It was both humbling and inspiring to share the same stage with the CEO of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, and the Executive Director, Academy Software Foundation, David Morin, at the Ubuntu Summit 2024. I am writing this while on the train, heading back to Berlin after the event, which also marked Ubuntu's 20th anniversary. My talk followed Mark's opening speech, where I spoke about the work we are doing at Igalia on the Servo Rendering Engine. Thank you, Mauro, for the invite.

Ubuntu Summit

I got to hear Mark's talk from the speaker room backstage as my talk was next. In his talk, Mark emphasized how important community is for an open-source project. It reminded me of how it has impacted my life.

Back in my university's 2nd semester in 2014, I noticed a group of students in the library who would come in every evening, sit next to each other, and work on their computers. I didn't know what they were doing, but I recognized that they were my seniors and were programming. One evening, I gathered all my courage and reached out to the only female senior among them. She was nice and invited me to come to the library the next day. I went there, and she introduced me to all of them. They asked if I had a computer, and I said, "No." They told me to get a laptop and then come back to them.

At the end of my 2nd semester, I got my first laptop. Before that, neither I nor my family had ever owned a computer or anything similar. I didn't know anything about computers when I started university. During my first semester, it was little embarrassing to ask my lab mate how to switch on the computer. After classes I would go to the library and labs whenever possible to get my hands on a computer. There were a few people in my class who knew programming and did their homework very well. I wanted to be like them.

After getting a laptop, I went to the seniors. I remember that evening; it's close to my heart. They took my laptop and asked if I had anything important on it. Then they installed Ubuntu on my laptop, which originally had Windows that came with it. Looking back, I didn't even know the difference at that time. They told me about open source, GSoC, Outreachy, Twitter, the open-source community, Quora, and Reddit. The rest is history.

That's where my journey started. Coming back from the library that evening, it was a long night—googling every single word my seniors had mentioned and getting introduced to the world of the tech industry. Who knew it would be followed by years of sleepless nights on computers? It was like I had found my place!

I am very grateful to the whole open-source community. Speaking at the Ubuntu Summit reminded me of that evening in the library when I first learned about Ubuntu and open source, and how it changed my life for the better.

If you are interested, you can watch the livestreamed version of the Ubuntu Summit 2024 Youtube

TODO: Update the livestream link with the recorded talk link.