Ada Initiative

The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase women's participation in the free culture movement, open source technology and open culture. The organization was founded in 2011 by Linux kernel developer and open source advocate Valerie Aurora and open source developer and advocate Mary Gardiner (the founder of AussieChix, the largest organization for women in open source in Australia^[1]). It is named for Ada Lovelace, the "world's first computer programmer," in honor of whom the Ada programming language is named.^[2]

History

Ada Lovelace, a woodcut graphic by Colin Adams based on the original watercolor by Alfred Edward Chalon

Valerie Aurora, already an activist for women in open source, joined Mary Gardiner and members of Geek Feminism to develop anti-harassment policies for conferences^[2][3] after Noirin Shirley was sexually assaulted at ApacheCon 2010.^[2] Aurora quit her job as a Linux kernel developer at Red Hat and, with Gardiner, founded the Ada Initiative in February 2011.^[4]

Administration

All services provided by the Ada Initiative are pro bono, and the organization is supported by member donations. In the summer of 2011, the Ada Initiative launched a campaign to raise start-up funds with a goal of contributions from 100 funders. The campaign wrapped up six days before its planned deadline. The organization's first major sponsor was Linux Australia,^[5] who provided support alongside Puppet Labs, DreamHost, The Mail Archive and Google.^[6] Aurora and Gardiner are the only staff members, serving full-time roles in the organization.^[3]

Board and advisory board

The Ada Initiative is governed by a six-person board of directors, who oversee its management. The current board includes both Aurora and Gardiner, Rachel Chalmers of Ignition Partners,^[7] Denise Paolucci of Dreamwidth Studios, Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Caroline Simard.^[8][9] An advisory board of 22 members provides input about ideas and projects.^[10]

Initiatives

One of the Ada Initiative's first programs was developing anti-harassment policies for conferences. The Ada Initiative works with open source conference organizers to create and communicate policies to make conferences safer and more inviting for all attendees, particularly women. Conferences such as Ubuntu Developer Summits and all Linux Foundation events, including LinuxCon, have adopted policies based on the Ada Initiative's work.^[3]

The Ada Initiative is developing policy framework for creating a Women in Open Source Scholarship and programming guides for outreach projects and events. The organization also hosts workshops and training. These workshops and programs consist of Allies Workshops for male and institutional supporters and "First Patch Week" programs, which encourages women's participation in Free and open source software (FOSS) through mentoring. The workshop framework is freely available,^[11] although the Ada Initiative also offers facilitators to conduct the workshops in person.^[12]

By encouraging women's participation in open source culture, the Ada Initiative encourages women to engage in open source professionally and full-time, not just as volunteers. The organization also researches women's roles and experiences in open source, focusing on bringing research up to date; the last survey done of the gender balance in open source was completed in 2006.^[13] Research methodology and a new survey were produced in 2011.^[14] A repeat of the survey will take place at the end of two years, with hopes to provide a standard resource for the industry.^[15] The initial survey invited participants of any gender and inquired about subjects regarding open source and free software, hardware, open mapping, and other related open source areas, as well as free culture such as Creative Commons, online activism, mashup, maker, hacker spaces and related communities.^[14]

The Ada Initiative is the organizer of AdaCamp, an unconference that brings together invited attendees to "build community, discuss issues women have in common across open technology and culture fields, and find ways to address them".^[16] To date, AdaCamp has been held in January 2012 in Melbourne^[17][18] in July 2012 in Washington D.C.^[19] and in June 2013 in San Francisco.

Violet Blue's security presentation

In February 2013, the organizers of the Security B-Sides San Francisco conference canceled speaker Violet Blue's talk, sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits.^[20] due to concerns raised by the Ada Initiative that it contained rape triggers, as well as the Ada Initiative's consideration of the subject as off-topic for a security conference.^[21] The abrupt cancellation provoked intense discussion in the information security industry.^[22] Since the event at B-Sides SF, lead organizer Ian Fung has outlined his account of the interactions between Blue, Aurora, and the Ada Initiative on the B-Sides SF front page, contradicting some of the claims made by both the Ada Initiative and Blue.^[20]

See also

• Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
• Discrimination
• Sexism in the technology industry
• Women in computing

References

External links

• Official website
• Census, March 2011: Demographic breakdown of responses from the Ada Initiative.