Re: Grant proposal around women in college and open source
In message <[🔎] 42A7DA7D.6010105@yahoo.co.uk> you wrote:
> Barton C Massey wrote:
> > Specifically, I'm thinking we would like Debian Women to
> > * Cross-link our portal sites a bit.
> > * Help us find qualified, caring folks to mentor
> > women on open source issues, to the extent that
> > they are willing to do so.
> > * Advise us and help us to guide our interactions with the
> > community of women in open source. In particular, help
> > us to spend grant monies wisely.
> > * Anything else you can think of that we should have
> > thought of :-). We want the proposal to be as useful
> > as possible, so ideas are highly welcome.
>
> I think all of these are things that we can potentially do
> for you, since we are doing most of them already, with the
> exception of anything to do with money :) But I think that
> you are missing a really important thing, probably the
> most important. Maybe you are planning to provide this
> one anyway in your project, but I reckon that we can help
> with the starting stages anyway. What we can do for you
> is provide a (by now fairly well established) community
> for suitably interested women to become a part of as they
> pursue their interest in open-source software and Debian
> in particular. With all that this entails about support
> and information and having a safe and welcoming
> environment for people to find their feet in. Personally,
> I think that is the most important single thing that the
> Debian Women project is doing at the moment.
Thank you for articulating exactly what I was hoping for,
and didn't find the right words to say :-). Yes, this is
a very clear statement of what we want. We believe that
the route to a computer science degree is a tough one, and
that having a supportive community of technically-inclined
peers is a key factor in success. We hope that open source
will provide that community for some women, in the form of
your organization (and potentially others like it).
> > I don't see this as a major problem. As long as a few
> > representatives could step forward and indicate that they
> > support the proposal, I think that's all NSF could
> > reasonably ask for in any case.
>
> I am inclined to think that we can do this. Does anyone
> see any potential problems?
>
> I am personally willing to sign your "memorandum of
> understanding", with the qualification that I'll be out of
> touch travelling from Saturday morning, Australia time.
> I've spoken to Hanna Wallach on IRC about it and she is
> also enthusiastic about your proposal and happy to be
> involved in working out a statement and signing it.
This sound great! I'm looking forward to working with you
folks.
I will get a draft statement posted tomorrow. Once we have
something we agree on, a scanned or faxed signed should
be sufficient to make the NSF happy. Again and as always,
thanks very much!
Bart Massey
bart@cs.pdx.edu
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