Until we meet again

Hello everyone! 👋
This is my farewell post marking the conclusion of my Outreachy internship with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.

My journey has been nothing but a positive experience. Looking back on how it started, I now feel much more confident in both my communication and technical skills.

A big THANK YOU 🙏 to my mentors, Sam Woodcock, Eden Oluigbo, and to the coordinator Petya Kangalova. Also to Nifemi—along with her mentors Kshitij Raj Sharma and Olushola Ogunkelu—for sharing this experience with me. I believe people with similar goals will cross paths sooner or later, so I’m always open to staying in touch with everyone I’ve met here and excited to catch up on anything!

Let's take a moment to reflect on what I’ve been through during this incredible internship, surrounded by amazing people and their immense support!

How it started

It all started with my mom and dad!
Okay, maybe not that far back... 😅

I first learned about Outreachy way back in 2019 through a community chat. At the time, I was studying at university and searching for internships but wasn't fast enough to complete the necessary contributions. Back then, I treated them more like assignments.

This time, in a bit of despair over finding a role , I applied to Outreachy again. Luckily, my contributions and recognition from the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team saved me!
I owe you guys my kidney! 😂

But seriously, the goal of helping communities during disasters and the collective efforts to achieve meaningful change are truly admirable. I chose to contribute to HOT’s projects because I saw their direct impact on people’s lives. The community left me with the impression of being open-minded, positive, and committed to solving relevant problems through open mapping.

I also met some admirable people during coffee chats at HOT—people whose hobbies even stemmed from their deep understanding of mappers’ needs! That made me realize that a profession should be more than just a paycheck or a list of tasks—it should be a lifelong passion.

I also documented my early experience in my first blog post.

How it proceeded

After I was accepted into the internship, my mentor Sam Woodcock and I discussed several potential tasks I could work on. I want to thank Sam for taking my aspirations as a developer into account when presenting options! 🙌

I was particularly interested in contributing to the Drone Tasking Manager project, but since it was still in its early research stages, we focused on the backend functionality of the Field Mapping Tasking Manager, writing tests for it. We achieved 63% test coverage with the following commits:

(More details about my journey up to this point can be found in my midpoint progress report post.)

Finally, after many assert statements, we transitioned to feature implementation for the Drone Tasking Manager! I was excited by the idea of working with drone image capturing.

Thanks to Sam for giving me this opportunity, which helped me face challenges and grow as a developer. 🌱

The task was to create a flight path for the Dji Mini 4 Pro Drone that would capture images used to create higher-resolution maps.

The tricky part? The drone could only move east-west, but it needed to follow a zigzag pattern at various angles. This sounded both challenging and fascinating. There was little information available to guide me at first, but once again, Sam provided valuable help, allowing me to define the scope and objectives more clearly in an issue for everyone’s reference.

Of course, implementing such core functionality wasn’t easy. At first, my brain just refused to start—it literally hurt! But I guess it was just growing new neurons to match my ambitions. 😅

Despite the hurdles, I managed to implement it within two weeks! However, it was difficult to test the results, so I took the following steps:

• Identified objectives (this was key, in my opinion)

• Defined the inputs and outputs (along with their types and formats)

• Planned how to test, ensuring that the output in GeoJSON format reflected the correct zigzag path and angles.

Testing was the most challenging part, but I used my knowledge of data plotting from my machine learning research experience and my role as a data analyst, where I worked extensively with data visualization. In other words, I brought in the heavy artillery! 🚀

I prefer not to give up easily, so I used everything I had to achieve the best possible results. I hope this will help communities achieve faster outcomes now!

What’s the Result?

As a result of my work on the drone functionality, I created a PR that was accepted, and I feel very accomplished! 🎉 : https://github.com/hotosm/drone-flightplan/pull/12

Not only was my work recognized within the HOT community, but potential employers also took an interest in my methods and followed along with my journey. This validated my ability to execute quickly, aim for excellence, and communicate effectively.

I didn’t have any expectations at the beginning—I just tried to deliver what I had committed to and apply my skills to the fullest.

And then… I was offered a role as a full-stack developer! 🎉 I’m thrilled to conclude my Outreachy journey with HOT and to begin this exciting new chapter. I hope to bring immense value wherever I go and will definitely stay connected with the HOT community, open to any new initiatives. 🤝

Farewell

As we get to the actual farewell...

I want to extend a huge thank you to Outreachy for providing this life-changing opportunity and for helping underrepresented groups regain their confidence and create positive change. 🌟

I also owe immense gratitude to my mentors and the community coordinator:
Sam Woodcock, Eden Oluigbo, and Petya Kangalova. Thank you for your support, clear guidance, and patience. 🙏

Let’s keep in touch! I hope to cross paths again in the future.

And of course, for everyone else, please feel free to reach out to me through LinkedIn—I’m always open to discussions. See you soon! 👋😊