I started my career as a Software Engineer, 12 years before with C# as my programming language. When I look back at the past 12 years, a lot has changed with Dot Net Ecosystem. Dot Net became Open Source. Dot Net Community is now aware with features and when a feature is going to get released. Dot Net Community is now able to participate and contribute to the Dot Net Ecosystem.
But the awareness to contribute has not reached to all corners of the developer ecosystem in Dot Net World.
My journey to Open Source started very late in my professional career.
For the past 2 years I have been contributing to Open Source Communities either by organizing meetups, conference or by speaking at meetups and conference on Open Source based JavaScript frameworks like NativeScript, VueJs, Angular and React.
I got interested to contribute to Open Source Ecosystem, when I came to know about NativeScript a cross platform mobile development framework. I started to contribute by speaking about NativeScript in meetups and conferences near my location. This made me to start VueJS Columbus Meetup in Columbus, Ohio which eventually made me to start and organize JavaScript and Friends Conference. Thanks to the community in making our first year successful.
We are now in our planning phase for second year of JavaScript and Friends Conference. Mark your calendars for - Aug-13-2020 and Aug-14-2020.
The experience, which I gained in organizing events for JavaScript world, made me think to give back to Dot Net Community in one way or other.
I still code using C# at my work along with other JavaScript frameworks.
While I was looking for the correct opportunity to give back, the following tweets got my attention.
There was this huge thread on representation problem in .Net Community
This is an awesome thread!
— Kathleen Dollard (@KathleenDollard) January 18, 2020
At the moment I have too many scattered thoughts to say much, but...
- Yes! Let's do this. We will be richer and our tools will get better along with the ecosystem!
- Sounds like a community effort, but what can Microsoft do to help? @shanselman https://t.co/wUuZRieXfw
Another thread, by my friend Chris Woodruff on having a space to allow developer community outside of Microsoft space.
We need MSFT to have a place in the discussion for C# and .NET Core but they should not be the dominating voice in the community. They have open sourced most of code and now needs to let the community show and convince the entire community of the benefits of this great platform.
— Chris Woodruff "Woody" (@cwoodruff) February 6, 2020
I wanted to create a space where everyone can contribute and increase awareness to the Dot Net Open Source Ecosystem. The result is Dot Net Open Source Days. Inspired by other events in the JavaScript ecosystem like GraphQL Developer Days and ByteSized Code Online Conference, I decided to organize Dot Net Open Source Days - One Day Virtual Conference on April-17-2020.
I reached out to community to see if they would be interested to speak if I organized a conference to speak about Dot Net based Open Source Libraries and other frameworks. Community was interested to participate.
Will you be interested to speak at .Net Open Source Days if I plan to arrange one in the near future? The first version would be a virtual event.
— BaskarRao 3x💉😷 (@baskarmib) February 6, 2020
Thanks to Chris Woodruff for accepting to do the Keynote and thanks to Matt Eland, Ado Kukic, Rob Richardson and Patrick Kelly for submitting your talks to speak.
Follow Dot Net Open Source Days on Twitter to get updates on Dot Net Open Source based Projects, Libraries, Frameworks and other updates related to the virtual conference.
Hello world. One more day left to submit your talk for Dot Net Open Source Days.
— dotnetopensourcedays (@dotnetopensour1) February 24, 2020
CFP link - https://t.co/l9xsJTiBfj