linux.conf.au 2010

linux.conf.au will be held in Wellington, New Zealand from Monday 18 January to Saturday 23 January.

LCA2010 (the conference usually known as “linux.conf.au”, but in New Zealand for 2010) has an initiative to sponsor diverse attendees. Google is sponsoring the LCA2010 Diversity Programme in which Open Source contributors who are members of a minority group, including women, can apply to receive up to NZD1000 towards attendance at LCA2010 in January in New Zealand. Applications for LCA2010 assistance from this program close on Friday 2 October 2009.

They’ve also just announced their programme (I co-chaired the selection committee, but aggravatingly can’t attend due to conflicting commitments re bringing new life into the world, talk about poor timing kid). Women speakers are:

• Angela Byron, Drupal Under the Hood
• Anne Chin, The implications of using FOSS under Australian copyright & contract law
• Claudine Chionh, Unlocking the ivory tower: Free and open source software in collaborative humanities research
• Gabriella Coleman, Tuesday keynote
• Selena Deckelmann, Survey of open source databases
• Liz Henry, Hack Ability: Open Source Assistive Tech
• Emma Jane Hogbin, Self Help Guides for World Domination
• Denise Paolucci, Build Your Own Contributors, One Part At A Time
• Silvia Pfeiffer, HTML5 video: how to process and publish video in an open format
• Sarah Sharp, SuperSpeed me: USB 3.0 for Linux
  

Source: Geek Feminism Blog

Suzanne Grae & The Katies plus Film Premiere of M.C.G.F.C at Headquarters

A nite of b-girl-grade fabulous femcee film, shitcore sleazerock & souvenirs from the end of the world – Melbourne, July 18th.

COME TO THE PREMIERE SCREENING of “M.C. G.F.C.” (4 mins) directed by Anna Helme.

A high-camp allegorical tale about an angel who must use her magical and lyrical talents to help solve the global fashion crisis. Divinely inspired by the Pope of Trash, it features a hot soundtrack by Suzanne Grae and the Katies, and stars various members of the band and other ladies of lame and lycra, including the variously femcee fabulous, gorgeously genderqueer, and bitchingly b-(girl)-grade talents of Arlene Textaqueen, Kelli-Jean Drinkwater, Eva Destruction, Katie G and Regrette.

When I say hip-hop, you say op-shop!

Followed by a performance by Suzanne Grae and the Katies and art happening “Famous Last Words” by Hit and Miss. This event opens “THE END OF THE WORLD SOUVENIR SHOP” exhibition and symposium at Headquarters for the State of Design Festival 2009.

Come early for the film screening at 6.30, followed by a show by Suzanne Grae & The Katies. Stick around for Hit and Miss, and to browse souvenirs from the end of the world exhibition!

Free!!!!!

Date: Saturday, July 18, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: Head Quarters is located behind the red roller door at Rear 55 High St Northcote (Melbourne) behind Lupa store.
Street: 55 High St, Northcote, Australia

TRAIN: Hurstbridge Line – Westgarth station

TRAM: No.86 from Bourke St via Smith St stop no. 27 at Westgarth St.

Ursula K. Le Guin – Powers On.

Scott Timberg’s – LA Times story celebrates the work of  Ursula K. Le Guin.

Excerpt:
“The seminal science fiction writer just won another Nebula award, and her themes about the environment, politics and feminism are still fresh.

(sic)

It’s hard to find a literary career as varied as Le Guin’s. At 79, she’s worked for half a century on the ever-shifting frontier between literary and genre writing, a line she has helped redraw with her elegant prose.

Le Guin has long been celebrated as a pioneer of young adult literature. Just two weeks ago she won a sixth Nebula Award for her YA novel “Powers.” With last year’s death of Arthur C. Clarke, she is also arguably the most acclaimed science fiction writer on the planet. But she’s more.”

“Impostor Syndrome” hampers women’s rise to top of IT tree

A keynote speaker at the Connecting Up conference in Sydney, May 11-12, 2009 will present a case for the “Impostor Syndrome” as a key reason women do not embrace success in IT careers.

Jody Mahoney, Vice President, Business Development, at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology: http://www.anitaborg.org, will discuss the syndrome reported by many successful women that they often feel as if their achievements are a fluke. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_Syndrome

Jody will also explore in another presentation “tools to engage in the dynamic, fun, unpredictable, and always interesting world of raising money on behalf of NGOs”.

The 3rd annual Australian Community Technology Awards will be presented at a gala dinner on Monday May 11.

Tracey Fellows, managing director of Microsoft; Google Australia’s head of engineering, Alan Noble; and Martin Stewart-Weeks, Chair of the Australia Social Innovation Exchange, join the international speaker lineup, which also includes:

Cheryl Kernot – Centre for Social Impact, University of NSW
Mark Pesce – Social network guru, writer, New Inventors panelist
Monique Potts – Digital Media Project Manager at the ABC
Peter Deitz – founder and Executive Director of www.socialactions.com
Allen Gunn – Executive Director Aspiration www.aspirationtech.org

A full program of workshops and breakout sessions is available at http://www.connectingup.org/conference/program.

The conference will be held at the Novotel Brighton Le Sands, Sydney, Australia from May 11-12.

