A little over four years ago, my good friend Mary Gardiner and I co-founded the Ada Initiative to support women in open technology and culture. Today, thousands of conferences have anti-harassment policies, dozens of communities have codes of conduct, over 2000 people have taken the Ally Skills Workshop (and 40 people know how to teachContinue reading “The Ada Initiative is ending, but our work continues on”
Tag Archives: ada initiative
Thanking things for their service
Personal organizer Marie Kondo has some unique organizing advice, as summarized by Penelope Green for the New York Times: “Discard everything that does not ‘spark joy,’ after thanking the objects that are getting the heave-ho for their service.” One of the symptoms of hoarding disorder is a stronger than usual emotional attachment to inanimate objects,Continue reading “Thanking things for their service”
Operating systems war story: How feminism helped me solve one of file systems’ oldest conundrums
Hi, my name is Valerie Aurora, and I am the inventor of a software feature that has prevented billions of unnecessary writes to hard drives, saving energy and making our computers faster. My invention is called “relative atime,” and this is the story of how my feminist approach to computing helped me invent it –Continue reading “Operating systems war story: How feminism helped me solve one of file systems’ oldest conundrums”
2013: Tipping point for the Linux kernel community?
As the last days of the Ada Initiative fundraising drive come to a close ($103,000 so far!), I’m reflecting on what’s changed for Linux in the last 2 and half years. And it’s pretty awesome. This is the year I’ve been waiting for in the Linux kernel community: the year that 7 new women areContinue reading “2013: Tipping point for the Linux kernel community?”
Coding is a human right
Today I was walking down the street, thinking about how barbaric it was that many women were forbidden to learn to read and write in the 19th century in England (some people felt that illiterate women made better wives). Then it struck me: Preventing women from learning to code is the moral equivalent of preventingContinue reading “Coding is a human right”
Ada Lovelace Day party in San Francisco
Ada Lovelace Day is coming up next Tuesday, October 16th, and so the Ada Initiative is throwing a party in downtown San Francisco. Details at the link, but I wanted to post here so I could make a personal comment: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the first Ada Initiative event in SanContinue reading “Ada Lovelace Day party in San Francisco”
A personal appeal for support from Valerie Aurora, executive director of the Ada Initiative
This post originally appeared on the Geek Feminism blog and is reposted here for posterity. I’m writing to ask you to donate to the Ada Initiative. A year ago, a friend of mine was groped at an open source conference. Again. I’ve personally been groped twice at conferences myself. But what shocked me most wasContinue reading “A personal appeal for support from Valerie Aurora, executive director of the Ada Initiative”
Example conference anti-harassment policy turns one year old
November 29 was the one year anniversary of the publication of the example conference anti-harassment policy! One year later, over 30 conferences have adopted an anti-harassment policy of one kind or another.
Ada Initiative seed funding round successful
The Ada Initiative’s seed funding round closed successfully – a week early! Thank you to all of our donors. I won’t go into detail here, except to say that it was utterly exhausting (especially with attending two conferences during the round) and I’m looking forward to spending more time on designing and implementing our programs.Continue reading “Ada Initiative seed funding round successful”
Investing some social capital
Over the years, I’ve tried to be an interesting person, on my web page, my blog, in person (less successfully), and so on, in part so that when I had something important to say, somebody would be listening. I have something important to say. I co-founded the Ada Initiative because I care deeply about socialContinue reading “Investing some social capital”
