On behalf of OpenHatch, I want to congratulate the Ada Initiative on completing its Seed 100 funding campaign six days before the deadline.

If you haven’t heard of the Ada Initiative, you should take a moment to explore their site. They explain:

The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture, which includes open source software, Wikipedia and other open data, and open social media.

The outpouring of support all over the web for the Ada Initiative’s goals shows the enthusiasm in our community for inclusion and diversity. Co-founders Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner know that addressing bias and sexism issues will require focused time and attention, and we are all lucky that Valerie has the passion and vision to be the organization’s first full-time staffer.

As an organization dedicated to growing the free software community, we are thrilled to see this issue of gender diversity in FOSS being recognized. We will be continuing our own outreach events such as the Boston Python Workshop. It would be a tremendous honor if the Initiative were to invite us to work together in its upcoming efforts.