CNCF-hosted Co-located Events North America 2024

One of the keys to a healthy open source project is a thriving contributor base. Many students are interested in contributing and are motivated to learn about cloud technologies. However, the initial learning curve can be steep, especially for individuals with limited work experience. So how can we help students become long-term, high impact contributors? In this panel, educators and mentors from Valencia College, OCAD University, University of Toronto and Red Hat will share their student engagement strategies. These include: having open source contributions built-in to course projects, pairing students with mentors, creating an open source student club and holding weekly beginner-friendly meetings where students can work on tasks. Through sharing our experiences, we hope to inspire more mutually beneficial partnerships between CNCF projects looking to grow their contributor base and learning institutions looking to provide more hands-on training opportunities for students!