s43koq

FOSSchix Colombia is a Community of Colombian Women who promote
Open Source Software and Culture. It was born at the end of 2009 in order
to generate a space to boost the active participation of women in these
areas. It’s the initiative of 4 women linked to opens source software communities
in Calí. That same year, similar promoters of this kind of technology
in Bogotá joined it and an expansion process initiated throughout the
country.
This community is structured in regional poles (Caribe, Andino, Oriente,
Occidente y Eje Cafetero) and its main work areas are Open Source Software
and Open Culture, taking into account transversal topics as Gender,
Feminism and Cyberfeminism. Activities are oriented towards technology
empowerment with Open Source Software and undertaking Open Source
Culture through Technical Workshops, Conferences, Coffees and Meetings.
“Purple Meetings: Women and Technology” are organized to consolidate the
work of the regional centres, whose main goal is to generate spaces for
analysis and discussion about the relationship between women and technology,
common stereotypes and the associated needs that relate them.
Nowadays, we can affirm that FOSSchix – Colombia is the most solid community
of Open Source Software promoting women in Spanish America. In
September 2012, we organized the I National Congress of Women, Opens
Source Technology and Culture that joined for the first time technology
activist women from countries like Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Venezuela.
For me, FOSSchix is a space of empowerment and social inclusion that has
allowed women in Colombia to get actively involved in the use, promotion
and development of open source technologies, to show up existing problems
in the technology world and to reach women from different points in
the continent.
Translated by Eduardo de Porras Ortiz, Cybervolunteer, Madrid, Spain