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The Ada Initiative launches
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 Ada Initiative launches to promote women in open technology and culture Open source activists Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner announce the launch today of the Ada Initiative (http://adainitiative.org/), a non-profit organization to promote women's participation in open technology and culture. Open technology and culture, including open source software, open content, and related communities, suffer from a dearth of women at all levels. "Open technology and culture are shaping our future and must reflect all people. Involving more women in the creation of our future is a critical step in building a healthy Internet world," says Mitchell Baker, chair of the Mozilla Foundation. The Ada Initiative will concentrate on focused, direct action programs, including recruitment and training for women, education for community members, and working with companies and projects to improve their outreach to women. The Ada Initiative's first sponsor is Linux Australia (http://linux.org.au/), which promotes the development of free and open source software. Sponsorship funds will allow the Ada Initiative to retain expert staff to focus on major projects which are beyond the capacity of purely volunteer organizations. The Ada Initiative is currently seeking additional partner organizations and sponsors. About the Ada Initiative The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture. Co-founders Mary Gardiner and Valerie Aurora each have ten years of experience in open source software, open social media, and women in computing activism. The Ada Initiative is advised by a team of experts from open technology and culture fields including open source software, open government, Wikipedia, hackerspaces, social media, remix and fan culture, and online activism. Contact details: Email: press@adainitiative.org Phone: +1 (415) 779-5914 Website: http://adainitiative.org (Log in to post comments)
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 14:24 UTC (Tue) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
Confusing name, my first thought was that it may be related to the Ada programming language.
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 14:51 UTC (Tue) by AlexHudson (subscriber, #41828) [Link]
They're named for the same person; not so confusing really.
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 14:54 UTC (Tue) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link]
Amusingly, I'm one of the very few people under age 35 who was actually paid to write in Ada.
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 16:31 UTC (Tue) by eean (guest, #50420) [Link]
They taught Ada at my college (and still do I think). The professors were just kind of distressed that students actually went out and got Ada jobs with it though. :D
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 14:59 UTC (Tue) by mcoleman (guest, #70990) [Link]
Yeah, I shuddered briefly (Ada? Oh no!) before I realized what it was really about.
(I guess having a programming language named after oneself could be a mixed blessing.)
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 9, 2011 11:18 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
Why, what's wrong with Ada?
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 14, 2011 4:22 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Yes, Ada is a brilliant language. If it had beat C++ in the 1980s, computing would have taken a dramatically different course. (For instance, I don't think Java would have gotten popular).
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 14, 2011 8:17 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
one of the reasons Ada lost to C++ is that C++ was not standardized, every compiler was a little different, but there was a C++ compiler available everywhere, and cheaply.
Ada on the other hand had very strict certification requirements for compilers, as such making a compiler that could be called Ada was more difficult and expensive, and then you had to pay to get it certified.
this delay in availability and increased cost hurt it's availability for casual use, you would only have an Ada compiler available if the decision was already made to use Ada for the project
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 14, 2011 9:12 UTC (Mon) by mcoleman (guest, #70990) [Link]
Yup. I was curious, but never got my hands on an Ada compiler (GNU Ada or whatever) until it was all over. Even less available than Eiffel.
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 15:53 UTC (Tue) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] Same here, and (judging by others' comments above) I'm not alone. I'm glad to see this initiative happen.
The Ada Initiative launches Posted Feb 8, 2011 21:00 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]
I'm glad it not The Smalltalk Initiative :)
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