Hi Rich To reach academic institutions, I was going to suggest the FLOSS Mentoring discord group but see you’re already a participant there. 👋
Is there an association of Universities or a way to reach many programs with a set of messages about the values of open source, open source communities, humans in the loop in this agentic age, and perhaps ASF in particular? I think staying relevant and interesting to the next generation means staying open to new ways of thinking about the essence of open source building. Thanks, James Dailey On Wed, Jul 29, 2026 at 2:02 PM Rich Bowen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Jul 29, 2026, at 5:00 PM, Andrew Wetmore <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Possibly a dumb question, but where do the office hours take place? > > > On #comdev on the-asf Slack. > > > > > > Andrew Wetmore > > Assistant VP, Marketing and Publicity, The ASF <https://apache.org> > > Editor-Writer, Infra team, The ASF > > > > Editor, moosehousepress.com > > > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 11:55 AM Rich Bowen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> We held (very last-minute) inaugural office hours today. > >> > >> Main topic of discussion was university outreach, and what that looks > >> like. We’re really not sure what University outreach would look like, > but > >> it sounds to me like we should participate in existing programs, rather > >> than trying to create our own, since they’re the experts and we’re not. > >> What we could/should do (based on this discussion) is: > >> > >> 1) Document where we are already participating in existing programs, so > as > >> to increase awareness, share best practice, and identify opportunities > for > >> projects to hook into existing efforts. > >> 2) Have discussions on the mailing list (perhaps using a [University] > >> Subject tag) where people can collaborate/commiserate about their > existing > >> efforts, so that people don’t feel alone in their efforts, and where > they > >> can share tips and experiences. We could, of course, split this to a > >> separate list if it gets too loud for this one, but my inclination is > not > >> to proactively create Yet Another Mailing List to go be invisible and go > >> stale, but rather to increase visibility here first and split if/when it > >> becomes necessary. > >> > >> So … if you’re already doing some kind of University outreach, please do > >> start a thread, using [University] the subject, to tell us about it. > >> > >> I also learned a new phrase — “Desperate Learner” — which I really like. > >> This describes people who are learning something because they see it as > >> their ticket to self improvement, and more specifically to income > >> generation. Open source has always been about “scratching your own itch” > >> and open source participation as a ticket out of poverty is a huge > >> motivator, particularly in University settings where people are looking > to > >> create their career and life. > >> > >> I mentioned https://boxofclue.com/comdev-metrics/ which I’ve been > running > >> for about a month now, and suggested moving it to one of the ComDev VMs. > >> I’ve mentioned this before, and didn’t hear much feedback other than > that > >> it seems like a useful resource. I’m going to try to go ahead and stick > it > >> on projects.apache.org <http://projects.apache.org/> at some point, > >> maybe? I don’t expect to have time to get that done this week, but > would be > >> delighted to work with anyone else who does have time for that. But I’ll > >> get to it eventually if nobody else does. > >> > >> I’d like to make this a regular thing and have put this on my calendar, > >> weekly, at 10am Eastern US time. If you can drop in a few times a month, > >> that would be fantastic. And I’ll try to post a proposed topics list > here a > >> day or two before the meeting. > >> > >> —Rich > >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > >> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >> > >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
