Currently, applications for collaborators are closed. Join our mailing list to keep up to date with our application period and read more about the Journey!
What to expect from Journey as a collaborator
Journey is dedicated to fostering an educational environment that also enables individuals from lower economic classes in developing nations to enhance their career prospects through open source contributions.
Participants in Journey are required to have basic programming skills. Collaboration with organizations will primarily occur through Git, and the programming languages used will differ based on the available projects. The Journey program is structured into four distinct phases:
- Potential collaborators apply and if they meet the eligibility principles, they are in! They are now allowed to choose a project proposed by an organization and start working on it.
- For an entire month the collaborator will have the chance to meet the organization it might work with in the future. In this step it is really important to communicate frequently with your possible future co-workers and make sure they understand your way of working and you theirs! Collaborators can take on issues that are tagged as Journey appropriate and tackle them. During this period, collaborators will also be invited by Journey to take part on workshops with seasoned open source contributors that will teach them valuable skills for their future work. Keep in mind that in order to be accepted as a long term collaborator, you need to finish at least one task proposed by the project. A contribution period task does not have result in code being merged into the project. For example, a user experience contribution period task could ask the applicant to use the open source software and write a short report on an aspect of the user interface that was confusing. That report could be uploaded to a file sharing service and shared with Journey mentors.
- By the end of this one month period, collaborators are asked to write a proposal on the project that they want to work for the next three months. The proposal is free form and will be evaluated by your respective mentors.
- Collaborators that have received the highest ranking among the mentors will be invited to continue working with the selected organizations for the next following months.
Collaborator eligibility
Journey collaborators submit an initial application. Journey organizers use the initial application to determine whether the applicant is eligible for advancing in Journey. The organizers review the applications in order to see if they align with Journey’s goal of supporting diversity in open source.
These eligibility rules apply to the 2024 Journey’s collaborators round. Dates may change for future rounds.
Journey is initially available only in Brazil due to the organizers’ having larger expertise on the Brazilian legal system. We aim to expand the program to include other developing nations in future iterations
General eligibility
- You must be 18 years of age or older by the beginning of your collaboration with an organization.
- You must be available for a full-time collaboration. That means you have to commit 30 hours of your week towards working with your matched organization. The collaboration period runs for 3 months.
- You must be a resident of a developing country and be within the lower economic layers of this your country. This criterion can be subjective and challenging to quantify. However, if you have faced systemic discrimination due to your socio-economic status, Journey is for you, please apply!
Past internships
You are welcome to apply to Journey multiple times. However, you can only be accepted as an journey collaborator once. You must not be a past Outreachy intern. You must not be a past Outreach Program for Women intern. You must not be a past Google Summer of Code intern. All Google Summer of Code interns are ineligible for Journey. This includes people who did not successfully finish their Google Summer of Code internship.
Current or future work commitments
You must not have another work commitments during the Journey’s collaboration period. This includes unpaid work commitments. Applicants are required to list their current work commitments on their initial application. We understand you may be applying to many jobs. If you receive a job or internship offer, please notify Journey organizers immediately.
Rules for people who are not students
People who are not students are encouraged to apply to Journey.
Rules for students
Both students and people who are not students are welcome to apply to Journey. However, we ask for students to apply during the period of their extended vacations.
Rules for students on visas
Your visa must allow you to work 30 hours per week. If you cannot work 30 hours per week, you are not eligible for Journey. If you are on a student visa in the United States of America, you might have limited dates when you can work 30 hours a week. We will work with you to shift your collaboration dates by up to five weeks. However, we cannot accommodate shortening the 13 week collaboration.