The minutes of the first meeting to promote FOSS among women in India held on Monday 29 April 2013 at channel #wfs-india at irc.freenode.net is as follows –
We created a community at http://wfs-india.dreamwidth.org/. Please join if you are interested.
Regarding creating a new group for the cause, we noted that although there exist quite a few eg linuxchix, ubuntu women etc, some of the participants pointed out that – “one single non domain specific group sounds a better idea”, “would it not benefit if there is a group which is not confined to any specific agenda, such as linux or ubuntu”
We decided to hold promotional events in schools/colleges and for working women. We need to collaborate with other groups to organize such events.
We can have install fests, show videos, interview clips, share information about the culture in FOSS, the philosophy behind it and of course how it can help someone if she contributes to it.
A lot of interesting ideas came up –
– hosting hacker schools, organize hackathons, conferences
– having weekly gatherings and hacker spaces
– creating e-books, articles, art-works, graphic novels to attract more people and especially women into FOSS.
Such online efforts would help those women who can not come to events.
– creating a magazine covering successful women contributors in India – since there’s lack of role models in India.
The next agenda may include –
– how to organise events?
– how to get money?
– how to get volunteers?
– content of the event
We will be having our next meeting pretty soon. Please keep an eye on the link shared above.
My foray into programming! 