Re: Thinking about organizing a special women-oriented event
Hi Marga -- great idea!
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 02:56:49PM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote [edited]:
> 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.
How about a mixture? A few empowering ones (``I did it, so _you_ can too!''),
a few technical introductions, and some advanced (perhaps allocated a bit more
time so that people can interrupt and ask for more elaborate explanations when
necessary).
All three kinds have their purpose and are complementary. Even highly
technical talks that are not fully understood can be inspirational when one
can identify with the speaker.
For the first kind, I think it'd be great to have ``How I became a contributor
in project X'' from several speakers, each one breaking down a different kind
of stereotype and/or representing a different kind of contribution.
Finally, IMO at least as important as the talks is the opportunity to meet
friendly committers that are offering to sponsor/mentor newcomers.
Cheers,
Serafeim
ps. I assume you're familiar with Christian Perrier's excellent (except for
the silly title) ``Contributing to Debian for dummies''
--
debtags-organised WNPP bugs: http://members.hellug.gr/serzan/wnpp
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