In Paris, we added a new Women of OpenStack blueprint working session which gave our group the added opportunity to affect positive change for the Women of OpenStack.
The goal of the blueprint session was to discuss the Women of OpenStack’s charter and outline our top priorities for the next 6 months. Much of our discussion and brainstorming in the room centered on ways to increase mentorship, leadership, and public speaking opportunities for women working on OpenStack.
As the session concluded we decided as a group to focus on a few top priorities:
1. Increase the communication among the Women of OpenStack between Summits
As a result we have created a new Women of OpenStack mailing list. You can subscribe to the list here: http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/women-of-openstack
Look for more frequent communication to help link us together including who are the Women of OpenStack, what are the projects they are working on, and how you can better connect by subscribing and joining the conversation.
2. Positively influence the Vancouver and future Summit’s content with more women speakers
To help you prepare a successful speaking proposal, the Women of OpenStack group is sponsoring a webinar on January 15. Anne Gentle, Niki Acosta and Diane Mueller will share their tips on creating a winning proposal for OpenStack Summits and will answer questions during a Q&A session.
- Designing an OpenStack Summit Session Submission for Success
- Thursday, January 15 at 11:00am CST
- Register: http://openstack.enterthemeeting.com/m/KCWPKB2X
I am excited that we have been able to take these steps towards building a stronger foundation for our Women of OpenStack community. This is a team effort and I want to thank Anne Gentle, Johanna Koester, Claire Massey, and Allison Price for their ideas and dedication to the Women of OpenStack. I look forward to reconvening at the Vancouver OpenStack Summit to review our progress and discuss what we should focus on for the remainder of 2015.
Jessica Murillo is the Vice President of Strategy and Cloud at IBM Systems
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