This post is by Valerie Aurora, writing in her capacity as Executive Director of the Ada Initiative

Sumana Harihareswara is a geek feminist and an active member of the science fiction, GNOME, and Wikipedia communities, serving in a variety of roles. Lately she has taken a front and center position in the movement to make open technology and culture more diverse, with a keynote at the OSBridge conference about diversity in FLOSS, entitled “Be Bold: An Origin Story“, joining the Ada Initiative advisory board, and successfully advocating for a Friendly Space policy at at Wikimedia Foundation sponsored events. She also finds time to do standup comedy routines about geek culture.

Today, Sumana Harihareswara and her partner, Leonard Richardson, made a bold challenge to the open tech/culture community: They will match every donation to the Ada Initiative between now and October 31, 2012 up to $10,000. As Sumana puts it, “Leonard and I make our living through open source and we want to pay it forward.” Already, community members have donated $4,000 that will be matched by this generous offer; if all $10,000 is raised, that will make Sumana and Leonard the largest individual donors to the Ada Initiative. You can be part of this by donating now.

Sumana is a joyful, passionate member of the Wikimedia and open source software communities and a living example of the Ada Initiative’s vision: A world in which women are equal and welcome participants in open source software, open data, and open culture. I am personally humbled by Sumana’s dedication and personal contributions to this vision throughout her life.