they fun, but they help you build projects which reflect greatly on your resume and help you into a good internship.
- Smart India Hackathon
Smart India Hackathon is a nationwide initiative to provide students with a platform to solve some of the pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem-solving.
2. AngelHack
AngelHack hosts an annual global hackathon competition where entrants compete to build and launch new software over the course of 36-hours. Hackathon events are hosted in several cities around the world and winning teams are chosen to receive acceptance into the AngelHack Hackcelerator program.
3.Winathon
LinkedIn is hosting its 4th all-female Hackathon. The theme for this year’s event is “Women Coders: InTech for Good”. As a participant of the Hackathon, you will have the chance to build an awesome product by leveraging the tools available to you (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Java, etc.).
4. Myntra HackerRamp: We For She
This is an opportunity for all women coders from engineering colleges across the country to create and innovate through technology
5. Uber HackTag
Eligible participants, after registering for HackTag on the D2C platform, will undergo an online coding challenge where they will be tested on their basic coding skills. Based on their test scores, participants will be shortlisted to proceed to the next stage.
My Work
After clearing my coding basics last week, I delved deeper into into DSA and prepared for the Google Generation Scholarship exam and WE Talent Sprint. I referred to the material suggested by my mentor and also the sample questions of the scholarship exams. My mentor Jap Leen Kaur Jolly was really helping and cleared all my doubts regarding the preparation. It was a great week, looking forward to learning a lot more from her.
