I’m running for election to the affiliate member seat on the Board of Directors of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), on behalf of the Eclipse Foundation. If you are an OSI affiliate organization, I would appreciate your vote. Here is a little information about why I am running for the position.
TL;DR: My main mission would be to help grow OSI awareness and membership engagement through effective marketing, partnerships, and diverse community outreach.
First, I would like to see OSI increase its investment in marketing programs and activities to generate awareness of the organization and to connect with new potential supporters. This could be through sponsoring or participating in industry events and conferences, co-creating content and partnering with affiliates to distribute it to increase audience reach, and using social and digital marketing channels to more effectively amplify OSI’s brand and connect to open source community members where they are. It would also be great for OSI to foster collaboration among its affiliate members and social media influencers to improve OSI’s profile.
Second, I would like to see OSI do more to advance diversity and inclusion in the open source community. Open source has always been about people with differing opinions and viewpoints coming together to solve problems and innovate. As a member of an underrepresented group in open source, I have a personal stake in creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone. I have repeatedly seen the positive impact that people of different backgrounds and perspectives can have to foster sustainable and healthy open source communities. OSI could be at the forefront of increasing opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to meaningfully contribute to and effectively participate in open source. Specifically, I would like to see OSI work with affiliate members on programs to educate about the benefits of diversity and inclusion in open source.
Third, I would love to see OSI invest more in programs to increase the effective participation of public sector institutions and universities in open source. Many of these entities are in the early days of adopting and releasing software under OSD compliant licenses and OSI should find ways to actively support them on that journey. OSI could start by engaging with publicly-funded open source initiatives and government open source program offices (OSPOs) to explore areas of mutual interest.
Thank you for considering me for the board. You can reach out to me on Twitter via @t_mashologu if you have any questions. For more information on the OSI 2021 Individual and Affiliate Elections, visit this page.