Does mentorship through an open source org I worked for still count toward OC2 if it was volunteer-based and not part of my official job description?

Stage 1
1

Hi everyone, I’m applying under the Exceptional Promise route and I have a question about how mentorship activities fit into Optional Criteria 2 (OC2) — contributions outside of your immediate occupation.

I mentored GSoC and Outreachy interns through Public Lab, an open source organization I was contracting with at the time. However:
• My mentorship was entirely volunteer-based (Outreachy and GSoC clearly specify this in their mentor agreements),
• Mentorship was not part of my paid contract responsibilities with the org I worked for,
• I mentored interns outside of paid hours, and the mentorship was project-based, not employment-based.

Would this count toward OC2, even though I was also working with the org at the time? Or would Tech Nation consider this part of my day-to-day role simply because I had a contract with the org?

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  1. Volunteer vs. paid open source contributions

I’ve contributed to five open source projects overall:
• 2 volunteer-based contributions (outside any employment)
• 3 paid contributions that were part of contract work

All of them are technically substantial — I wrote or reviewed code, maintained repos, or supported onboarding.

Can I use the 2 volunteer-based OSS projects as part of OC2, and the remaining 3 as part of OC3?
Or would Tech Nation expect all OSS contributions to be counted together under a single criteria?

2

@pahuja @Francisca_Chiedu @Akash_Joshi I’d appreciate any insights you can provide.

3

I think you can show your volunteer contributions for OC2. However, the paid contribution was in a consulting capacity so it depends how you frame it

4

Thank you for your response @Francisca_Chiedu

5

Voluntary mentoring is fine. At first I read you were a part of GSoc or Outreachy, but mentoring there is an excellent feat! Make sure to get reference letters and proof via screenshots of the website mentioning your name.

You can definitely split contributions between various criteria. I’ve definitely seen other people do this in the past and succeed.

6

@Akash_Joshi Can I use this letter as supporting evidence of my mentorship?

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1 Like
7

Yeah that would be a good fit. Were you mentioned in any web links as well?

8

Yes my name was listed as a mentor on the project page on GSoC’s website.