{"id":3504,"date":"2011-12-13T11:30:06","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T19:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/?p=3504"},"modified":"2012-03-26T02:20:58","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T10:20:58","slug":"support-the-ada-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/2011\/12\/13\/support-the-ada-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Support the Ada Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

I support the Ada Initiative<\/a> because biology doesn’t explain<\/a>: why there aren’t more women in computer science, why I don’t have more women colleagues who hack on databases, or why we don’t have more women contributing to open source projects.<\/p>\n

You can support the Ada Initiative, too<\/a>.
\n
\nI wrote a few years ago about how I thought we might best get more women involved<\/a>. Four years later, my tl;dr version is: make friends with women. Imagine if every male developer could name 10 women that they considered friends among their colleagues. People they trusted, hacked with and built new companies with. <\/p>\n

But grassroots efforts alone can’t solve the lack of women’s involvement.<\/p>\n

My story of involvement with open source and computing starts with friends who shared the fun with me in college. They invited me to Marathon parties<\/a>, late night hacking sessions with new processors, pranking coworkers whose system images weren’t quite as secure as they’d advertised…<\/p>\n

I love free and open source culture, IT security culture and all the people that I’ve met over the past 13 years. My life is so incredibly enriched and joyful as a result of the people who share what they learn with me. <\/p>\n

Despite my love, there’s trouble in paradise. We could be better. And one thing I wish for is more women in my open source communities.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I’ve been part of efforts to increase the number of women involved in the projects I’ve founded – Open Source Bridge (more than 50% managed by women, >30% speakers women), Legion of Tech (1\/3 of the original board members were women), and Code-N-Splode (all women’s programming and speaker development group). <\/p>\n

Now, I’m an advisor to the Ada Initiative. I’ve watched over the last year as Mary and Val have worked to focus their mission and identify exactly what they think will encourage women<\/a>. They have to balance their experiences and the resistance to cultural change endemic to businesses, organizations and the loose organizations around open source.<\/p>\n

It’s fucking hard work. And they’re doing a great job<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ada Initiative is the organization I wish would have existed 13 years ago. It’s the voice of experience and a catalyst for change that we need inside our communities. It’s a place for women to go for advice and help when things go right — or when things go wrong. <\/p>\n

So, what can you do? <\/p>\n

The Ada Initiative needs money<\/a>. They need corporate support. They need individual contributions. <\/p>\n

If you, or your company, can contribute and keep the Ada Initiative going for another year, contribute today<\/a>. Mary and Val have done the hard work of getting started. Now they need your help to keep going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I support the Ada Initiative because biology doesn’t explain: why there aren’t more women in computer science, why I don’t have more women colleagues who hack on databases, or why we don’t have more women contributing to open source projects. … Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,23,43,13],"tags":[509,510],"class_list":["post-3504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-open-source","category-personal","category-womenintech","tag-ada-initiative","tag-donate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3504"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3900,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504\/revisions\/3900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesnok.com\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}