How the Ada Initiative is Encouraging Diversity in the Open Source Community

Mike Perez is a Senior Developer at Datera and a core developer on the OpenStack Block storage project Cinder. Before joining Datera, he worked on Openstack at DreamHost. Since attending the Bexar design summit and being a contributor in 2010, he has been hooked and lacks a life. You can follow him on Twitter.

On the morning of October 6, 2014, the OpenStack community was challenged to join the Ada Initiative to help raise $10,000 to promote diversity in the open source community. Sage Weil and I would together match that goal. The $10K mark was quickly hit at noon that same day, which prompted another goal: $16,000 with a matching. With only a few days left in the challenge, the OpenStack community came together to show their support in gender diversity within open source communities and the goal was met.

The Ada Initiative helps communities understand the culture that needs to exist in order to successfully achieve diversity. It has reached over two million people since it was founded in January 2011.

While women make up about 30% of the software developer community, they account for less than 10% of the open source community.

The funds raised in this campaign will allow the Ada Initiative to continue their work, which includes getting open source conferences to adopt codes of conduct to help women and other marginalized groups likely to attend. They also run the AdaCamp with the goal of increasing women’s participation in open technology and culture, and the Ally Skills Workshop which teaches men ways to support women both in their workplaces and communities. If you missed the campaign, you can still donate to the Ada Initiative today!

We’re an open source community that is open to all. Building an open source cloud project is complex, and we need all the help we can get. It should be common sense that having a diverse community will bring about great solutions to our current problems. Seeing the community come together on this issue, as demonstrated by this campaign, is a great reminder to current and new members on where we as a community stand on this issue, especially as we approach the OpenStack Summit in Paris next month. Any exclusivity or harassment of any kind will not be tolerated.

OpenStack has also been part of the Gnome Outreach Program for Women since 2012. Today we’re continuing our participation in the program thanks to our mentors who contribute their knowledge and experience to help give our interns a successful experience in our community that is open to all. If you want to be a mentor you can sign up now. Interns should apply by October, 22, 2014 to participate in the internship that spans from December 9, 2014 to March 9, 2014. We will present the results of the internships at the Spring 2015 OpenStack summit.

Also Read: