https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_Program_for_Women

I've signed us up to participate in the Outreach Program for Women (administered by the GNOME Foundation), which provides paid internships to women to work on our open source projects, January through March 2013. Wikimedia Foundation is willing to pay the internship stipend for three to four participants. More details: https://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/FOSSOutreachProgram

Some reasons I think this is a good idea:

* We'll make strong connections with a few talented people who will stick around ** We have enough mentors to do this well * We can encourage people to work on testing, design, documentation, marketing, and other areas as well as code * It's a proven method for increasing the number and proportion of women in an open source community ** GNOME started this effort a few years ago and attendance at their yearly technical conference has improved from 4% women to 17% women * Interns don't need to be students, so we're more accepting of age diversity * Instead of making newbies write fixed proposals with schedules, internships can follow broader charters and flex to accommodate students' interests and abilities

This week I'm taking care of the paperwork, lining up mentors (you can sign up at [[Outreach Program for Women]]), and adding tiny tasks to that page (in order to apply, participants have to make a small contribution, like fixing or reproducing a bug). Applications will open this month.

I'll be sending out more information about this as soon as I create it. :-)