OWOOT

From 2011–2014, Oceania Women of Open Tech (OWOOT) was a group for women in open technology in Oceania: Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

OWOOT's major event each year was the Haecksen miniconf at linux.conf.au.

History

OWOOT was launched in October 2011, but grew out of groups in the area for more than a decade.

OWOOT grew out of the former groups AussieChix and New Zealand LinuxChix, both regional chapters of LinuxChix. There had been city-wide chapters of LinuxChix in Sydney and Melbourne since 1999 or 2000, key volunteers in these chapters included at times Skud, Claudine Chionh, Julie Gibson, Pia Waugh and Sara Falamaki. AussieChix was founded by Mary Gardiner in February 2007 shortly after the first miniconf and the existing Australian chapters were merged into it. New Zealand LinuxChix was founded by Brenda Wallace, Joh Pirie-Clarke and Penny Leach.

In April 2011 Brenda closed New Zealand LinuxChix due to lack of activity, which was the catalyst for the AussieChix email list and the joint AU/NZ IRC channel to expand their scope and rename themselves OWOOT.

After a few years of quiescence, OWOOT membership agreed that there was not sufficient interest to continue the organisation. It closed in May 2014.