more girls – creating a community of diversity

1

More Girls
Creating a Community
of Diversity

[email protected]/8/4

More Girls Creating a Community of Diversity is created by imacat (Yang Shih-Ching),and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

imacat

A member of Women in Free and Open Source Software in Taiwan

A member of PyLadies Taiwan

A graduate student from National Taiwan Normal University

The Opening Story

I submitted 2 talks in COSCUP 2013,and received 2 VIP tickets.

But giving the COSCUP VIP ticket awayis a painful experience for meevery year.

I would like everyone in WoFOSS to come,but I have only one VIP ticket each year.

This year I have 2 VIP tickets,but that does not help at all.

There are several peoplethat tried and failedto get the COSCUP ticket.

I found that A is one of them, too.She works very hard now and then,and she helps WoFOSS a lot.

So I contacted A,and gave her one of my VIP tickets.

But she is very shy.She did not want to get it for free.

So I said:Well, then you can treat it like a bet.

I know she worked hardfor her master degree, too.But she was distracted seriouslyby her day work.

I said:You can treat it like a bet.The COSCUP personal sponsorship ticketcosts NTD 5,000.You can treat it like a bet of NTD 5,000.

If you successfully graduate in this year,you win.You won this COSCUP ticket by yourself.

On the other way,if you fail to graduate in this year, you lose.You have to repay me NTD 5,000.This would become the fundto sponsor another attendant next year.

This was the beginning.

I found that this idea really cool:To sponsor a dream.

So, the next day, I posted it to boththe WoFOSS and PyLadies Taiwanmailing lists.

I have one spare VIP ticket.Everyone is free to take itas long as you place a beton your personal goal of the year.If you accomplish your goalin this year, you won this ticket.If you fail your goal, you lose.You have to repay me NTD 5,000to sponsor another attendant next year.

That is cool, isnt it?To sponsor a dream.I soon receive another VIP ticketfrom Pockey Lam in Beijing,to sponsor another attendant.

In the end we have sponsoredthree attendants.Three dreams.

The first one is A, from WoFOSS.A wants to get her master degreein this year.

The second one is B, from WoFOSS, too.B is a front-end designer and lecturer.She wanted to learn RWD for several years.She placed a bet to learn RWD in this year.

The third one is C, from PyLadies Taiwan.But C requested to keep her goal secret.

This is exciting!Not only because we sponsored three dreams,but also,because of this sponsoring project

1. We discover three touching storiesfrom three amazing girls.

2. We ignited the fire in their heartsand they start to move forward.

We created the participation.And through the process ofparticipation creation,we created the meanings.for them, and for ourselves.

Isnt it cool?

Although there are stillproblems to be solvedin this sponsoring project,but we still look forward to the next year.

If you also think this project meaningful,if you think sponsoring girlsto participate in COSCUP is cool,please join us!We are collecting spare VIP ticketsto sponsor more girls and more dreamsinside and outside WoFOSS/PyLadies Taiwan.

Meaningful Participation

When we talk about participation,it does not simply mean being here.

Otherwise, we could have hire many show girlsand say,Hey, we have a lot of girls!

No.That is NOT what we mean by participation.

By participation,We actually meanactive, meaningful participation.

By Participation We Mean

Attending to and learning from the sessions



Giving talks and sharing ideas as speakers




Joining the discussion





Writing codes





Writing codes

Contributing





Writing codes

Contributing

And more


Creating meaningsin this context, here (conference)

So ask yourself

So ask yourself

Why do you want more girls to be here?

So ask yourself


What is the difference to being a show girl?

So ask yourself


What is the difference to being a show girl?

Why are you here?

And thats what we do here.

We

Sponsor more girls to attend to and learn from the sessions.

We


Create agenda for girls to give talks and share ideas as speakers.

We



Organize girls to take over OSS projects.

We



Organize girls to take over OSS projects.

