Speakers
Description
Outreachy, a diversity initiative that provides paid, remote internships to people subject to systemic bias and under representation in the technology industry where they live, has been running for over ten years in its current formation! While the free software community has had to make conferences like GUADEC and other activities remote during the pandemic, Outreachy's remote nature positioned it to expand to provide opportunities to people who need them most during this difficult time. This talk will share the origins of the program and how it has changed. We'll look at what's happened with the program over the years and feature our lessons learned.
Author(s) Bio
Karen M. Sandler is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, which is the nonprofit home of many free software projects. She is known as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for free software as a life-or-death issue, particularly in relation to the software on medical devices. Prior to joining Conservancy, she was the executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was the general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. Karen co-organizes Outreachy, the award-winning outreach program that provides paid, remote internships to people subject to systemic bias and underrepresentation in the technology industry where they live. Karen is an adjunct Lecturer-In-Law at Columbia Law School.
Marina Zhurakhinskaya is a Senior Program Manager for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Red Hat. She co-organizes Outreachy, a mentorship and internships program that helps people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software get involved. About 780 people have so far participated in the program's paid remote internships. She created Red Hat’s diversity scholarships for DevConf.US and DevConf.CZ conferences, which have supported 45 scholarship recipients so far. Prior to her diversity outreach role, Marina worked on community engagement and on software development for GNOME. She served as a board member at the GNOME Foundation and at the Ada Initiative. Marina is a recipient of a Silver Stevie award in the "Women Helping Women" category, an O'Reilly Open Source Award, and a GNOME Foundation Contributor of the Year Award "the Pants."
