another idea on a mission statement

[Sarah Allen]

Ana Castro and I spoke yesterday about her ideas on starting ElixirBridge.  One of the steps of my draft how to make a bridge process is to discuss the mission of our organization.  We are an incredible group of mission-oriented volunteers, yet we haven't finalized a mission statement so far that captures the spirit and goals of what we do.  Since Ana is a long time RailsBridge volunteer, including being part of the RailsBridge board, I took a little time to ask her how she would describe the mission in her own words.  We iterated on the statement a bit and came up with this:

Empower people with technology through teaching, documentation and facilitating access, enlarging the community of people who give back and teach others.

Empoderar a las personas a través de la enseñanza, documentación y acceso a la tecnología, creciendo la comunidad de personas que contribuyen y participan en la enseñanza.

Interested in what you all think!

Sarah

p.s. our most recent prior versions with feedback on why they didn't quite seem to fit:

We are dedicated to doing whatever it takes so that the makers of technology are reflective of our society, because diversity fosters innovation.

Computer language literacy is a fundamental skill for the 21st century and makes this knowledge freely available as a public good.

Acercar a las personas y la tecnología a través de la enseñanza, documentación y acceso a la tecnología.

Feedback: It might be good to incorporate that we’re not just giving people skills, but also setting the expectation and teaching people how to pass that along to others. That second part is unique. It is a core value that we make what we know freely available to others (which they do in turn).  Those skills are important for leadership in general: teaching can look a lot like convincing and motivating; being successful as a TA can instill confidence. The BridgeFoundry mission should capture that somehow.