2023 Q2 - April, May, June

Owned by Karen Ruggles
Last updated: Apr 14, 2024
5 min read

12 April 2023 

Attendees: Carol Payne, Rachel Rose, Kirstyn Salehi, Peter Crossley, Tim Holt, Tracy Priest, Barathy Rangarajan, Sean Wallitsch, Davis Hardy, Emily Olin, Trina Roy, Munira Tayabji, Ferby Cremer, Bill Ballew, Sergio Rojas

Mission Focus Reminder:

The purpose of this Working Group (WG) is to create a cross-industry effort to encourage diversity and inclusion across the open source software ecosystem for VFX and animation. The WG will bring together software engineers/developers, marketing/communications professionals, HR, and anyone else passionate about Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) within VFX and animation. We have developed three pillars under which to organize initiatives:

Sean - SLP Update: 



Hackathon

  • Information page - scope of involvement 

  • TAC with support from project leaders

  • Run hackathon within member companies - need stakeholder buy-in

  • Feedback (pages 2-3)

  • Emphasize bringing in new people and expanding project involvement (more contributors)

  • How many hours it will take, how many people can be involved, creativity brainstorm, logistics

  •  

    • Draw from Dreamworks setup? ILM?

    • Keep small/manageable (short ~1 day)

  • Legal side

  • Preparing participants to work on open source projects

  • Initial plan is not to be a competitive event, collaborative efforts

10 May 2023

Attendees

Rachel Rose, Barathy Rangarajan, Karen Ruggles, Kaitlin Pollock, Aliza Carpio, Tom Szenher, Trina Roy, Emily Olin, Morenike Dosu, Ferby Cremer, JT Nelson, Bill Ballew, Sergio Rojas, 

Topics Covered

  • Mission Statement and three focus areas

    • Increasing ASWF diversity and representation

    • External outreach and education

    • Member guidance

  • Update on Summer Learning Program

    • Growth this year, program started earlier this year and running later. It is over 12 weeks (10 weeks are super busy)

    • We have more team leads

    • ! Attend final presentation around August 17th  and encourage a recruiter from your org to attend ! 

    • Suggestion for next time: Inspired by "take your kid to work"... "This is what I do at work" 

    • Are there any examples of guest speakers? Who are you lining up? 

      • Ideas

        • Common question - What should I put in my portfolio?

        • Common question - Are you hiring? 

        • Lots of interest in virtual production

  • Dev Days initiative (aka "The Hackathon") - ASWF has a need and desire for more contributors as a whole 

    • This is not for everyone and the plan is to reach out to our member community to contribute and help 

    • Need TAC to be heavily involved for this to work 

  • Plans for SIGGRAPH (Emily)

    • Sunday, August 6: Open Source Day and beers of a feather

      • CFP opens May 16

    • Monday, August 7 and Tuesday, August 8: ASWF Project BoFs at the LA Convention Center

    • Program Committee Form  (ASWF Open Source Day Program Committee)

    • Town Hall is virtual -

      • Goal: What is our working group doing and get folks excited to join

    • BoF goal is  to create an open forum

      • Roundtable - helps inform what we want to take on. We want more ideas to fold "into the mix"

      • Is there a way to look at technical aspects of our industry and say we all have the same problems/opportunities and ways to increase diversity?

      •  For the pillars, crafting the story to grow from one pillar to the next would be really cohesive





14 June 2023 

Attendees: Carol Payne, Rachel Rose, Bill Ballew, JT Nelson, Kaitlin Pollock, Kevin Clark, Larry Gritz, Sergio Rojas, Peter Crossley, Karen Ruggles (notes)

Mission Focus Reminder:

The purpose of this Working Group (WG) is to create a cross-industry effort to encourage diversity and inclusion across the open source software ecosystem for VFX and animation. The WG will bring together software engineers/developers, marketing/communications professionals, HR, and anyone else passionate about Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) within VFX and animation. We have developed three pillars under which to organize initiatives:

SLP Update (Karen)

  • SLP is up and running with 20 learners who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community

  • check out the Blog Post on ASWF.io > News & Events > Blog https://www.aswf.io/blog/academy-software-foundation-kicks-off-2023-summer-learning-program/ -kicked off our first Speaker Series yesterday (new this year) with a well-attending session from Keynote Speaker Kaori Ogino (ILM)

  • Learners are about to complete their Python in Maya introductory course (thank you Dhruv!) and will then move on to their chosen course of learning as discussed in their Team (about 4 SLPs plus their Team Lead)

  • Karen is excited to see the program grow this year. It feels more stable because of the group of D&I members supporting it this year which helps to delegate tasks and organize more fluidly. 

ASWF Town Hall Updates / Ideas (Carol + Emily)

  • signed up for Town Hall slot 9am-10am PT Monday August 3rd, Zoom

  • will be recorded for shareable to those who cannot make live

  • check Open Source Day website in the next few days and check emails for blasts

  • Our’s is the last of the Town Halls, registration page available to sign up for all Town Halls

  • Anyone want to present?

    • 15-20 minute intro from Carol + Rachel

    • 15 minute for SLP

    • 15 minutes for Dev Days?

    • 15 minutes of something else? Q&A?

Dev Days Update (Carol)

  • goal to make this work for our Projects, our members, and the participants

  • Want to announce at Open Source Days that this is happening (at the very latest)

  • outline surveying needs: what they could do, what they want  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z0cVKfCGJhCpxTrBS1Sw3b6d-sDBSvFEoT1imD7dYYU/edit 

  • Commitment from TAC for support, at least 1 other person from TAC to co-chair (maybe Larry Gritz?) with Carol

  • From TAC we are waiting to hear which project wants to be involved

  • Ferby and Aliza interested in being involved

  • Anyone else want to be involved? (looking at October, if not maybe February timeframe)

  • Figure out in advance… some orgs need months of lead time (signed CLAs, etc)

OpenImageIO Project Ambassador (Carol)

  • test bed for wider application later

  • Ambassador would help getting a new person onboarded with an eye toward diversity/inclusion 

  • Some struggle has rooted from Big Scope, so trying to reduce that scope by concentrating on one Project: OpenImageIO. 

  • Any volunteers to be point person (or two) for OpenImageIO? Making the Learning curve less pronounced. Attend OIIO meetings, contribute, documentation, onboarding

    • Peter Crossley will speak to his team 

  • Tie in to SLP for a working session?

  • Mob programming idea from JT–Twitch streaming?