Profile: Developer Relations Guru Vanshika Srivastava

by Jennifer Cloer

“The hardest part in tech has been being a woman,” says Dubai-based tech evangelist Vanshika Srivastava.

Vanshika serves as a developer evangelist on the DevNetwork Advisory Board and works with developer communities across Web3 and open source. Her work prioritizes diversity and inclusion in these communities.

“Diversity and inclusion is the main reason I got into open source. Because I never had a technical degree, the only way out was to build and contribute to actual projects. The first project I explored in open source was under the Cloud Native ecosystem, which happens to be an amazing community for people who love open source technologies. Non-code contributions were and are as important as code contributions, and that's how I began my journey in the space.”

Vanshika Srivastava

While open source can provide an on-ramp for anyone interested in software development, it has also been scrutinized for the culture that exists on mailing lists and at conferences. Vanshika is working to change that. 

“I started talking to more women in the space, mentored and provided counseling and even facilitated a couple of opportunities. As women, we need to educate, empower, improvise, connect, counsel and bring more opportunities. We have a long way to go, and whenever there is a possibility to help, I respectfully take that conversation up.”

Vanshika is self-taught and started exploring computer science as a teenager.  Today she’s working in one of the most exciting areas of technology development - Web3. 

“Currently, I work with Biconomy and other DAO-based communities (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) to foster education around L2s and EVM-based technology. I’m also working on open source projects, like BoxyHQ that revolve around DevSecOps and building enterprise readiness features for SaaS.”

It's the ‘knowledge-based communities’ aspect that attracted Vanshika to Web3, she told us. It’s the way developers have the power to allow customers and members to have a real stake in the work and the incentives are set up for a harmonious culture. 

“Web3 is going to boom,” she says. “If done in the right way, there are a lot of opportunities for people and products to grow and do amazing things. The idea is, how much functionality can be added on top of Web2 products and create better user experiences and bring more usability and authority for the people.”