And many more

But, for the same reason to create meanings,we do not

We do not

Run matching activities.

We do not

Run matching activities.

Play the role as show girls at the front desk.

Please do not ask usfor these activities anymore.We are not here,in COSCUP and all other community events,for that.

Instead,please help the girls around youto participate meaningfullyin COSCUP and all the community events.

A Side Story

It started from here

FJU CSIE Beauties 2013

I cannot help but wondering

I Cannot Help But
Wondering

Why do they hold this activity?

I Cannot Help But
Wondering


What is the message they are delivering?

I Cannot Help But
Wondering



What is the meaning they are creating?

I Cannot Help But
Wondering



What is the meaning they are creating?

What do they want the girls that are interested in computer science to read from this activity?

Do they sending a message to girlsinterested in computer sciencethat computer science is for girls to sell their busts and butts?

Or do they really welcome the girlsto meaningfully study and participatein computer science?

Some Future Plans

Having more girls in WoFOSSis not enough.

Having more girls in WoFOSSbrings us power and makes us strong.But we want to encourage more girlsin the whole FOSS community,not just in WoFOSS.

This May,with the help from the PyCon Taiwan staff,although I was busy on my master thesis,we still started PyLadies Taiwan.

PyLadies Taiwan

Because I was busy on my master thesis,we does not have any meeting yet.(Maybe we will start in this August.)

Eleven girls.It is weak,but is still a good start.

PyLadies Taiwan is the second female FOSS community in Taiwan,and the first female FOSS communityoutside of WoFOSS in Taiwan.

And PyLadies Taiwan is just a start.

I would like to walk outside of WoFOSS,to reach more girls,to encourage more girlsnot only in WoFOSS,but in every FOSS community.

PyLadies TaiwanRubyGirls TaiwanDebian Women Taiwan

Gather and encourage more girlsin every community,not just in WoFOSS.

Thats why we need your help.We need help from every communitythat would like to encourage more girlswith meaningful participation.

If you want to encourage more girlswith meaningful participationin your community,come join our force!

More Than GirlsCreating a Community of Diversity

Is there any

Is there any

Aboriginal people?

Is there any

Aboriginal people?

Physically challenged people?

Is there any

Aboriginal people?


Foreigners living in Taiwan?

Is there any

Aboriginal people?


Foreigners living in Taiwan?

Foreign workers or spouses?

Youll be surprised how concentratedthe attributes of the attendants are.

A healthy community needs toinclude different voicesfrom different genders, sex orientation,races, religions, etc.

We still need to be more friendlyto different kind of life styles,genders, races, thoughts, etc.And to the difference itself.

The issue of diversity came to mewhen I was in German last year.

I tried to organize Apache Women BoFin ApacheCon EU 2012.When the conference organizerSteve Holden heard about this,he asked to help.

Steve tried to explainwhy Apache Women ceased for years,he said,Simply because nobody starts it.

He then explained thathe received sensitivity training before,and he tried to bringthe lessens in the sensitivity traininginto the Python Foundation,and how other people got used to it.

I was wondering,why isnt there any sensitivity training courseshere in Taiwan?

Then I rememberonce I received a private messagefrom the OpenOffice forum.

He was an OpenOffice.org user for years.Now OpenOffice.org was renamed toApache OpenOffice,He cannot recommend itto his aboriginal friends anymore,because Apache is a holy symbolin their culture.

How do you think about it?

I answered,I somewhat understand.But we are sponsored by ASF now.(Hence the name Apache.)And Apache is an ASF registered trademark.If you want to resolve this issue,You have to talk to ASF legal team.Sorry that I cant help.

I may not be able to understandthe holiness of the name Apache,but their feelings are still true.I can still pay respect to their feelings.

Pay respect to thingsthat you may not understand:Gender, culture, religion, race, etc.

And we will have a communitythat is more friendly and welcomingto everyone.

Thank you.Any questions?

more girls – creating a community of diversity

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