[UbuntuWomen] introduction & mentoring

[Matt Good]

I just finished reading this article on IT Manager's Journal "Opening
doors to open source for women":
http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/feature/20990?SSO=8619a24549874cab394691cb12054682

I've read similar articles before, but I've never been sure what roles
there are for me, as a male, to get actively involved in helping
encourage women in open source development.  Clicking through some of
the links in the article I came across the Ubuntu Women mentoring
program.  Back in college I worked as a teaching assistant and a tutor
and really enjoyed helping other people with their coding, so if there
are potential mentees interested in any of the areas I'm experienced in
I'd be glad to help.  

Of course I'm still rather young (25), so I'm sure there are those of
you that I should be learning from, in which case if you're interested
in any of the projects I work with please let me know, since I'm sure I
could use your help.

I've filled out the questions from the Mentoring Survey on the Wiki
below:

What areas are you able to mentor in?
========================================================================
Python development
 * Trac (http://trac.edgewall.org) - this is the project I'm most
actively involved with, so if there are mentees looking for a new
project I could probably help find some Trac items for them to work on
 * web frameworks (I have experience with TurboGears, Pylons, and
Django)
 * PyGTK (I'm still new to it, but I'm using it for an eMusic.com
download client: http://germanium.matt-good.net)

Java/J2EE
C++ (slightly rusty, but I've used it for a number of years)
OpenGL (again, slightly rusty, but I'd love to get back into it)


How long have you been involved with Ubuntu? What are your achievements?
========================================================================
I've been an Ubuntu user since I downloaded a pre-release version of
Warty about 2 years ago.  I used Debian for a couple years before that
(and still do on some servers and have a couple Debian VMs for testing
installations of Trac).  I report bugs in packages when necessary and
have provided a few patches to fix packaging issues.  I get a pack of
CDs with each new release and hand out the extras to friends, family,
and sometimes people I meet while hacking at Starbucks.  I'm also
planning to get involved with the Ubuntu LoCo group for the Washington
DC area.


What part of the world are you located in (it may be easier to mentor
someone in your region due to time zone issues)?
========================================================================
Eastern US (Northern VA, near DC)


What is your preferred form of communication for mentoring
(IRC/email/forum)?
========================================================================
email or jabber/GoogleTalk: matt at matt-good.net
IRC: matt_good on Freenode


What are your thoughts on the importance and usefulness of the
Ubuntu-Women Project?
========================================================================
I just read that only 1.5% of the open source community is female, which
is quite shocking.  I'm sure that this imbalance contributes to
stereotypes about Linux users, which increases the misconceptions about
Linux itself.  I think that it's important to the future of Linux and
open source in general to break the cycle of these stereotypes and I
think that the Ubuntu community is a great place to start.  We need to
show that "Linux for human beings" really means everybody, not just one
tiny subset of the population.

-- 
Matt Good <matt at matt-good.net>