Contribute to Call for Code projects as part of Hacktoberfest

We’re excited that Call for Code will be participating in Hacktoberfest again this year. Now in its eighth year, Hacktoberfest is a global online festival meant to drive contribution to and involvement in open source projects.

Both Call for Code and Hacktoberfest encourage contributions from people of all backgrounds and skill levels. Call for Code is of course a great opportunity for experienced open source contributors to get involved in projects that address social and humanitarian issues, but if you’re brand new to open source projects, we’ve got you covered there as well. Our “Call for Code: Introduction to Open Source” online course is available at no cost and introduces you to key concepts, tools, and processes that you need to start contributing to any open source project. Start learning, and earn a badge by completing this course.

Spotlight: Call for Code for Racial Justice open source projects

This year Call for Code has several open source projects participating in Hacktoberfest, including our solutions designed to help combat systemic racism through technology. In response to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and too many others, Black IBMers had a vision to make use of technology to address social injustice. Their top ideas have been released as open source projects through the Linux Foundation, with solution starters that contain resources to help you learn about the projects and how you can start building, evolving, and leveraging the technology solutions.

Your contributions to Call for Code for Racial Justice projects directly benefit organizations doing grassroots work and local communities that need these solutions. There are so many ways that you can contribute, no matter your area of expertise.

As part of Hacktoberfest, you might contribute to one of these projects by:

• tackling an open issue.
• flagging documentation issues and updating them.
• flagging bugs in code.
• reviewing and giving feedback on language translations.

Those are just a few examples. We always need both technical and non-technical contributors to help with testing, documentation, research, and project promotion in addition to code development and fixes.

Start contributing to Call for Code for Racial Justice projects as part of Hacktoberfest

So how can you get started?

1. Join us live October 6th, 5 pm EST for our Hacktoberfest Kickoff: Hacking for Racial Justice. Come learn about the projects and how you can contribute to them during Hacktoberfest (The event will be recorded for replay if you can’t attend live).
2. Get up to speed on Hacktoberfest and follow the instructions for general participation.
3. Check out our new Call for Code for Racial Justice Hacktoberfest Handbook to learn all about how to contribute. Make sure to check the “Projects” section of the handbook to find details on open issues that need your contribution and links to participating Call for Code for Racial Justice Github repositories that will be tagged with “Hacktoberfest.”

Contribute to even more Call for Code projects as part of Hacktoberfest

Call for Code has numerous open source projects hosted with The Linux Foundation that need your support year round. A number of additional Call for Code open source projects will have issues tagged for Hacktoberfest. Join the Call for Code Slack community at callforcode.org/slack and you will have immediate access to our #hacktoberfest channel as well as to our open source project channels. Watch the #hacktoberfest channel in the coming weeks to learn more about the participating projects.