About Connecting Up Australia
Connecting Up Australia is a community-based nonprofit organisation. It operates the Donortec technology donation program for nonprofits (http://www.donortec.com.au),which has channelled over $40m in technology donations to nonprofits in the past two years, the annual Connecting Up conference on nonprofit technology issues and the annual Australian Community Technology Awards. In 2008 its CEO, Doug Jacquier, received the Innovator of the Year award in the Equity Trustees Nonprofit CEO Awards.

BlogHer09

BlogHer09 is the fifth annual conference for an online community focused on creating opportunities for women whoblog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. The theme for this year’s BlogHer conference is “In Real Life”—an attempt to emphasize what blogging has brought everyone in their “real life.”

BlogHer ’09 will be at the The Chicago Sheraton and Towers from July 23-25, 2009. They will kick off on Thursday July 23rd with the 3rd annual BlogHer Business Conference, and will continue with the two-day 5th annual BlogHer Annual Conference on Friday and Saturday, July 24-25.

More from BlogHer09

Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship is now open

The 2009 Google Australia and New Zealand Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship is now open. This is available to female students at an Australian or New Zealand university studying Computer Science, Software Engineering, Informatics, or a closely related technical field.

A major part of winning or being a finalist is the opportunity to go on the Finalist’s Retreat at the Google Sydney offices. http://www.google.com.au/anitaborg/

Applications close June 1, 2009.

Ada Lovelace Day – March 24th

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.

Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. That’s a relatively simple problem to begin to address. If women need female role models, let’s come together to highlight the women in technology that we look up to. Let’s create new role models and make sure that whenever the question “Who are the leading women in tech?” is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues.

To take part
All you need to do is sign the pledge, pick your tech heroine and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009.

http://findingada.com/
http://twitter.com/FindingAda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/findingada

Who was Ada?
Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

In honour of International Women’s Day AussieChix have organised a Gaming Hackfest

In honour of International Women’s Day, albeit slightly late, AussieChix in Sydney are meeting for a gaming hackfest: participants will be building a small game in the Python programming language. Check out http://www.pyweek.org/ for small games already built in Python.

What about non-programmers and non-Pythonistas? If you’d prefer to work in another language go ahead, we’re encouraging Python only because of the toolkits and because many of us know it. If you’re a non-programmer, we want you on hand for design and testing. Really, we do. Have a look at the previous PyWeek games for an idea of the need for images and sprites too.

What if I don’t have any ideas? We’ll grab the source code from some previous pyweek challenges, so you could modify those rather than build from scratch.

Equipment needed: you will need a laptop. If you don’t have one and want to come post to the AussieChix list, someone may be up to rustle up a spare. If you’re using Python, you will need that installed, we’ll send out a list of suggested third-party libraries shortly. We strongly suggest you have them installed and tested before showing up, simply so as not to lose half the day to installation. Please also bring a plate of food to share.

Can men come? Since we have limited room, this depends on the number of attendees. Women will be given preference. Email the RSVP address and let us know you’re interested, we’ll get back to you no later than the 7th. (Standard LinuxChix “be polite, be helpful” rules apply to all guests, and male guests in particular are asked to remember that most women are coming to code or do some image/level hacking, not to have a man teach them how to do these things. Wait to be asked for your help.)

Date: 14th March 2008
Time: From 11am
Location: Maroubra, Sydney, Australia
RSVP for street address

RSVP: RSVPs are required, please email rsvp.sydney@au.linuxchix.org

FITT International Women’s Day Lunch

Delicious two-course lunch with wine and non-alcoholic beverages included - please advise of any special dietary requirements when booking.

Cost:
$90 per person (inc GST) for FITT members
$120 pp (inc GST) for non-FITT members
$85 pp (inc GST) for student
Corporate tables of 10 people: $1200

When:          Friday 6 March 2009 from 12.00 noon to 2.30pm
Where:         Dockside, Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, Sydney (nearest trains & buses at Town Hall, parking nearby)

http://www.fitt.org.au/events.html#IWD

Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications [FITT] is a not-for-profit network established in 1989 that encourages and supports women in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.

Girls ‘who call themselves sluts need feminism lessons’, says … Dr Ringrose

Dr Ringrose, of London’s Institute of Education, found examples of girls choosing usernames such as ‘slut’, ‘whore’ and ‘ freesex’ on social networking sites … (article)

DAISY SUNSHINE is coming out this Feb. While it is short and seems simple, it’s not. It reaches girls 7-10 – engaging them through story to develop self esteem through feminism before teens hit and all those tough commercial and sexualisation pressures.

The driver for DAISY SUNSHINE is teens are loosing their identity with – Paris Hilton and similar – and overkill on body image. Girls seem to have lost touch with feminism – it’s not about anti-guy – it’s about being pro-girl. It’s about independence, education, equal rights.

Dr Ringrose’s study recommends that girls start going back to feminism as a way to be all they can be. As an educational psychologist as well as author and female, with a geek gurl called my daughter, it’s powerful to get young girls to engage in it before they hit their teens.

DAISY SUNSHINE is a deceptively simple little book published by the Australian National Museum to make their collection meaningful to kids. When I got the 1970′s feminist t-shirt, my task was to make feminism real to young girls. That was fantastic but it’s not that easy since 1970s feminism was about the pill, gay rights, love-in’s, refuges  … some confronting issues.

However I believe that it works and enthuses young girls to  think about it as they head into that rocky and amazing time called adolescence.