Hello, I’m Zakia Yahya from Islamabad, Pakistan. I’m delighted to be selected as an Outreachy intern for the May 2023 cohort. Particularly, I'm selected for Ersilia Open Source Initiative which is a “non-profit organization supporting drug discovery research for infectious diseases in low-income countries”.

When it comes to the core values I adhere to or actively practice, persistence and hard work, gratitude, and ambition come to mind.

Hard work has always been a core value that I deeply cherish. As a hardworking person, I firmly believe that there is nothing in this world that hard work cannot attain. By being persistent you can always overcome challenges and achieve your goals.

Gratitude holds significant importance to me, whether I achieve success or encounter failure. It encourages me to foster a deeper sense of appreciation and thankfulness. It brings about a sense of fulfillment and enhances my overall happiness.

Ambition is an important core value that can help me to achieve my goals, to strive for personal and professional growth and make a positive impact. Ambition fuels my desire to continuously challenge myself and actively pursue success.

These values shape my perspective, enhance my motivation, and guide me toward a fulfilling and successful life journey.

In this blog, I’ll cover the following:

1. Outreachy: Opportunities in Open Source 🚀

2. Discovering Outreachy: My Journey of Exploration🌎

3. Choosing to Work with Ersilia: A Thoughtful Decision✏️

Outreachy: Opportunities in Open-Source

Outreachy is a program that organizes three-month paid internships with open-source software projects for people from underrepresented groups in the field of software development and open-source communities. It aims to provide a supportive and inclusive environment for people who face systemic bias or discrimination in the tech industry. The program is open to applicants worldwide and focuses on fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion. Interns are paid a total stipend of $7,000 USD for the three-month internship which is good though.

Outreachy internships are unique in their structure and goals. Here are some key aspects of the program which appeal to me to apply to Outreachy: Open Source Projects, Remote Internships, Stipend and Financial Support, Supportive Environment, Flexible Working Hours, Career Development, Diversity and many more.

Follow this link for the official page of Outreachy for more information.

Discovering Outreachy: My Journey of Exploration

I hold a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, specializing in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision. My research during my studies focused on these areas. Following my Master's degree, I pursued employment; however, I decided to leave the job due to several factors, with gender discrimination being the primary reason. Subsequently, I aspire to establish a career in the field of ML/AI. Nonetheless, as a mother of a toddler, I face considerable challenges in juggling all my responsibilities simultaneously.

Like many others, I faced barriers and challenges in pursuing a career in technology. However, my determination led me to discover Outreachy through a friend of mine, who had successfully participated in the program. She encourages me a lot to apply to Outreachy.

With immense encouragement from my friend, I embarked on contributing to the project during the previous winter cohort. Regrettably, I wasn't chosen as an intern, and it was truly disheartening since I had invested considerable effort into the project. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. Despite not being selected, the experience provided me with valuable insights into crafting proposals and applying for remote internship programs.

In the Summer cohort of 2023, I once again engaged in contributing to a project, this time focusing on the Ersilia Open Source Initiative. What stood out about this community was the warm and supportive nature of everyone involved, particularly the mentors. They offered invaluable assistance throughout the contribution period and the application process, which proved immensely helpful to me.

Finally, all my efforts have paid off, and I have been chosen for this cohort😅. I am thrilled about this opportunity and eagerly anticipate working on the project. I am excited to embark on my internship program, as it presents a chance to acquire new knowledge and skills. As a beautiful quote said by Michelle Obama,

There is no magic to achievements, It's really about hard work, choices and persistence

Choosing to Work with Ersilia: A Thoughtful Decision

Ersilia is an open-source platform dedicated to AI/ML models in biomedical research. Its primary objective is to unlock AI/ML expertise for researchers by providing a collection of freely available models. This FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) platform aims to democratize access to AI/ML capabilities, enabling researchers from various backgrounds to leverage advanced technologies in their biomedical studies. With Ersilia's platform, wet-lab scientists and clinicians can effortlessly navigate a diverse collection of models and execute predictions without requiring any coding skills or incurring expensive software licensing fees.

Among the numerous projects listed on the Outreachy website during the contribution period, I found Ersilia particularly intriguing for several reasons. Although, I initially considered four projects: Ersilia Open Source Initiative, NetworkX, Scikit-image, and Moja Global. I ultimately chose Ersilia due to its distinctive attributes and promising prospects i.e.

• The mentors at Ersilia are truly remarkable and incredibly supportive. I am deeply impressed by their guidance throughout the contribution period. The way Ersilia mentors assist is truly commendable and invaluable. As a quote says;

A truly great mentor is hard to find, difficult to part with, and impossible to forget.

• It has a great community where people are always encouraging and supportive

• The main reason I opt for Ersilia is its initiative " to support drug discovery research for infectious diseases in low-income countries using data science and machine learning".

This Outreachy-Ersilia internship aims to debug existing Ersilia models and to expand the Ersilia model hub by incorporating available AI/ML models from literature, identifying different available datasets of interest to test models' performance and train new AI/ML models to cover knowledge gaps.

Here is the link to the Github repository of Ersilia Open Source Initiative.

I hope that my blog will serve as a good starting point for anyone who is looking to apply for Outreachy. Thanks for reading! 😃

Look forward to suggestions/comments.👍