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Outreachy report: May 2026

Program activities

Our 14 interns started their internships on May 18. For the first time in several years, Feedback #1 submissions will take place after the second week of cohort activities rather than the first. As mentioned in previous reports, I decided to run several scheduling experiments during our May 2026 cohort: allowing mentors and mentees to bond more before requesting feedback; calculating payment dates allowing for both organizers and Software Freedom Conservancy employees to review feedback submissions with no rush.

I hope to establish a good pacing for our cohorts that I can employ on both the May and December cohorts. Our December cohort is more challenging schedule-wise as we have to take into consideration tax audit season and end-of-the-year holidays, but we’ll start planning for the December 2026 cohort in July and I’m sure we’ll find a balanced solution for all.

We started discussing other program design changes in May. Our main concerns are the quality of applicant-mentor interactions during the contribution period and criteria to review and approve applicants. All organizers are writing proposals — joint or individual — to be voted during a team meeting. Voting will be structured as follows:

Blogging requirement changes will be consolidated during this cohort as well. Interns will be required to submit three reports throughout their internships; they’re free (and encouraged) to write more if they wish. Report submission dates coincide with periods in which we’re reviewing payment authorizations.

Open Mentorship Handbook

This month was all about connecting to external communities and partners. I attended CryptoRave 2026 and presented a talk on the future of free and open source software. The room was so packed with people several attendees were sitting on the floor to watch me talk! We discussed systemic factors that endanger the preservation of open mentorship practices and of the ecosystem itself: layoffs, funding conditions, overworked contributors and the rise of AI tools.

I talked to researchers from USP, Unicamp and UFRGS currently studying the free and open source ecosystem. I an incredible conversation over lunch with data_labe’s executive director, Polinho Mota, about the pedagogical elements of fellowship opportunities in the context of open mentorship practices and the funding landscape for initiatives and organizations like ours.

Cumbuca Dev invited me to speak at NOSS (Nosso Open Source Summit), their very first FOSS conference. I submitted an activity derived from my CryptoRave 2026 talk and conversations I had at the conference.

Technical sessions for the Women in Information Technology event at Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Computação were announced and our lightning talk about open mentorship practices will take place on the very last conference day. Lab Livre/UnB researchers and I started articulating how to make the best use of our time.

I submitted an activity proposal to Campus Party Brasília (CPBR18), but we received news about its postponement at the end of May. No new dates were announced.

I attended NOSS on the very first day of May. They hosted two tracks: one for more senior professionals and one for novices. I was only able to follow afternoon talks, but I was impressed with the quality of speakers and conversations! My favorite activity was Melissa Weber Mendonça’s talk about AI policies in FOSS.

Other than connections and very interesting conversations, I started reviewing Omotola Omotayo’s drafts and selecting mentoring techniques and tracked results from Big Open Source Sibling materials. This should be enough to start the editing and consolidation phase of the handbook in June.