[Showme-devel] Fwd: [Debconf-team] Three things to note please

[Kristoffer Rose]

Dear Bernelle,

In terms of feedback, I can say that what has gotten my colleagues inside
Two Sigma excited about sponsoring this is that we can demonstrate that it
is possible in local communities in Africa to do data analysis of locally
available data, and in this way promote global awareness that data analysis
is an important field of study that everyone can pursue. (And the best can
even win a prize!)

For Two Sigma it is an added incentive that we can promote that we
contributed to this being possible by releasing Beaker into open source, so
I would like the project to use Beaker if possible, however, note that Two
Sigma does this by making sure Beaker is *in* debian and thus widely
available, not through a custom install or product giveaway or something.
(So the "Beaker is a product of Kris' company" remark is not really fair.)

Two Sigma is not per se excited about the hardware: that is the means to
make the competition as wide as possible even for people who do not have
equipment (because the cost per participant team can be kept at $50-$80). I
hope that we can persuade Two Sigma to sponsor several hundreds of these
(and that the Cape Town organization will help set up distribution channels
for them). This makes this project rather unique: I do not see any of your
other "hardware sponsorships" being that broad.

Finally, I think you'll need to think a bit harder on how many competitions
involving students you want: I fear that the interest in sponsoring and
providing infrastructure for a competition as broad as we are proposing
will dwindle if you try to position it as "one in several
competitions"...especially because, excuse my directness, the likely
outcome of the others will be a handful of tablets that won't really make a
competition and probably will not really promote debian.

I know it is early and that brainstorming and generalization is fun but do
recognize a special opportunity when you get it: Full funding of ShowMeBox
would involve travel ("give a multi-day data analysis class in January in
Cape Town to the people who will distribute the hardware and teach the
students how to do data analysis with it") as well as the final equipment
("build 300 computers fully installed with debian data analysis pure blend
and some network access mechanism") and distribution ("send out people with
knowledge to spend a half day explaining the equipment at each school"). So
this *needs* local partners, and is quite unlike anything you can solicit
from other sponsors, in my estimation...

Finally, full disclaimer: at this point Two Sigma is funding contributing
Beaker into Debian, but Two Sigma has not yet decided to fund the actual
full competition: that is a proposal I will bring them in October. Please
make it easy for me to say "the DebConf organization is on board" in a way
that does not feel like a vacuous statement (like "we support all our
sponsors!")!

Best regards,
  Kris



On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Bernelle Verster <bernelle at indiebio.co.za>
wrote:

> Hi all
>
> A note from the debconf-team... can you give input on this, and if
> there are concerns (I don't understand enough to know if this is a
> concern or not), we should brainstorm it while this is at an early
> stage.
>
> regards
> B
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> Am 10.09.2015 um 14:59 schrieb Bernelle Verster:
>
> 2. ShowMeBox - outreach project
> The ShowMeBox is an idea hatched by two long time Debian people: Kris
> Rose and Jonas Smedegaard [2]. This is not an orga-related thing, it
> is organised independently, but I want to know if there are any
> concerns or things to take into account. I told Kris we'll have a
> meeting and start planning in earnest in October. [..] [2]
> https://wiki.debian.org/ShowMeBox
>
> Beaker(notebook) is a product by two sigma, Kris' company.
>
> I'd not narrow it down to this product or type of visualization software.
> A more general "call for challenges" (to sponsors) of what cool stuff
> to do with a cubieboard (or other sponsored hardware) looks more open
> and less of a two sigma thing to me.
>
> Other companies could then also post their challenges (FLOSS or even
> Debian based only) and supply (their preferred) hardware in return.
> This way you'd get more diverse exhibits for your Information Art
> Exhibition and can provide the sponsoring opportunity to other
> companies as well.
> E.g. Intel could sponsor NUCs or Edisons and people could do great
> stuff with them based on Debian and other FLOSS to fulfill the
> challenge (e.g. to be allowed to keep the hardware and have the chance
> to win a prize). Or HP could sponsor Slates and ask people to make
> them innovative maths class tools.
> As this is a sponsoring opportunity, I'd consult with Brian and the
> sponsors team how that could fit into the overall perks available and
> whether it means (e.g.) a minimum amount of hardware sponsored or
> travel sponsored for the three top submissions or a financial
> contribution to the overall budget is in order to participate in this.
>
>
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