ChefConf 2015 was awesome for so many reasons, including our first ever Diversity Scholarship program, designed to give those underrepresented in the Chef Community an opportunity to take part in the conference with free passes.
Kavita Sachdeva was one of our scholarship recipients and she’s already gotten involved in the Chef Community in a major way. A former biochemistry major at the University of Wisconsin, Kavita discovered the joy of programming while working the university’s IT help desk, relishing each new challenge and learning opportunity.
“I started training folks on simple administrative tasks, then just grew from there. I was more excited about work than school and that’s when it really clicked for me that programming software was what I wanted to do.”
Already deep into her biochemistry education, Kavita switched gears completely and pursued her passion for coding, attending RubyConf in Madison, WI, where she met Nell Shamrell-Harrington – a fellow coding enthusiast who encouraged Kavita’s journey.
Over the course of the next two years Kavita completed a coding program in Denver, CO, and then looked toward Seattle as an ideal place to break into a programming career.
“I have family near Seattle and had heard much about the great tech community, which were both motivations for me to make the move. Then by wonderful coincidence, I found out Nell was there too!”
Fast-forward to this year’s ChefConf, where Kavita immersed herself in our community.
“Everyone was so welcoming. It was easy to ask questions and get answers. I met so many friendly people. It really encouraged me to dig in.”
And dig in she did. Having heard Nell and others talk about Supermarket, specifically the challenge of finding cookbooks eligible for adoption, Kavita set about solving the problem. As Nell described it:
“There was no way to search for and create a list of cookbooks up for adoption. You could find them mistakenly or as part of other searches, but if your goal was a view of adoptable cookbooks, it just didn’t exist. Kavita made it happen.”
Kavita created and contributed a new feature to Supermarket, which is now live and enables visitors to search a list of adoptable cookbooks, including skype5, rails, and capistrano.
So if you’re looking to adopt a cookbook, or trying to get one adopted, Kavita’s contribution now has you covered. Pretty rad for a programmer who until two years ago was knee-deep in biochemistry and had never coded before.
Oh, and for all you looking for a dynamite Chef to join your team, Kavita is currently on the look out for the next awesome opportunity. You can find her here.
“During ChefConf, I was able to attend the Fundamentals of Chef workshop and am already looking into more projects where I can put my knowledge of Chef to work!”