Geolatinas Digital Literacy Toolkit: A Diverse Community Developing Coding Skills for the Open Source World.

Abstract:

Accessibility and inclusion are the major guiding goals towards developing open source softwares, yet this community lacks representation of certain groups, such as BIPOC and Latinx developers. Latinas made up only 1 percent of the computing workforce in 2017 and 2 percent in 2019 (DLB, 2019). Increasing Latina participation is a key objective in the GeoLatinas organization. COVID-19 reality has brought up the need for access to software for minoritized individuals that have been stripped from institutional licenses through distance, requiring a fast transition to using open source softwares that lower the financial barrier. Since the GeoLatinas community already had a strong online presence with virtual initiatives and resources, it easily transitioned towards engaged learning into the open-source community. This member-driven organization has grown rapidly and has developed many initiatives to help Latinas in geoscience succeed in their academic and professional development. The GeoLatinas community created an initiative to provide coding skills, starting with the introduction to python, coding language, and resources/packages available to use. Our team has designed, structured and created lectures and exercises that are taught mostly in Spanish. Moreover, we provide resources such as program handbooks and coding exercises in both English and Spanish, making coding knowledge more accessible to our diverse community. We impacted among 15-20 participants through our online weekly coding session. These sessions are synchronous and recorded for asynchronous learning, showing examples of our learning process and progress. In this talk, we will provide insight into how we have built an inclusive and inviting community to learn python coding, build confidence in our developing skills, and test our newly acquired skills.