Gopher Academy announced a great program today.
Today I’d like to announce the GopherCon Scholarship Program. It’s goal is to increase the visibility of women in the Go community through the most direct path I can imagine: sponsoring their attendance to GopherCon 2014.
The program works by you purchasing one of these special tickets. There will be a selection/nomination process and those woman selected will be able to attend GopherCon thanks to you. It is designed to make GopherCon the most inclusive and welcoming place for all people to get together and learn about Go based technologies.
OutCast.io and Ardan Studios recognizes the need to find ways to engage more women and girls to become technology creators. We have daughters that we would love to see have more opportunity. There is a great organization called ChickTech. They are leading the way in creating local programs to get more women and girls involved in technology. ChickTech is dedicated to:
"retaining women in the technology workforce and increasing the number of women and girls pursuing technology-based careers."
If you’re interested, ChickTech is always looking for local mentors and volunteers. They have a way for you to make a difference that fits your schedule and interests. This is a chance for you to give back to the woman and girls in your life, it just takes an email to get started.
We really want to help and do something special. I will be speaking at GopherCon 2014 in Denver this April and speakers get their flight and hotel room for free. We wanted to give that to some deserving woman who is passionate about technology and otherwise would not be able to attend the conference.
If you’re interested in receiving this free trip to GopherCon or want to nominate someone you know, write a post about yourself or that person and why you/they would like to attend GopherCon. You can also write a post about something cool you are doing with Go. Write your post in Google Docs and share it with me at bill@thekennedyclan.net. GoingGo.net will publish your post and we, with the GopherCon team, will select a winner on February 15th.
We hope to get a great response and are very excited that we can be involved in this great scholarship program. It is important to get more women and girls active in technology and this is a great way to start.