OpenHatch newsletter, April 2013
“When you appeal to people’s desire to make world better [software freedom] you get a different kind of contribution.” — Karen Sandler
Welcome to OpenHatch newsletter number 9.
OpenHatch ED Asheesh Laroia explains why we do what we do on his personal blog.
OpenHatch will be at Transparency Camp May 4-5 in Washington DC, to help open government-oriented open source projects build stronger communities.
Justin King is eleven years old. He stood on a box to address a room mostly full of kids and parents — the podium was a bit too tall for him. He gave a whirlwind talk describing how anyone can get involved in open source at any age. He personally likes shell scripting and making short animations in Blender. He recommends asking questions, but reminds the young audience to never give out their phone number when contacting people on the internet. He also recommends OpenHatch as a resource for folks who are new to free and open source software.
On Saturday, April 6, our Open Source Comes to Campus For Women in Computing program visited Wellesley College.
On Thursday, April 11, OpenHatch presented at the Wikimedia Tech Meetup about Open Source Comes to Campus.
On Sunday, April 14, Open Source Comes to Campus visited UMass Amherst.
Dana Bauer has an excellent writeup of PyStar Philly, an affiliated event, celebrating five (and counting) Python workshops for women in Philadelphia — 140 graduates!
OpenHatchy but not OpenHatch things around the web
On the OpenHatch events list, Jennifer Mylo:
At WordPress, I’m just starting a new diversity workshop initiative (pilot planning) that is beginning with a focus on women, but is going to hit socioeconomic (with a splash of race) next, by trying to partner with less exclusive colleges as you suggest.
Luke W. Faraone on teaching free/open source to high school students:
The class was broken up into three segments: 1. Lecture on a brief history of open source and the free software movement 2. Small research project on an open source project 3. Lab where students could work through OpenHatch’s training missions
Marina Zhurakhinskaya writes about increasing participation of women in Free and Open Source Software , including the GNOME Foundation’s Outreach Program for Women. Also see video of a presentation by Karen Sandler on the same topics at the Linux Collaboration Summit (source of the quote at the top of the newsletter).
Get involved
This summer, you can help contribute to the OpenHatch web code through a Google-sponsored paid internship program. Check out our ideas page! Thanks to the Python Software Foundation for putting us under their umbrella. Pay attention to the deadlines and get in touch soon!
The photo at the top of this newsletter is of OH Google Summer of Code 2010 alum John Stumpo helping with Open Source Comes to Campus Johns Hopkins University last year. Get involved, stay involved!