Jen Kotila, who founded and is currently spearheading the project, toured a total of 12 hackerspaces/makerspaces/collaborative spaces starting in late July: NYC Resistor, Genspace, Alpha One Labs, Nordeastmakers, sudoroom, The Omni, Noisebridge, Biocurious, Liberating Ourselves Locally, Make Salt Lake, Montana Ethical Hackers and Bozeman Makers. Every single space was at least very interested in joining the project, which was a pleasant surprise! Several are in talks about formally joining the organization, pending board and/or consensus approval.

A select few were able to join on the spot due in part to them featuring responsive, non-traditional systems of governance. So far sudoroom, The Omni and Montana Ethical Hackers are the first official members! All three organizations already have written codes of conduct. However, all three are currently works in progress and will be evolving as time goes on, particularly that of The Omni’s which is still be constructed by a (very inspiring) working group via consensus decision making process. It is wonderful that we discovered three codes, as it will allow us to help other spaces build their own using these as models.

Speaking of, originally we weren’t quite sure how to sign up spaces that don’t currently have codes of conduct so we didn’t invite them into Phase One. We’ve now decided that a commitment to write a code, with or without our collaboration (which is provided 100% free of charge in accordance with the DIY/hacker ethos and always will be), is good enough for Phase One membership. We will be communicating this decision to spaces who wanted to sign on, but had no code of conduct ready to go shortly.

So stay tuned for more updates! Fall’s here and it’s time to get back to the business of bringing the hacking world closer together in an ethical, sustainable and inclusive manner. If you want to get involved, drop us a line at info@openinclusivity.org , join our mailing list or the Facebook group.