On Fri, Feb 7, 2025 at 9:15 AM Jay Faulkner <jay@gr-oss.io> wrote:
When you say "sponsor", is this monetary sponsorship needed, mentorship, or both?
In past Outreachy rounds, OpenStack has been fortunate to have an engaged pool of mentors. However, our biggest challenge has been securing funding for internships. Typically, OpenStack’s Outreachy coordinators (Dmitry and Mahati) work with the community to raise funds for one or more interns each cycle. When funding is available, OpenStack is listed as an official Outreachy community, allowing us to propose internship projects. Unfortunately, we lacked funding in the last cycle and currently have none for the upcoming one. This remains our most urgent need. Outreachy runs three cohorts annually, each offering a 3-month paid internship. In the past, OpenStack has benefited from directed funding (where sponsors explicitly support an OpenStack project) or the Outreachy General Fund when directed funding wasn’t available. However, last year, the General Fund ran dry: https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2024-08-14/outreachy-needs-your-help/
Thanks,
Jay Faulkner
On 2/7/25 7:09 AM, Dmitry Tantsur wrote:
Hi folks,
As some of you might have noticed, OpenStack did not participate in the December 2024 cohort of Outreachy (a DEI program providing paid internships to people from underrepresented or discriminated groups). This was because we could not find anyone to sponsor our participation.
It looks like the situation might not improve at all in 2025. If so, I think it will be over for OpenStack in Outreachy. I'd like to ask companies developing or using OpenStack and caring about DEI to step in. We're talking about $8000 per intern, more details in https://www.outreachy.org/docs/community/#intern-funding.
OpenStack had been very active in Outreachy before the last round. You can check it for yourself by searching for "OpenStack" on https://www.outreachy.org/alums/2024-05/ and the previous rounds. I'd like to keep it this way. Can we do it together? Please reach out to Mahati and me if you can help.
Thank you!
Dmitry