Thinking about organizing a special women-oriented event
Hi!
This is not exactly related to Debian, but it came up while talking to
another girl about Debian Women. I've been thinking about this for a
few days, and I'd like to receive comments or opinions from people
here. Feel free to give me your opinion on any of the subjects below.
I'm thinking of organizing a local (i.e. in Argentina) Free Software
event, where all the speakers are women, and somehow try to advertise
this event so that it's clear that it's specially oriented towards
women, but obviously men will also be welcome at the event. Before
you ask (this has been the most FAQ), yes, there are enough women in
the region to hold such event.
One of the conflicts that first came up when thinking about this
event, is the name. Any descriptive names like "Women and Free
Software" sound boring and not something that would bring too many
people. Other "fun" names like "/bin/chicas" (chicas ~ chix) might
not be too good to describe it either. So, what I've thought up to
now (I'm still open for better suggestions) is to hold this event in
the frame of the Ada Lovelace Day, which would take care of the name,
and -I think- would also scare some trolls away. But unfortunately
does not convey the "Free" software idea.
Another conflict that came to my mind was about the content. At the
first moment, I had though it'd be nice to have a very tech oriented
event, with very high levels in the contents of the talks, to show
that women are as capable as men on delivering good technical content.
But then, after thinking more about it, I came to realize that if we
want to reach out to women that aren't yet involved in Free Software,
we might need to include some introductory talks as well, and thus I'm
not certain any more of what kind of event it would be.
And finally, I've been thinking about getting sponsors for the event,
since it'd be nice to be able to pay the travel costs for women that
live in different cities, but then I came to realize that this event
might not be as appealing to common sponsors as the normal Free
Software events, and thus I wonder how I should approach them, or if I
should try to approach different sponsors than the common Free
Software ones.
Well that's it, I'd be delighted to hear your opinions about all this.
--
Besos,
Marga
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