[This should be 3-5 pages long, and detail our logistics and game plan]
[This is specifically for funders (corps, orgs, gov)]
[Can we cite research on why not supporting OSS / healthy tech communities is bad?]
[Long-term broader vision for not just InDev but also this space of community building: we believe that this new funding model for geographically focused healthy tech community development is the future of ...]
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Issue #2:
Things we want to add to the infosheet (discussed by Richard, Dann and KV):
- Add reasons for signing up (why status quo is bad). Research here would be nice
- Rejig so admissions and curriculum are at the end, bringing benefits up a bit as a result
- Add reader persona at beginning (who is this doc for)
- Add a section on the experience that students go through (education delivery). Length, style, format, interaction, philosophy. The main goal of the program and how it helps the participants get there. Half to 3/4 of a page of the document, at most.
- Where will InDev be in 3-5 (or 10) years? Quantify in terms of # of alumni, impact on OSS, impact on communities, etc. Since this is an exercise in marketing (pitching) ]
- Add the Ask (need $x of sponsorship) and CTA again to the infosheet (it's in the one-pager) and what they get (tangibles like logo representation).
- Add metrics, once we have a cohort or two.
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We create and sustain healthy, vibrant technological communities in specific geographic regions by turning developers into leaders, promoting local projects, and building connections.
Our primary focus is providing developers with the time and training needed to build successful open source software, which requires growing and maintaining a community of collaborators. These skills translate directly into team leadership in a corporate environment and indirectly into community leadership and thought leadership positions.
Our secondary focus is promoting local software projects, highlighting community members who are contributing, and building connections between regions. Open source software is both the outcome of a healthy technological community and the currency among its members, but fostering a healthy community requires deliberate focused attention on building up leadership and connections. We provide that.
We are launching a pilot project focusing on municipalities in Canada in 2018.
InDevelopment is preparing for a first cohort of six developers, each maintaining a separate OSS project, chosen through our open application process, together in the same physical space for three months, with their cost of living covered for the duration.
The developer space will also host our mentors, facilitators, and teachers, who will guide the developers through the process of building a successful and sustainable OSS project using our OSS Leadership curriculum, and supplement any gaps in their knowledge.
For the first cohorts we are specifically seeking OSS projects with a single primary maintainer who is experiencing difficulty in managing the project, e.g. it needs more development time than the maintainer has available, or requires more promotion and community building, or it has a growing community with accompanying growing pains -- these are all places we can provide a large amount of value in a relatively short time.
The alumni of the first cohort will be involved in the application, selection, and mentoring processes for the next cohort, adding to our organizational strength with each passing quarter.
things like: hourly breakdown, weekly breakdown, ideas around immersion, lightweight metrics, success definition (applicants have pain points on their projects, resolving those is key)
Open source components make up about 80 percent of today’s typical applications. All of this work is work which doesn’t need to be done internally by any company, but which can be used for free for building larger applications.
However, open source work doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s an ecosystem. By helping foster open source communities, open source projects, and open source developers, we strengthen the ecosystem as a whole. Our open source projects are the stronger, for having more features and better maintenance and less bugs; our developers are better in their field and can do their jobs better; and our communities benefit by having more expertise. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Local companies and industry benefit the most from supporting local open source platforms. First and foremost, they are generally limited to local talent for their hiring pool. By enabling programmers to be better and being involved in their projects, they can have the first shot at hiring the best person for their projects. Secondly, they are able to use this support as marketing, telling other developers that they are a company that supports their employees growing and learning first. And finally, they also can retain their developers longer and keep them happier, by affording them the time and space to work on open source passion projects. All of these effects compound each other, leading to a better local community.
The environment, in turn, also benefits. The city can become a tech hub, attracting talent from outside, fuelling financial growth and business. This money then filters down into the local community. The city, region, and country can in turn benefit by bringing in more taxable income, and by losing less developers to other ecosystems (we’re looking at you, San Francisco). By enabling Canadians to stay in Canada, and by being inviting and welcoming to new talent, the entire country can benefit.
<!—— I think this is the same? ——>
We have several tiers for sponsorship:
As a full tier, you sponsor one whole seat for the duration of the program. You would have the ability to send a senior dev to mentor one of the students…
Tiers (silver (1/4 seat), gold (1/2 seat), full (1 seat)) Specific incentives per tier
- for full tier you get to send a senior dev to mentor one of the students (via your point of contact)
- pro rata on sponsoring next cohort
- logo, branding, time capsule, stickers, t-shirts, etc
- Khurram Virani: Founder Lighthouse Labs, DevHub, VelocityJS
- Julie Haché: CTO Bitmaker Labs, head of onboarding at Shopify
- Dann Toliver: Founder PrivacyShell, Gamma Space, Toronto JS
- Abigail Cabunoc Mayes: Mozilla Lead Developer in Open Source Engagement
- Richard Littauer: Founder Maintainer.io
- Developer advisory board: Leo Zovic, Dmitri Sotnikov, James MacAulay
[1/2 page outline of our admissions process]
[1/2 to 1 page outline of our curriculum]