Inspiration 💡 We wanted to provide a platform for small and less-experienced organizations to host their own projects 🌎. We wanted to create a welcoming environment where people from all genders and backgrounds can contribute and learn 👩💻👨💻. So we built the website WEOpenSource that helps people contribute, learn, and give them a boost in their open source journey and create a more accessible and inclusive platform 🤝.
What it does 🤓 WEOpenSource has following features:
Find Proj: Helps you find open source projects according to your skillsets, level of proficency, and project for every gender, whether you're from LGBTQ+ or a woman, increasing inclusivity 🏳️🌈👭. Host Project: Helps open source organizations host their project on WEOpenSource and provide them with all the required assistance 🤝. Learn: Provides participants with the relevant resources to help them get started with the project 📚. NeedHelp Bot: A bot that can help resolve any queries and technical doubts 🤖.
How we built it 💻 Find Proj: We took the available data in JSON format and displayed all the data with all the requirements corresponding to the project. We used JSON queries to filter the data and show the user the desired results. Accessibility: To ensure that our website is accessible for everyone, we enabled tab feature, access mode, and alt text for all the images. We enabled tab feature throughout the website to make our website more accessible for people with motor impairment, visual impairment, and coginitive impairments who uses keyboard navigation for navigating the website. NeedHelp Bot: We built our own LLM chatbot (NeedHelp) in Streamlit where we used ChatGPT API to respond to query and displayed that on streamlit. Add Project:We are getting the data from new organization and then displaying that on our main page and then making their own dashboard that is connected to their GitHub page, so that they can know who are their active contributors and accept/reject the right candidate. We also added a feature so that organisation can see who all are interested in being the part of their project. When the participant will click start contributing then their profile will be added to the corresponding database.
Challenges we ran into 🏃♀️🏃♂️ Making the platform accessible: It was challenging to make the platform accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. We had to carefully consider all aspects of the user experience, from the design to the navigation. Building a welcoming and inclusive community: It was also challenging to build a welcoming and inclusive community. We wanted to create a space where people from all backgrounds feel comfortable contributing and learning. We had to be intentional about our messaging and outreach.
Accomplishments 🏆 Creating a more inclusive and accessible open source community: One of our most noteworthy accomplishments was our commitment to focusing on making the opportunities more inclusive and accessible to everyone. Creating a platform that welcomes individuals from diverse backgrounds, including LGBTQ+ and women, is essential for fostering a more inclusive tech community. Helping smaller open source organizations gain visibility and find contributors: Through our platform we were providing open source organizations with the tools and assistance they need to host their projects that can be really helpful to help smaller or less experienced organizations gain visibility and find contributors. Providing new open source contributors with relevant resources: We provided new open source contributors with relevant resources to help them get started with projects as navigating the open source projects as a beginner can be overwhelming.
What we learned 📚 Building an LLM chatbot: Building our own LLM (Language Model) chatbot, NeedHelp, using the ChatGPT API and integrating it with Streamlit was a valuable learning experience. We learned how to create a conversational interface and leverage AI to respond to user queries effectively. Managing and querying JSON data: In the process of creating the "Find Proj" feature, we gained valuable experience in managing and querying data in JSON format. We learned how to efficiently filter and present project data based on user requirements, improving our data processing skills.
What's next for WEOpenSource ⏭️ Improve user profiles: We aim to improve user profiles, allowing participants to showcase their skills, contributions, and project history. This will
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