Community Call - December 2023

[ansh]

Minutes of the Meeting - Community Call December 2023

Attendees - Vishal, Ansh, Mangesh, Karan, Sai Rahul, Sakhil, Faizan, Irene, Aaron

City Chapter Updates

Monthly meetups and CityFOSS 2024

Chennai

• November meetup went well, good turnout ~80 folks.
• December meetup won’t be conducted because of holidays and volunteers availability
• CityFOSS conference venue is being scouted.

Hyderabad

• Previous meetup was cancelled, upcoming meetup on 16th Nov
• Focus on diversity, atleast one proposal must be from under represented communities for the meetup

Mumbai

• Linux has good traction in the community for CFPs and meetups
• CityFOSS planning is underway, venue hunt ongoing.

Pune

• CityFOSS Proposal is underway
• Designs for PuneFOSS are being prepared
• Venue updates: Looking at corporate and govt venues, we have two colleges as backup venues.

Vishal - The community is encouraged to participate in the forum discussions, it helps us give direction to various decisions that are to be made at FOSS United.

Rahul - For people confused on where should a certain piece of information go

• If it is something that the community would want to remember - Post it on the forum
• If it is a task that requires instant attention and concerns very few people- telegram

Updates on the IndiaFOSS 3.0 and FOSS hack merger ([RFC] Converging IndiaFOSS and FOSS Hack)

Considering the opinion and suggestions given by the community, we have decided to conduct these events separately, maybe with a short gap (of a month or two) in between to reduce overhead. More discussions on the exact plans are to follow.

Industry Partnerships

[Draft] Industry Partnership Deck for 2024-25

But I assume the overall offerings have definitely increased right? Wouldn’t that balance itself. The revamp can bring in new offerings likewise can alter the previous ones too. Logo on partnership page is constant anyway, logo on newsletter can be a step-above another offering. That is doable - but we are also in the process of making city events decentralised too right? The design add-ons and changes would be something the city volunteers do. And if logo add-ons are variable for each cit…

Vishal

• The draft Industry partnership deck for 2024 is now live on the forum for comments from the community
• This is the right time to start reaching out to companies that may be interested. Industry Partnerships provide more value and visibility to the company and it helps us so we don’t have to do multiple rounds for sponsorships of various events.

Rahul

• We should set up a call with folks from Tailcall, and reach out to other previous sponsors and partners.

Ansh

• A major reason we didn’t get a lot of sponsors at IndiaFOSS was even though companies were interested, their marketing budget for 2023 was exhausted by the time we started outreach.
• Pitching partnerships at the start of the fiscal year will hopefully yield better results.

Tech policy

The applications for scholarships for the next batch of the GCPP course by Takshashila foundation are now open.

Technology+Policy course scholarship for FOSS devs

Data and privacy bills, cyber security regulations, increasing digitisation of public services, these aren’t just inevitable, but are already in full swing not just in India, but pretty much everywhere else in the world. The future of internet and technology is going to be highly legislative, if it isn’t already! It’s critical and imperative that developers and technologists with hands on expertise in technical matters are not only aware of the policy aspects of technology, but actively engage …

• Volunteers are required for our upcoming plans with various tech policy initiatives at FOSS United.
  FOSS United's Policy Roadmap (November 2023 to October 2024)

• Vishal will be starting an article series FOSS for bharat,talking about how FOSS can play a huge role in various institutions and programs. Eg. Many GOI initiatives are being built on FOSS to save costs.

As a FOSS community we should start looking into various govt initiatives and suggest them the right pathways and directions using FOSS.

FOSSverse 2023 feedback

With the year coming to an end, we are looking for feedback from the community and your suggestions for the future of FOSS United. Please comment your thoughts in the forum post.

FOSSVerse 2023 Feedback

The year 2023 is near to an end, marking a significant period for FOSS United and its new initiatives. These include the establishment of new City Chapters, FOSS Clubs, FOSS Awards, Diversity Scholarships, the New Platform, and “United by FOSS” and “Voices of Volunteers” Podcasts. This thread is dedicated to sharing your insights on the year 2023 along with FOSS United and its activities through out the year.

ToDo

@ansh , @mangesh_x0

Make a general CFP/RSVP call for people who would like to get regular notifications for every future meetup, instead of them having to check for meetups happening in the city. It will also help us easily reach speakers who may usually miss to submit the CFP for a monthly meetup since the window is very small.

@Ruchika

Try to reach out women who proposed talks at IndiaFOSS to also submit CFPs at monthly meetups.

@wisharya

• Freeze the Industry Partnerships deck once all suggestions have been incorporated
• Set up calls with previous sponsors and Partners