[Soc-coordination] Debian participation into GNOME Outreach Program for Women

Tue Mar 26 17:21:55 UTC 2013

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karen Sandler" <karen at gnome.org>
> To: debian-women at lists.debian.org, "Stefano Zacchiroli" <leader at debian.org>
> Cc: "Marina Zhurakhinskaya" <marinaz at redhat.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 1:06:39 PM
> Subject: Re: Debian participation into GNOME Outreach Program for Women
> 
> On Tue, March 26, 2013 12:00 pm, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> > [ mail followup to: -women, please continue discussion there ]
> >
> > TL;DR: we've been invited to participate into GNOME Outreach
> > Program for
> > Women and I'd like to accept the invitation. To maximize impact,
> > though,
> > we need mentors and topics to complement the current GSoC tasks.
> >
> > ----
> >
> > GNOME Outreach Program for Women (OPW) is a great internship
> > initiative,
> > by GNOME, initially for GNOME internship only, but which has
> > recently
> > been extended to other FOSS projects. If you don't know about it
> > but are
> > interested in this conversation, please have a look at [1], and in
> > particular at [2].
> >
> > [1]: https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen
> > [2]:
> > https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#For_Organizations_and_Companies
> >
> > A couple of days before my trip at LibrePlanet, I've been contacted
> > by
> > Karen Sandler (Cc:-ed, in case I mess up something :-)) for
> > inviting
> 
> Thanks, Stefano! I'm also ccing Marina in case she has anything to
> add.

So excited for Debian to join!

> 
> > Debian to participate in the program. To that end we need (a) some
> > money
> > (entry level is ~5,500 USD for 1 internship), (b) internship
> > topics, and
> > (c) mentors. As one of my last act as DPL I'll be more than happy
> > to
> > approve using Debian money for 1 OPW internship, hoping it will
> > prove
> > successful and that we can expand our participation even further in
> > next
> > years. So we "just" lack b/c :-)
> >
> > At LibrePlanet, I've discussed the matter further with Karen and it
> > turns out that, first, we have a bit more time for the internship
> > topics
> > than the strict timeline suggests: application deadline for interns
> > is
> > May 1st, it'll be enough to have topics/mentors around April 10th.
> > Also,
> > it is quite comment, and welcome, to have some overlap with GSoC
> > that
> > will be ongoing during the same period.
> >
> > We can for instance include GSoC tasks in the pool of OPW
> > internship
> > topics. Of course we should better not accept two students (1 OPW
> > and 1
> > GSoC) for the same tasks. But we can propose to worthy GSoC
> > candidates
> > to do the internship as OPW _instead_, or we can let them do their
> > GSoC
> > and "label" their participation as OPW internship.
> 
> To clarify a bit more: one of the advantages of this round of the OPW
> (it
> happens twice a year) is that it's concurrent with GSoC. Applicants
> can
> apply for tasks to be OPW and GSoC. That way, if someone seems really
> great but they are not accepted for GSoC, we could accept them as
> just an
> OPW participant. Also, it helps Debian get more women applicants (and
> more
> applicants in general, for that matter) for GSoC, since women who
> might
> not know about GSoC or who think that they're not experienced enough
> for
> GSoC can be encouraged to apply for that as well. (This really
> happens.
> Also, mentors who work with the applicants on their initial
> contribution
> can help them strengthen their GSoC application making it more likely
> to
> be accepted). It's nice for GSoC participants to be included as OPW
> participants if they like, since it helps give them the
> infrastructure
> we've developed for OPW.

The way OPW/GSoC project offerings can be done logistically, is to have all the coding projects listed on the GSoC ideas page and point the applicants there. E.g. the way it's done on GNOME's landing page in "Choose a Project" section - https://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram#Choose_a_Project

Then mentors for these ideas can work both with GSoC and OPW applicants. Do ask mentors to point applicants to other ideas if they already have a strong candidate they are working with for a given idea.

> 
> > However, note that an important aspect of OPW is that there is no
> > "code"
> > restriction. So while I think we should *also* propose GSoC tasks
> > as
> > part of it, it would be way more interesting to add non-coding
> > tasks to
> > them, therefore offering a wider range of choices to OPW
> > candidates. But
> > for that, we do need topics and mentors. Could be anything useful
> > to
> > Debian, from coding to artwork, from communication to accounting,
> > from
> > management to packaging, anything that would provide a GSoC-like,
> > but
> > broader in scope, internship experience. And, the most important
> > part,
> > would help in increasing women participation in Debian, something
> > on
> > which we've been working for a very long time. (FWIW, GNOME's
> > experiences on the usefulness of OPW are quite impressive, see
> > LibrePlanet 2013 talk by Marina Zhurakhinskaya.)
> 
> Marina's posted her slides here:
> https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/SpreadTheWord?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Outreach_LibrePlanet_2013.odp
> 
> >
> > I don't feel like piggybacking this extra work, rather last minute,
> > onto
> > the shoulders of the GSoC admins. Ideally, this is something that
> > should
> > be coordinated by someone on -women, in coordination with GSoC
> > admins
> > for dealing with the cases at the crossing of the two initiatives.
> >
> > Anyone up to it?
> 
> Thanks for you all for all of the outreach and mentoring work you do
> for
> Debian and free software generally!
> 
> We're incredibly excited for Debian to join the OPW :)
> karen

To get started as a coordinator or mentor with the program, you can follow the steps here:
https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/Admin/GettingStarted

Thanks,
Marina

> 
> >
> > Even if you're not, but you do have internship topics and mentors
> > to
> > propose, please mention it. It might be good enough to have just a
> > few
> > topics in addition to the GSoC tasks, as long as we have mentors
> > for all
> > of them. In that case I might help with the remaining coordination
> > part
> > myself (but not with mentoring, sorry, I'm already taken for GSoC
> > this
> > year).
> >
> > Thanks for your help,
> > Cheers.
> > --
> > Stefano Zacchiroli  . . . . . . .  zack at upsilon.cc . . . . o . . .
> > o . o
> > Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . .
> > . o o
> > Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . .
> > . o .
> > « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology
> > club »
> >
> 
> 
> 