The program seeks 20 mentors with at least a year of OpenStack experience to offer technical or career guidance.

image

After a successful launch at the Austin Summit, Speed Mentoring is back in action in Boston.

Organized by the Women of OpenStack, it’s designed to be a lightweight mentoring initiative to provide technical or career guidance to beginners in the community. Mentees should already be part of the community; they should have gone through, or be familiar with Upstream Training.

Intel is sponsoring the Boston edition, which is now seeking 10-20 mentors interested in offering either technical or career advice.

Who should apply?

“We’re happy for any mentor of any gender from a technical or non-technical background who has worked in OpenStack long enough to know their way around — at least one year of experience,” Emily Hugenbruch, software engineer at IBM and driving force behind the project, tells Superuser. “They should be excited about OpenStack and interested in sharing their advice and expertise with others.”

In terms of what mentees are seeking, she says they’re looking to network, for advice on how to break into the community and how to advance their careers. “It’s up to mentors if they want to allow mentees to contact them after the Speed Mentoring event, although we encourage it.”

How does it work?

Mentors sign up here, filling out a survey about their areas of interest and expertise. That info is turned into special baseball cards, which are given out at the event by way of introduction. Mentors meet with small groups of mentees in 15-minute intervals and answer their questions about how to grow in the community.

It’s a fast-paced event and a great way to meet new people, introduce them to the Summit and welcome them into the OpenStack community, Hugenbruch says. Mentors are provided with mentee questions in advance and should plan to arrive at 7:15 a.m. (Breakfast and caffeine are provided!)

Mentors will be contacted ahead of time to go over logistics before the Summit. Hugenbruch says a call is planned on April 17 (it’ll be recorded for those who can’t make it) so that serves as the deadline for mentor applications.

In the Austin edition, 150 people attended and 66 matches were made.

Cover photo by: U.S. Army // CC BY
Superuser