Collaboration is all about growing and learning together. Everyone has their expertise, and by collaborating, we can share our knowledge and experiences so that other people can learn and grow. In this Blog, I have taken a storytelling approach to connect more with the audience and unleash how collaboration helps me connect with amazing people and find passion like Open Source, building API, and CLI tools. Before we begin with the story, let's first understand collaboration with an example.

Let's talk about an Open Source project. It's a pure collaboration of different minds. Somebody is good at the frontend, some at the backend part, and some are great at designing. When people from different niches come and work together and contribute, that is what makes a project complete.

Now coming to the story and title of the Blog - "How collaboration helped me find my passion."

Last year I stepped into Open Source. I have no idea how it works and what scale the world depends on this. I joined some of the best communities like EddieHub and WeMakeDevs. I started by contributing to community projects and connected with many people by collaborating with them on Pull Request and GitHub Discussions. With those healthy connections, I worked on their personal projects, and every project taught me something new. I learned a ton about technologies and how a production-level project should perform in real-case scenarios by teaming up and collaborating on different projects.

This Open collaboration thing about Open Source makes it so great. There is no barrier. We can connect and work with any person from anywhere in the world. This thing completely changed my mindset and made me passionate about Open Source. As of today, I advocate for it by producing content on Twitter and writing blogs to help and educate hundreds of folks to kick-start their journey in the Open Source world.

This collaboration magic didn't stop here. In February this year. I collaborated with two random people in the Postman API Fest(Hackathon). In that, we have to build a fully functional API from scratch. I was always an API consumer and never worked with Node.js and developed it.

I was working on the documentation of the API. The person working on the backend was very good at building APIs and CLI tools. Throughout the Hackathon, we did lots of pair programming call to collaborate better, and due to this, I got exposed to Node.js and how the brains of API works. I learned a ton from him during this short time. My curiosity about becoming an API developer from a consumer didn't stop there. After the Hackathon, we collaborated on several projects, and now building API and CLI tools are my passion. Some of my ongoing projects.

Where and how to collaborate

Collaboration can happen in any place. It can be via email or with some person you met in an in-person event. But here are some ways you can kick-start your conversation and collaboration.

• GitHub Discussions/Issues
  Discussions are one of the best ways to get involved in any project. We can connect with the maintainer and valuable contributors by participating in ongoing discussions or creating a new one and talking about how we can add value and collaborate on the project.

  

• Online international communities
  Joining international communities is a great way to connect and collaborate with people all over the globe. You will find people from every background and level of experience. Some great communities to join, EddieHub, WeMakeDevs, MLH, etc.

• Hackathons
  Hackathons are solely for collaboration. You connect with different people for a fixed amount of time to come out with a solution. You work with new tech depending on the Hackathon theme.

  To get started with the Hackathon. I will recommend joining the MLH community on Discord and being active on Devpost.

  

• In-person events/conferences
  Connecting people physically and having a one-on-one conversation is on a different level. The quality of collaboration and brainstorming can't happen virtually. Some great conferences like KubeCon and Open Source Summit are conducted by CNCF and Linux Foundation. Also, they provide scholarships and travel funding support.

  

  Collaboration can do wonders and is the best way to grow. Summing up the Blog with the graphics below:

  

"Collaboration First, Code Second" - EddieHub

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