Google Summer of Code 2018
For GSoC 2018, Women's P2P Network is providing both globally-focused and organizational projects. All projects share a common goal of connecting and including communities of women using different onramps (such as sms, radio, brick phones, in addition to smartphones and computers). Student applicants should be mindful of this goal in your proposals. (During the application period, we are planning to hold an online session that goes over the project including possibilities for and challenges related to addressing these issues.)
There is a growing global movement to dramatically increase the number of women elected to political office. Yet, no matter where they live, women globally face similar challenges which create an uneven playing field with their male opponents, and at times compromising their safety. These challenges can also lead to a feeling of isolation, making it difficult for women to remain in their races. Among these challenges are:
- Harassment, threats, violence, and corruption
- Isolation (lack of immediate family or community support, or: “Why aren’t you home with your children?”)
- Greater challenges raising money
- Challenges reaching out to constituents (due to barriers such as: illiteracy, privacy, lack of computers)
Women’s P2P Network is partnering with women’s organizations, women candidates, and technologists to build The Electing Women Platform and Toolkit that will:
- Build a global community of women candidates and supporters, where women can tell their stories from the campaign trail (including threats, harassment, and other challenges) and offer each other support
- Enable women candidates to report violence, threats, and corruption
- Enable women candidates to reach out to constituents who may be connected by “alternate means” such as SMS and community/ham radio
- Over time, we will add localized tools such as support for training women candidates and raising money
We plan to work on the following projects and complete by the end of the program. Please check our proposal template for the Google Summer of Code 2018:
In addition to creating the backend for our “Electing Women Toolkit,” this will be the foundation of our network, to be later used for other campaigns such as ending violence, supporting global women entrepreneurs, women’s environmental movements, etc. and will also enable future “Global Women’s Meetups” around key issues:
These apps will be built as plugins to the above infrastructure.