Are you or do you know a good South Africa getting university professors involved in the parts of Fedora they're interested in?
Jan Wildeboer and I are teaching the first POSSE in EMEA from October 3-8, 2010 at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, hosted by Michael Adeyeye of the IT department. POSSE is a one-week workshop for professors, usually in software engineering, CS, or a related discipline (technical writing, etc) who want to get their students involved as contributors in open source communities. They spend their POSSE week diving into the community as contributors themselves to give them a better idea of how to scaffold their students through the same learning experience.
The workshop is taught by 2 instructors who go over community dynamics and basic tools/skills (wiki editing, IRC, version control, etc) as well as considerations particular to educators (semester schedules, grading, picking appropriate student projects, etc). As the tech guru, you'll be leading us in deep-dives into the work you do every day in Fedora, giving us a living example of how an experienced contributor thinks, ask questions, and improvises through the ever-changing FOSS world by being "productively lost."
The fine print:
  • We'd like a local contributor, so we'll pay for your round-trip airfare within Africa. If you're from outside the continent and you can get yourself in, we'll take you the rest of the way.
  • Your hotel and living expenses (food, taxi, etc) will all be covered.
  • That's it. Short fine print.
If you're interested or know someone who might be, reply here or email posse at teachingopensource dot org with a description of why you'd like to come and your activities within Fedora, and we'll get back to you shortly. And if you're interested in seeing a POSSE for your FOSS project or at a school near you (or perhaps your alma mater), consider organizing a POSSE of your own!