reapply for a Shuttleworth Fellowship

[chadwhitacre]

https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/applications/

Previous attempts: 2012, 2013.

Drafts

• application form
• working draft
• draft 2
• [draft 1](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cJP99JtfPCRMrII4oWsbEx2ihfrrdLyG5fjeKL64oOg/edit?
  usp=sharing)

Todo

• video
• resume
• dozens?

[chadwhitacre]

Applications for the September 2016 fellowship intake open on 1 December 2015.

[kzisme]

I hope this works out :)

[techtonik]

I'd like to participate to clear the obstacles for cross-border funding of open source projects. Doing this requires researching legal requirements in different countries, but we can make a simple framework that people in these countries can follow to find out how it works for them.

[chadwhitacre]

Applications are open: https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/application-form/.

[chadwhitacre]

Due April 1.

[techtonik]

I can't wait so long.

[chadwhitacre]

@techtonik Yeah, this isn't instant gratification. :)

[techtonik]

I need to find some funding very quick and every grant program requires to fill a lot of papers and wait a year or more. And I need something to eat in two weeks and if I won't find anything close to Gratipay, I will have to reformat my neural network back to comply with corp. ethics and workflow. It is sad.

[chadwhitacre]

Applications for the March 2017 fellowship intake close on 15 October 2016.

https://shuttleworthfoundation.org/

[chadwhitacre]

I really want to get to this.

[chadwhitacre]

Alright! #836 is in, this one is next. ☘️

[chadwhitacre]

The deadline was extended to November 1 in ShuttleworthFoundation/shuttleworthfoundation.org@88950cb.

[chadwhitacre]

I just watched a couple Cory Doctorow interviews because he is the final boss of Shuttleworth this year and I've never really engaged with his work too much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4y3btcBD-o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEEgb1cAwvk

He is a very articulate person. 😶

[techtonik]

My association with all that that simple payment system with taxes is good, but generates no interest tthere, because it is a simple commercial project (despite of openness), but if you read about Aaron Swartz, there could be more to add into that.

[chadwhitacre]

https://changelog.com/podcast/221

[chadwhitacre]

http://www.crimeflare.com/doctorow.html

Wow. Prescient.

[chadwhitacre]

https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/application-pointers/

Most of the advice is "what not to do." The one relevant one (emphasis mine):

• “The Facebook for…” or “Like a social networking site for…”: Facebook and other social networking sites exist. They are theme agnostic and allow you to engage with others around any topic/theme/identity of your choosing. They also already have millions of users. Why does your theme/topic/subset of people need their own site? Why can’t they just use Facebook or similar? What will make this specific group come to your version? How will you let them know about it? Same goes for “crowdfunding platform for…”.

The positive advice:

• Address your application to us and customise it accordingly. Generic proposal material does not tell us why we should specifically support you.
• Let us understand your context. Making it as real as possible allows us to understand your frustrations and see the applicability of your solution.
• Openness is not an add on. It is a fundamental approach to both participation and intellectual property. Other than that, there are no absolute rules, only strong suggestions.

Re: video:

• Picture quality on your video is less important than sound quality. If we are distracted by trying to understand what you say, your message will not come across.
• When compiling your video, assume the viewer has not read your documentation. Set the scene, but ensure that you mention your specific idea as early as possible in the video.
• Focus on what you want to do next. We would like to hear about how far you’ve come, but this is not a history lesson. It is a pitch on how you are going to change history.

[chadwhitacre]

Also:

• We want to support the exploration of a specific solution to a specific problem[.] We are looking for a specific result in change in behaviour.

[chadwhitacre]

Any guidance on how many applications are expected? And how many will be on the shortlist that @/doctorow sees? Would you be able to provide any examples of successful past applications, to illustrate https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/application-pointers/?

https://twitter.com/whit537/status/786213273045651456
https://twitter.com/whit537/status/786220556471250944

[chadwhitacre]

From my current draft:

During our initial run, we had dozens of tech companies on board, including Stripe, Heroku, Digital Ocean, and Khan Academy.

Dozens? Really?

[chadwhitacre]

Okay! Draft 2 ready for review. I was looking at the wrong number on the character count and went over the 1500-character limit on some of the answers, so I'll have to revise those down. I also need a resume, a video, and a fact-check on the number of tech companies we had on Gittipay 1.0.

[chadwhitacre]

Any guidance on how many applications are expected? And how many will be on the shortlist that @/doctorow sees?

We have no quota, we see what we get in any given round and shortlist what we believe in. Average success rate is 1/100.

https://twitter.com/ShuttleworthFdn/status/786464006882156544

Would you be able to provide any examples of successful past applications, to illustrate https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/application-pointers/?

We have the successful candidates on our site https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/fellows/ Some of their application videos are still on YouTube. Best advice is to submit what YOU think is right. We want to fund your idea, not your idea of what you think we want to see.

https://twitter.com/ShuttleworthFdn/status/786463033073762304
https://twitter.com/ShuttleworthFdn/status/786463428764368896

[chadwhitacre]

Some of their application videos are still on YouTube.

Here are the videos I found by searching for "shuttleworth $name" on YouTube and poking around, representing 33% (13 / 39) of current and past fellows. Some are reapplications for additional funding.

