Help me with some topics and activities for a seminar mentoring women in tech

[tarahmarie]

Hi, all!

My name is Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack; I've been posting here for some time--mostly when I need hardware help, since I'm a web dev

If you folks haven't already stumbled across it, I'm one of the LadyCoders running the Get Hired seminar for 40 women in Seattle in October. Sometimes, women are not very good at communicating with men in interviews, and we are going to provide some education and mentorship for these ladies, as well as filming the whole thing as a training DVD.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...d-seattle-2012

Liz and Lorraine use Macs; I'm the Kubuntu devotee in the group. It is certain that my desktop will be shown more than theirs on our DVD, if theirs are shown at all. See, we have no worries about whether showing a Kubuntu desktop on a widely released DVD will constitute a problem with intellectual property. One of the exercises will involve these ladies finding projects to work on in order to beef up their resumes, and I would like to take this chance to pay a little back to the community that makes my OS. I specifically would like some suggestions for Github-hosted projects that are devoted to improving Kubuntu and KDE. I may have some converts during this seminar, and I'd like to give them some direction towards the best projects for them to contribute to.

NOTE: I originally posted this in Education and moved it here.

[CharlesA]

Hi,

I don't use KDE, but I did find a link on how to contribute to Kubuntu:

http://www.kubuntu.org/community/contribute

Sidenote: I have heard of your project before and best of luck with it!

[thatguruguy]

Calligra, the new office suite for KDE desktops, could definitely use some help. The Calligra team even offers their own mentoring program for people who are interested in contributing.

[tarahmarie]

Calligra, the new office suite for KDE desktops, could definitely use some help. The Calligra team even offers their own mentoring program for people who are interested in contributing.

Really? That is AWESOME, and exactly the kind of suggestion I was looking for. One of the things we're going to be suggesting to these ladies is how to handle career breaks; when you are a contributor to a major OSS project, any concerns about whether a woman is 'committed to her career' start to fade away.

Calligra is beautiful, and I'd love to have a solid alternative to OO.

PS: Like I said--you guys are my people over here, but I've posted as a noob on Reddit about this too. I'd love it if any of you *buntu folks would come help me out in the scary world of alt posting.

http://redd.it/ws43p

[tarahmarie]

Also, I have been instructed to tell you all that Liz has an Ubuntu AND a Mint box at home. [but she TOTALLY hauls her Mac everywhere and uses it all the time. /snerk]

[tanglisha]

I will admit that I adore my MacBook, but I'd never use it as a server.

I've been using Ubuntu since Dapper Drake, I think I still have an old laptop that's still not been upgraded from it because the battery died

Edit: According to my flair, it was Breezy Badger. Maybe I *am* a hipster.

[tarahmarie]

I will admit that I adore my MacBook...

iFangirl.

[tanglisha]

iFangirl.

My main usage programs are Emacs, Terminal and Chrome. Oh, which IDE did you say you used?

[tarahmarie]

My main usage programs are Emacs and Chrome. Oh, which IDE did you say you used?

Eclipse. In which I dev for Android and do java executables. Punk. Besides, I spend most of my time in Konsole using nano anyway. You have to use a standalone app to code? Pffffft.

No, but seriously folks, this is what the ladies at our seminar get to hear us argue over

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...d-seattle-2012

[BigCityCat]

You should show them how easy it is to break into their email and facebook accounts. Show them what kind of damage can be done. Teach them how to do online banking with a live cd. Show them how to use keepass to create a stong passwords. Show them how to protect that password file in a truecrypt container and store it so it can never be lost and do it all for free.