Red Hat Announces Creation of Women in Open Source Award

April 16, 2014DeLisa Alexander, executive vice president and chief people officer, Red Hat

Red Hat has long been a proponent of advancing opportunities for women in technology. Today, at Red Hat Summit, we stepped forward to announce our sponsorship of the Women in Open Source Award. This new award program is dedicated to recognizing women’s contributions to open source and inspiring future generations of women to get involved.

While there are a number of awards that recognize valued contributions to the open source community, the Women in Open Source Award – unveiled today during our Red Hat Women’s Leadership Community Luncheon – is unique. It was created to shine a spotlight specifically on women who are making important contributions to open source project(s) or the broader open source community.

Join Red Hat in honoring the women who are helping to move open source forward and help us inspire more women to join the community.

Award nominations

The award will have two tracks: the Women in Open Source Academic Award, which will be open to those enrolled in college or at a university, and the Women in Open Source Community Award, open to those who are not enrolled in school. Both tracks will recognize women who use open source methodology or contribute to open source technology and communities, including, but not limited to:

Open source software
Open hardware
Free and open culture
Open standards
Open data

Relevant contributions could include:

Code contributions
Quality assurance, bug triage, and other quality-related contributions
Involvement in open hardware
System administration and infrastructure contributions
Design, artwork, and UX marketing
Documentation, tutorials, and other forms of communication
Translation and other internationalization contributions
Open content
Community advocacy and management
Intellectual property advocacy and legal reform
Open source methodology

The award is open to women and anyone who currently identifies as a woman. Red Hat employees are not eligible for nomination.

Nominations will open in Fall 2014. To nominate a woman or learn more about the award, visit Women in Open Source.

About the authors

DeLisa Alexander

executive vice president and chief people officer

Red Hat

The world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.

Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

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