Fellow	Link
Isha Datar	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9DPaa9rssg
Peter Cunliffe-Jones	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pHecygUPu4
Aaron Makaruk	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qalD--ZkAwg
Johnny West	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEQ4ZF8RiLQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6dv5LDVlA0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24q_TUeX_fY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vagys3gPpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIcDKMzOBX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5nbCI8SBls
Luka Mustafa	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOvdjWUcLJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRgUJiXQ7QQ
Sean Bonner	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a0eiTsDgI8
Seamus Kraft	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV96QUil7Ec
Peter Murray-Rust	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ8qkKNMvWA
Rory Aaronson	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6aSElNmVUU
Daniel Lombraña González	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptBT8O4Oc5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuKAXLJo8gE
Dan Whaley	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=870cigukV5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PIw8hESgGI
Marcin Jakubowski	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr2xJbD49lo
Kabir Bavikatte	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt5IjgOWTm8

[chadwhitacre]

Alright, the video is a lot more work here than over in #836. It's five minutes instead of one, and doesn't have constraints around production quality.

[chadwhitacre]

Shuttleworth CEO on the fellowship program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pX2Kv-y_PE

[chadwhitacre]

"access to knowledge and information and education"

[chadwhitacre]

Got it!

[chadwhitacre]

Okay! I've got the timings done. Now to screencap this and merge the audio with the new video. Then it's up to YouTube! I have 1.5 hrs.

[chadwhitacre]

Just showed it to @dmk246 and @trishinPA. A couple of the transitions drag out a bit too long. Not much to be done about that now. :-/

[chadwhitacre]

I'm trying to figure out why the video isn't covering the canvas area properly.

[chadwhitacre]

Got it!

[chadwhitacre]

Screencap time!

[chadwhitacre]

The frame-rate is pretty bad. Maybe if I scale back to 960 x 480?

[chadwhitacre]

Harumph. I've got one that's of acceptable quality, but I had to go down to 640 x 360. :-/

[chadwhitacre]

I'd better move on to remerging with the audio.

[chadwhitacre]

(I just did cmd-- in the browser to scale it down.)

[chadwhitacre]

Alright, it's a bit rough but it's up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDQSk1WSqNs. (removed for lack of qualitay)

I've added an annotation to the raw version, though annotations apparently don't show up on mobile.

[chadwhitacre]

Pretty sick of hearing myself say "I envision a society" at this point. :-)

[chadwhitacre]

🛌

[dmk246]

@whit537 I can't access the first (new) link....the raw version link works .... but it could be just me too! However ...wanted to check so if it's not loading ..you'll know!

[chadwhitacre]

I found a Microsoft utility that provides up to 60 fps. I copied the impress over to the desktop here at the house and am recording it right now at full res and 30 fps. Eeeeeee!!!!!

[chadwhitacre]

@dmk246 I yanked the new link because the quality was so bad. 😞 Working on another edit ...

[dmk246]

@whit537 oh good! Glad that you knew! Good luck!!

[chadwhitacre]

I am encoding from the xesc file that Expression Encoder produced, to mp4. I added a red background that goes away when the video starts (a clapper of sorts) and also Expression Encoder provides millisecond precision on the play head, as well as frame-by-frame seek. That means we should be able to sync up the audio to the video much more precisely.

[chadwhitacre]

I'm nervous about drift between the audio and video. Like, even if they're synced up at the beginning, they may get out of sync as the video goes on.

[chadwhitacre]

I don't know how big the mp4 file is going to be, but right now it's about 1% of the input file size after about 15 minutes.

[chadwhitacre]

It could be bigger. 😳

[chadwhitacre]

Alright, I killed it. I'm not going to run my computer for 24+ hours to encode this.

[chadwhitacre]

I'm letting go of the edit. Shuttleworth is getting raw footage—straight from the ❤️.

[chadwhitacre]

From: Shuttleworth
Subject: We are reviewing your Shuttleworth Application

Dear Chad

Thank you for applying to be a March 2017 Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow. It is humbling to us that you have spent your time and energy on the change you wish to make, and explaining it to us by way of a Fellowship application.

We are now in the process of reviewing all of the applications. We expect to select no more than 4 new Fellows, which means the competition is tough. We want you to know that you, who are brave enough to re-imagine the world in which we live, are doing a great job, and we thank you for that. Even if you do not make it through to the next round, don't be discouraged or disheartened. Continue making the change you want to see in the world.

We will be in touch over the next few weeks to let you know where you are in the process.

Kind regards,
Shuttleworth Foundation Team

[chadwhitacre]

Re: Fellowship Application

Dear Chad,

Thank you for submitting an application for the Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship Programme. We have received many excellent applications, so making a decision has been a difficult task.

We appreciate the passion and commitment to social change that went into your submission. However, in relation to other applications received, it was not the best fit for this particular Fellowship. With a limited number of spots available, unfortunately we will not be offering you a Fellowship this year.

Thanks again for the time and effort invested in the application and review process. We wish you all the best in finding the right support for your endeavour.

Kind regards,
Shuttleworth Foundation Team