.NET Foundation Campaign: Jessica White

About Me

In my day job I work in technical architecture, and though I've worked in a number of technologies a lot of my experience has been in .NET. I didn't follow a "typical" route into tech; and having entered into this industry through the support of others I am a strong believer in "paying it forward". As such I do a number of community activities.

Outside of work I am a Microsoft MVP, I am the co-founder and co-organiser of a not-for-profit technology conference based in the United Kingdom and I co-organise a local .NET Meetup. I also make time mentor others, and work closely with various bootcamps and apprenticeship programs as I want to help others who are early in their career or entering into technology. Also, I am a public speaker, having spoken at international conferences, I take part in podcasts and occasional blogger.

Why I'm Running

I've been an active member of the .NET Foundation since 2019. I attend and contribute to the membership committee and have had a heavy involvement in the formation and running of the Nomination Committee in past years.

My involvement in the .NET Foundation has provided opportunity to have input on how to help the community be more inclusive and appealing; for example I've been a vocal advocate for removing the membership fees as there are communities and locations where it created a financial barrier to entry; depriving the foundation of fantastic potential members.

I've worked in a number of technologies, but I'm passionate about .NET, the ecosystem and it's communities. I want to do what I can to help the .NET Foundation build a community and network that is safe and welcoming to all backgrounds and level of experience. I believe it's a great place to work in and too meet people, and would love for more people to have the same positive experience I've had.

I believe that if chosen for the board I will be able to use my experience as a member of the .NET Foundation Membership Committee, a director of a conference and as a people manager at work to have a positive influence. I would hope to give visibility of impacts of board decisions, while having member experience in mind. I have experience in community building and training as well as in managing finances and contracts. I would do my utmost to support the members of the community and try to input how the Foundation can support the communities needs.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

My Contributions

Community

DDD East Midlands Conference

Developer! Developer! Developer! East Midlands is a not-for-profit technology conference. I founded this event in 2019 with my partner Moreton Brockley and we've run two very successful events. The conference is free, and we make efforts to make it accessible and support all those involved.

I have the role of project manager of the event, which means I coordinate all of the contracts for the event, the sponsors and staff, speaker training and support, as well as all that is involved with ensuring the smooth running of the conference.

This conference has a lot of .NET related content. Microsoft also now have a booth at the event and help us with our Hacktoberfest related workshops.

.NET Notts Meetup

This .NET meetup is local to Nottingham, though now has regular attendees globally since becoming an online event as a result of the pandemic. I co-organise this meetup which involves helping managing the events, managing the social media accounts and finding speakers.

.NET Foundation Membership Committee

As previously mentioned, I've been an active member of the .NET Foundations Membership Committee since 2019. I have been a part of the Nomination Committee twice.

Open Source

Each year I write blog posts related to Hacktoberfest to help both maintainers and contributors take part in the event. I also manage the open source repositories for the sites related to the events I help coordinate:

As part of Hacktober, I sometimes use my personal blog to create issues beginners can take part in as well.

I've also contributed to the .NET Foundations Membership Committee repository, with templates and trying to improve the experience of contributing to the repository.

Other

As mentioned, there are a number of other ways I contribute to the community. There is a list of contributions and activities here. This includes speaking at events and on podcasts, mentoring and more.

In terms of topics I've presented on they vary from maintainence of older systems, observability and management techniques.