Part 2 :-)
Part 2 of our interview with Kenny Paul, Program Manager at the Tazama Project. Link to Part 1: https://rb.gy/s473zm Q: What keeps you excited and motivated to help Tazama’s mission? A: “Excited” absolutely describes how I feel about Tazama. Beyond the fundamental issues Tazama is tackling in combating financial fraud, there are a couple of other big things that drew me to this project, both of which revolve around my love of building collaborative communities. There are a lot of parallels between where Tazama is in its lifecycle and the work I’d previously done here with the telecommunications industry as they evolved from being open source consumers to becoming open source contributors. The second and much larger reason however is that I want to help grow the open source community in Africa and I see the importance of Tazama as being a potential catalyst in that regard. Despite a huge pool of technical talent, the African continent is woefully underrepresented in the realm of open source contribution. I’ve had the privilege of giving presentations to software developers in Kenya and Nigeria and few of them had any awareness that they could actually contribute to an open source project themselves. I want to play a role in changing that perception so that more and more folks can contribute no matter what their situation may be. Q: What are the Project’s most significant accomplishments to date? Anything particular that you find exciting? A: For me the series of meetings regarding the Authorization TMS API and the design principles for Tazama are extremely significant as multiple systems integration companies came together to hammer out a lot of technical details related to the project in a truly collaborative manner. This represents a huge shift in how they have been engaged in the project prior to it coming to the LF. For a community that is effectively in its infancy to have worked so effectively together was a much bigger milestone than I think most participants in the meetings realize. Q: What are you looking forward to most about your role, and what do you hope to accomplish? A: I’ve previously mentioned how helping folks move from being open source consumers to contributors is at the top of my list, however helping our global community work and play well with one another in general is the ultimate goal. There isn’t a set formula to make this happen because every community has its own care-abouts and idiosyncrasies. It takes a combination of experience, instinct and passion to help companies and whole industries navigate through that transition. This is where the LF really excels and I am extremely proud to be a part of making that happen. I’ve already seen some great things from Tazama’s fledgling community and I am expecting many, many more to come.
