Python Software Foundation / Board Candidates 2014¶
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Candidates for the 2014 PSF Board of Directors¶
The following people have been nominated as Directors of the Python Software Foundation for the term beginning in April 2014. Their self-written summaries follow.
There are currently 11 seats on the Board of Directors (last changed in the 2012 PSF Members vote).
Nominees
Links
Please note that the new bylaws require disclosing the affiliation of each candidate.
2013 Board Member.
Lynn has been a PSF board member since 2013, a member of the PSF Outreach and Education committee since 2012, and continues to lead the PyLadies of San Francisco since 2012. She currently leads the development and growth of the global organization of PyLadies, including helping other locations starting a local PyLadies, maintaining pyladies.com and github.com/pyladies/pyladies-kit. Lynn is also helping organizing PyCon 2014 by leading the lightning talks segment and PyLadies presence at the conference.
Lynn wishes to be a board member for the next year to accomplish the following things:
PyLadies trademark on name & logo,
Broadening the PSF’s reach in diversity,
Finding more PSF/PyCon sponsors that align with the PSF’s diversity mission.
Affiliation: Lynn Root works for Spotify.
Current board member (2012, 2013)
It has been an honor and pleasure to serve on the PSF Board for the past two years. I love this community, and I hope to have the opportunity to continue to serve it as a Board member as it grows into new challenges and opportunities next year.
I bring several perspectives to the Board, as:
a user group organizer, for the Boston Python user group – the largest Python user group in the world.
someone who regularly interacts with beginners, new community members, and first-time open source contributors, through various initiatives including the OpenHatch project, Google Summer of Code, and as a Twisted core developer.
someone who regularly does programming outreach to underrepresented groups, through my work on the Outreach and Education Committee, Software Carpentry, and as head organizer for the Boston Python Workshop.
This past year, as part of my Foundation work I:
served on the PSF Outreach and Education Committee, and in particular worked to promote the committee and help groups write and submit grant requests.
regularly spoke and wrote about the PSF and encouraged community participation (e.g. Kiwi PyCon 2013 keynote, All Things Open, PyTennessee keynote, upcoming PyCon North America 2014 keynote, upcoming PyCon APAC 2014 keynote, PSF blog posts).
regularly reached out to individuals and initiatives about partnering with the PSF or applying for grants / getting community support to run Python events.
after informally playing this role in 2013, became the first ever Diversity Outreach Chair for PyCon North America 2014. The conference has a record-setting percentage of proposals submitted by women, and will have a record 33% women speakers. There are of course many more axes to diversity and more to do next year!
The language and community continue to grow, which is great, but with this growth have come some growing pains for the Foundation. I think the most important goal for the PSF for 2014 is to finish several important but lagging initiatives, and to do so in a way that is transparent and with sustainable volunteer obligations. In particular, 2014 will be the year we finish:
Additionally, I’d like to lead:
more global community development, including support for user groups, conferences, and outreach initiatives, in particular outside the United States.
proactively seeking out/creating and supporting opportunities for Python in education.
Affiliation: Jessica McKellar is a co-founder of Zulip.
Current board member (2012, 2013)
My involvement with the Python community:
PSF Communications Officer: I’ve been running the blog and social media communications for the PSF, and keep the membership and community aware of PSF activities through website updates of minutes and resolutions. This recently extended to include summaries sent to PSF members. I was involved in communications starting in 2011, and became an officer in 2012.
PyCon: I’m the conference’s publicity coordinator and run the blog, email, and social media communications, as well as assist the chair in any way possible. I’ve been involved with this since PyCon 2010.
Sprints committee: I lead the PSF’s sprints committee, providing funding to user groups and events that want to get together and contribute to Python-related open source projects or other group coding activities. I’ve been involved with this committee since its inception in June 2010.
New Website: I was involved in pre-selection reviewing, and then during the implementation I was involved with updating and creating site content.
CPython and open source development: While CPython has gotten less of my attention that I’ve wanted to give it over the last year, I’m still involved in open source development with Python.
My plans for 2014:
Continue the increase in communications coming out of the board, increasing visibility of decisions and news, and keeping the membership apprised of what their foundation is doing. This was one of my goals for 2013 and I’ve somewhat improved it, but with the new membership model coming on board and an upward trend in information being available, I’d like to continue to grow this area for the foundation and the board. A refresh of the PSF content on the new website will also be done as a part of this.
Increase global outreach. The PSF is still heavily a US-centric organization, while Python is a global community. We need to continue to find allies in underrepresented communities and find what the PSF can do for them and their community, their event, their conference, etc. Promoting the new membership model and increasing our communications in general can help us progress in this area.
Affiliation: Rackspace
Current board member (2013)
It’s been a privilege to serve the community on the board in this past year. I additionally serve on the Sprints and Outreach and Education committees. I’ve also served as the co-chair of the PyCon US Program Committee, and I’ve worked with the Infrastructure committee on various projects.
In the coming year I’m looking forward to working on implementing the new working group-centric organization for the PSF, and empowering more people to promote Python within their communities (whether geographic or shared-interest).
Affiliations: I’m employed by Rackspace.
2013 Board Member
I’ve been board member in the years 2002-2004 and then again since 2010.
PSF things I’ve been working on in 2013/2014:
ran the PSF Python Brochure project, which is currently being finalized, with the first edition to be available for PyCon 2014 in Montreal; also see the PSF Python Brochure wiki page
worked with the Python Events Calendars team to build a central place where Python users can lookup Python events; calendars are shown on