How it Started
I completely ignored GSoC 15 because of lack of knowledge of popular development languages like Python and Node. By 2016 I was comfortable with Python and had working knowledge of NodeJS and other popular languages. But still I was not much confident if I can qualify for a prestigious program that is GSoC. Tired I was looking through the organizations list for 2016 and like most of the newbies was scared to see the big names with hyper-complex projects on the list. Then I saw FOSSASIA and the "ASIA" word caught my eye :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: so I decided to check up on it.
Going to its GitHub organization, I saw the most recent project being open-event-scraper. I opened the repo and within minutes was able to understand the code. I ran it on my local machine and noticed an issue (I don't remember what) and sent a PR. That got merged and that boosted my confidence. Next up I saw the repo 2016.fossasia.org. (Here at FOSSASIA we have an open tech conference once every year.) So I opened its site and got lucky to spot some design issues. I cloned the repo, fixed them and sent descriptive PRs. They got merged within a day and that felt like I was onto something.
Contributing to OTS
Energized I checked the FOSSASIA GSoC ideas list. The Open Event Organizer Server interested me because it was in Python and it was server side. I ran the demo and after using it for a while I started liking the concept of the project. So I cloned the repo but was only able to run it after some hours of struggle. :sweat: Once the project was running on my system, I managed to spot a few issues and features that needed to be fixed. I sent PRs for them and they got accepted too. I started getting more involved in the community, participating in Issues and finally had enough confidence to write my first proposal. It took me some 20 hours to get the first draft ready :sweat_smile: but it was worth it and I finally submitted it.
Getting Selected
I didn't had much hopes on the D-Day. I wasn't even in a mood to check the results and wanted to go to bed. But my friends insisted so I kept alive. The time (0030) came and I was dead nervous so much that my heartbeats literally stopped when the dashboard was loading. When it did load, the first thing I saw was "Avi, you need to complete a tax form" :grimacing: and that was the moment I realized I may have been selected.
The road ahead
A very good team has been selected for the Open Event project. It would be fun to work with such a talented team and get this project done. Thanks to the mentors @mariobehling @leto @juslee for giving me this opportunity. I will try my best to help make this project a success.