Expanding Diversity efforts

[Ruchika]

After IndiaFOSS 2024, one of our primary focuses is on expanding our diversity initiatives and working on increasing diverse participation in all of our initiatives be it FOSS Clubs, Meetups, CityFOSS Conferences, IndiaFOSS, and FOSShack. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment that brings together participants from all over India, with special attention to underrepresented communities. Below is an overview of our diversity planning for the upcoming year.

1. New initiatives

   Our goal is to increase overall participation from regions where FOSS is less well-known, such as the North, East, and Western parts of India compared to the South.

   We are looking to partner with organisations that have a presence in the pan-India region. For instance, NavGurukul operates in over 10 cities across the country, and we are exploring collaborations to conduct workshops, meetups, and in-person events that introduce women and other underrepresented groups to FOSS. Through these efforts, we hope to inspire participants to become future speakers, contributors, and leaders in the FOSS space. Similarly, we are partnering with the JTD Foundation too.

   Another key initiative we are exploring is starting FOSS clubs in women-only colleges. This will provide a dedicated platform for women to learn, collaborate, and share their FOSS related experiences, empowering them to take on larger roles in the community. In addition, we are considering hosting hackathons specifically for women, though this is still in the planning stage. We want to ensure that we are capable of executing this idea effectively before moving forward.

2. Diversity Scholarship plans for IndiaFOSS 2025

   Building on the success and lessons learned from this year, we have ambitious plans to enhance the Diversity Scholarship for IndiaFOSS 2025. We faced some budget limitations this year, which affected our ability to fully support all scholars. Our top priority for the next edition is to significantly increase the scholarship fund tier to ensure that every selected scholar receives comprehensive support for travel, accommodation, and conference participation.

   Our scholarship program will continue to focus on supporting individuals from diverse backgrounds, with an emphasis on those from tier 2 and tier 3 cities, women, and individuals with a passion for FOSS, hardware, public policy, science, design, and technology. We believe that IndiaFOSS can provide a unique opportunity for these individuals to gain new knowledge, network with experts, and contribute to the FOSS community in a meaningful way.

   In the coming year, we also plan to work closely with our partners and sponsors to raise additional funds and resources for the scholarship. By securing more support, we hope to increase the number of scholars we can accommodate, ensuring that the IndiaFOSS experience is accessible to a larger and more diverse group of participants.

   We would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how we can bring these initiatives to life. If you can help us connect with women-only colleges or have ideas for fostering diversity, please feel free to share your feedback.

[Planning] IndiaFOSS 2024
Diversity Scholarship Report

[Shree_Kumar]

This is great. I think expanding these efforts is a good idea. Quite happy to see such an early start to this ! I am excited for what the Diversity Scholarship for 2025 will look like. Comprehensive support is a good thing to shoot for.

Are we sourcing any of the diversity scholarships from the FOSS Clubs ? I recommend we do at-least some through that route. FOSS Clubs are expanding well, and here we can even do some “devolution” - in a first iteration that could mean set some guidelines, and let the chapters come up with good candidates. That gives them a greater sense of purpose, autonomy and responsibility, thus builds institutional capacity. I am not saying we go all in at once - if we can, say source anywhere between 10-25% of the scholars from the FOSS Clubs that would be a good thing. This gets in diversity of thought as well for free, and ensures we are better connected with the community. Rest can come from partner organizations.

I am 100% on board w.r.t regional diversity. In fact in one of the community calls I went so far as to suggest a special North East “focus”. Funds for that are available already, as far as I can see

[mangesh_x0]

How do you (we in the past) process applications ? Usually by reading a very very vague and most of the times GPT generated (which is always rejected) application which consists of a description about why they want to attend IndiaFOSS or any X event. As you are planning to start early this year, I would also suggest you to also take some time out to go on a call with those potential applicants to understand whether they really want to learn, and do some work after going from the conference. Because, at the end of the day its important to understand and measure how much would they be able to bring back into the community (code-wise or any other form). I might sound very much of a pessimist but that’s all about it.

Sharing this from my previous experience of reviewing diversity applications with Ansh in 2023 edition.

[ansh]

Most of the diversity scholars for IndiaFOSS 2024 went through screening calls for the team to understand their background and what they were expecting from the conference.

I might sound very much of a pessimist but that’s all about it.

Please consider volunteering for the initiative

Because, at the end of the day its important to understand and measure how much would they be able to bring back into the community

That is not the point of the program. We do not expect scholars to bring anything back to the community. The aim of the initiative is to help people from diverse backgrounds access these events which can help them personally and professionally. Anything the scholars contribute back later (by means of volunteering,speaking at events etc.) is great but not a selection criteria - like it has been with GCPP scholarships, project grants etc.