[Draft] FOSS United 2025 Strategy

Organisation
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2025 Diversity Strategy

At FOSS United, we have been working on improving diversity in the community, and while we’re happy with the foundation we put in 2024, we know that there’s a lot more to do. Our approach this year is simple, instead of creating new tasks, we want to refine and strengthen the strategies we’ve already started. These efforts are still evolving, but we believe that by sharing them openly, we can inspire more people to contribute and help us grow.

Often, we quietly work on solving problems like diversity within the community. But unless we put our efforts out there, people who care about these issues won’t know how to engage or contribute. By sharing this strategy and progress, we hope to reach more individuals who want to help or become part of the solution. If we are to become a platform that truly supports diversity, we need the community’s support and participation.

Here’s what we are focusing on for 2025:

  1. We’ve seen growing interest from individuals who want to give talks at FOSS Clubs and City Chapters. Our priority is to make this process seamless. For a speaker willing to travel and speak, we will provide support so they can focus on sharing knowledge without worrying about logistics. We aim to build an environment where speakers feel valued and encouraged to participate.

  2. Building diversity is not a one time effort. It requires continuous engagement. We will regularly connect with FOSS Clubs and City Chapter teams to:

  • Having a diverse member team and assigning meaningful tasks to team members to help them feel a sense of ownership and belonging.
  • Encourage them to actively invite and engage a more diverse audience for their events.
  • Focus on improving the diversity of participants at all events be it workshops, talks, hackathons, or events other than FOSS United one’s.
  1. When attending events, we often notice that many people, whether beginners or experienced professionals are unaware of what FOSS is. This lack of awareness limits participation in the community. To address this, we will:
  • Attend tech events outside the FOSS community to talk about FOSS and FOSS United.
  • Spread awareness about how people can get involved.
    Build bridges with other communities to bring new people into the FOSS ecosystem.
  1. We often get approached by college students and teachers to start FOSS Clubs in their colleges. While we want to support this, we need to do it thoughtfully. Our approach will involve:
  • Identifying good speakers for these clubs and running pilot programs to see outcomes, especially around diversity.
  • Encouraging colleges to focus on bringing in diverse participants from the start.

These strategies are about improving what we already do and ensuring we stay true to our goal of growing a diverse and inclusive FOSS community.

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