Code for Science and Society is happy to announce the launch of its newest program, the Digital Infrastructure Incubator. Rooted in CS&S’s work building community and pathways to sustainability for open source projects in the service of the public interest, the Digital Infrastructure Incubator holds space for projects to imagine possibility and implement strategy around sustainability, governance, and community health. Influenced by the strength of recent initiatives developing community and accountability in the open source ecosystem, the program intervenes in the landscape of research on sustainability in digital infrastructure by working to bridge scholarly and policy research and open source projects in practice. It is a six-month cohort program that supports open source digital infrastructure leaders in the implementation of research-backed recommendations concerning sustainability, governance, and community health.
CS&S seeks to amplify the impact of scholarly and policy research around open source sustainability. The Digital Infrastructure Incubator will support projects in the meaningful implementation of best practices around equity in hiring and promotion, attracting diversity, democratic governance, and lateral collaborations and growth. As such, participants will spend 5-15 hours in synchronous and asynchronous work between October 2021 and March 2022 designing, testing, and iterating organizational literature, documentation, collaborations, or other related work. They will receive a $5,000 stipend, will benefit from a cohort of like-minded participants as well as paired mentorship, and opportunities to share out results with stakeholders and a larger funding community.
The Digital Infrastructure Incubator occupies a unique space in the open source ecosystem, bridging scholarly and policy research and open source projects in practice. The program is managed by Rayya El Zein, PhD who joined CS&S earlier in the summer. Rayya is a researcher and ethnographer and has spent the last decade focused on slow change in creative communities in the Arabic-speaking Middle East. Rayya brings an interdisciplinary perspective to this program -- check out some early resources here.
CS&S solicits expressions of interests for participation in the Digital Infrastructure Incubator, starting today, August 16. We are looking for leaders and emergent leaders within the open source digital infrastructure ecosystem with an interest in developing and implementing transparent documentation, strategy, or other visioning around questions of sustainability, governance, and/or community health, or a related question. They need not be project leads but they should be in a position of leadership sufficient to develop and implement the work undertaken. Read the complete call here. Positions will remain open until filled.
More background on the program as well as an FAQ is accessible on the program website, incubator.codeforscience.org.
We’d appreciate your help spreading the word, and most of all your recommendations about who comes to mind as a good fit for the program.