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README

Girl Develop It Philly (GDI) and Code for Philly (CfP) are excited to build off of the success of last year’s Summer of Open Source to once again offer interested female applicants a crash course in open source and a chance to get hands-on project experience in civic tech. We’ve updated the name to include fall and winter programs run by sister GDI chapters and brigades replicating and refining the precedent set in the pilot run. Last year’s project topics ranged from visualizing school budget data to mapping city-wide street tree locations. For many participants this was their first exposure to the tech community and the tenets of open source. The first class of 12 mentees and their mentors learned from each other during the course of the summer, but the impacts were much longer-lasting. We hope you’ll join us and see for yourself what can be accomplished in 10 weeks!

Read below for more details about the program, our organizations, common questions, and the schedule for the summer. You can also follow the conversation on the GDI and CfP Twitter pages and by using #osmp2015.

Who We Are and What We Do

Girl Develop It is a national nonprofit with a presence in nearly 50 cities across the country. GDI exists to provide affordable and judgment-free opportunities for women interested in learning web and software development. Through in-person classes and community support, Girl Develop It helps women of diverse backgrounds achieve their technology goals and build confidence in their careers and their everyday lives.

Code for Philly is a brigade of Code for America, an international organization that believes government can work for the people, by the people in the 21st century through the power of code and open source. At Code for Philly, we don’t wait for permission to make our city better. We are a community of urban geeks–coders, makers, designers, talkers, thinkers, and tinkerers who are passionate about creating solutions to improve Philadelphia. We build civic participation and engagement fostering an inclusive community that attracts all levels of skill/experience and a variety of different backgrounds. The best products and ideas come from genuine (sometimes unexpected) collaboration. Civic hackers are innovators, and we firmly believe anyone can be a civic hacker.

Why it’s Important and Why You Should Join

Disrupting the Status Quo You might have heard that women are underrepresented in the tech industry, but did you know of all open source contributions, only 11% come from women? Open source depends on contributions of all kinds–imagine if more women felt empowered to bring their voices to the table. With only a small percentage of females currently participating, women are untapped potential waiting to be activated. The Open Source Mentorship Program is a good place to start. Let’s change expectations about who defines the open source movement and how people find their place in this vibrant community.
Transformative Experience The program is conceived of as a way to increase practical knowledge and explore the strengths of open source. But even more significant is the personal development that both mentees and their mentors experience. Participants discover new capacity and build identity as part of the open source movement. osmp 2015 is an opportunity to not only improve individually, it’s a chance to be part of something bigger than any one person, any single interest.
A Warm Welcome to the Local Civic Tech Community It’s one thing to introduce women to open source and civic tech, but to remain active and engaged, for any person, there must be a network of support. Whether you’re brand new to programming or have been in the tech community for awhile, we guarantee you’ll meet fresh faces. "Open source is social by nature", so let’s leverage our strong civic tech community to cultivate relationships in addition to skill.

What is the Summer Schedule

Note that Code for Philly weekly hack nights alternate between Tuesdays and Thursdays and may change location. Check the Meetup page for the most current information.

Project Presentation/ Program Celebration: Wednesday, 08/26

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