Code Contribution for Women in Network Science

This proposal aims to bring more women and nonbinary people into the open source community by facilitating code contributions by women and nonbinary people. This work hopes to (1) improve documentation and lower the barrier to entry for igraph; (2) organize workshops and tutorials in using igraph specifically targeted at women and nonbinary people; (3) set up a mentorship program where a team of women and nonbinary scientists are trained to assist young women and nonbinary developers. These activities will broaden participation in igraph development and help women and nonbinary research implement specific contributions, such as new methods or algorithms. This proposed project has broader scientific benefits as well. Mentoring these contributions and creating effective documentation yields several benefits: it makes the contributions more visible, allows others to make greater use of them, and stimulates scientific progress. This proposal expects the program to increase the number of women and nonbinary people who can contribute code to igraph, ensuring a larger and more diverse community to help maintain the open source package.