A decade of supporting Open Science
Our 10th year has been one of reflection. For everyone reading this, 2012 was a very different time than 2022. Yet after a decade of technological revolutions, political and cultural shifts, and world-changing events, one thing has never been clearer:
The open source scientific community is stronger than ever. And a strong scientific community has never been more vital.
As a long-time supporter of open-source efforts, it has been so gratifying to see the work of NumFOCUS over 10 years in supporting and focusing corporate energy towards CDOSS (community-driven open-source software). This software has been the foundation of some of the most exciting innovations in the past decade. With continued support from NumFOCUS to visionary community leaders, CDOSS will continue to be the foundation of innovation and science for decades to come.
- Travis Oliphant: Founding Chair, NumFOCUS Board of Directors, CEO at OpenTeams
Travis Oliphant
Open science has proven that mass collaboration can lead to innovation. For the last ten years, NumFOCUS has provided the institutional, operational, and financial administration support that underpins these community-driven efforts.
hosted events in...
different countries, with over...
attendees.
distributed in Project Support.
Our fiscal sponsorship program began 2014 with five projects. Since then, $23 million in project-restricted donations and grants has gone towards project advancements including groundbreaking technological innovations, community management, legal services, documentation, DEI initiatives, events, and promotion.
This program now supports 55 Sponsored and 57 Affiliated projects.
Get to Know Our Projectstutorials given at PyData conferences. PyData is NumFOCUS's flagship educational program.
Learn About PyData in 2022Project Stickers Distributed
NumFOCUS creates stickers for every Sponsored Project as a vehicle for promotion among contributors and users. They have, and continue to be, the neon lights of projects at events and on laptops worldwide. The number of stickers distributed is a barometer for promotional efforts and interest in the projects.
hours of legal services provided to our Sponsored projects.
Navigating international laws can be one of the most complex challenges facing open source projects. Our legal services help with licensing, trademark registration, ownership contracts, and agreements.
Open source was my gateway to scientific computing. To serve on the board and have a front-row seat to the work NumFOCUS is doing to support open source projects advancing science has been extremely rewarding.
- Katrina Riehl: President, NumFOCUS Board of Directors, Adjunct Lecturer at George Washington University
Katrina Riehl
Critical Aid to Scientific Problem Solvers and Trailblazers
NumFOCUS’s support extends across the open source scientific data stack. While you may recognize a number of these essential projects, we invite you to click on the logos below to learn more.
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Project Testimonial
Madicken Munk: yt Project, Research Scholar - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Proposals Funded in 2022
We were thrilled to increase the amount awarded to Sponsored and Affiliated projects through NumFOCUS Small Development Grants (SDG). The program, led by a committee of community volunteers, funds specific project needs at $5,000-$10,000 per grant. Since its inception, the program has allocated $700,636 in small grants.
37 proposals were funded in 2022, totaling $225,000 in grants.
The Project Summit brought together representatives from 45 projects, members of our board, Advisory Council, and staff in Santa Rosa, California. This year’s theme, Better Together, celebrated returning to an in-person gathering and the strength of cross-project community collaboration.
Two days of interactive panel discussions, talks, breakouts, unconference sessions, and social events gave projects an opportunity for open discussion, knowledge sharing, and networking. The Project Summit also provides an avenue for staff and board to hear valuable project feedback on services and programming. The need for ongoing opportunities for projects to collaborate was mentioned frequently this year and will be a focus in 2023.
We thank the members of our Summit Program Committee for their time and effort in putting together an incredible schedule. Our 2022 Project Summit would not have been possible without the generosity of our corporate and individual donors, and support from CZI; we extend our gratitude and appreciation for your impactful support.
Cultivating Open Source Leaders
Project Testimonial
Wolfgang Kerzendorf: TARDIS Founder & PI, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University – Astrophysics & Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering
Support from ANACONDA enabled the launch of a two-year partnership with Bitergia to provide metrics and open source dashboards for Sponsored projects.
Objective metrics provide insight to better understand the health of contributor communities, identify areas that need improving, and report on our success in supporting projects. As a sponsor of NumFOCUS, Anaconda shares this vision. We look forward to continuing to work with these partners to provide projects with critical metrics to advance their communities.
Support from ANACONDA enabled the launch of a two-year partnership with Bitergia to provide metrics and open source dashboards for Sponsored projects.
Objective metrics provide insight to better understand the health of contributor communities, identify areas that need improving, and report on our success in supporting projects. As a sponsor of NumFOCUS, Anaconda shares this vision. We look forward to continuing to work with these partners to provide projects with critical metrics to advance their communities.
Groundbreaking Science Requires
the Proper Groundwork
Want to chip in as a volunteer?
Find out how.
Our mission relies on the cooperation of enthusiastic volunteers, project contributors, fundraisers, and donors. You can’t move a mountain alone. But stone by stone, person to person, we can cut new paths to discovery.
This year our NumFOCUS community-led committees were taken to the next level through the efforts of dedicated volunteers. The positive impact of these community leaders on our mission can be seen in the five committees below.
Building Connections Through
Interaction, Education, and Conversation
NumFOCUS-organized events reach across multiple continents, strengthening local open source scientific communities. Our global online conferences unite these groups towards the shared cause of human advancement through the sharing of knowledge.
PyData is NumFOCUS’s most extensive educational program, comprised of worldwide events, meetups, and online channels. The PyData community is a constantly expanding wellspring of transformative thinkers, passionate participants, and ardent learners.
2022 saw the global resurgence of in-person PyData events after a few years of pandemic-related uncertainty and challenges. Collaborations during the conferences sparked fruitful discussions, spurred new ideas, and strengthened the bonds between community members.
NumFOCUS is a key supporter of PyData’s volunteer-led global Meetups now on every continent but Antarctica.
The entirely-remote PyData Global returned for its third year. While each of these events saw wide attendance and leading-class programming, this year benefitted from a new tool: Streamyard enhanced the conference experience by streaming sessions via YouTube. Thousands of attendees and hundreds of speakers from across the globe participated in the conference, with the highlight being our diverse keynote speakers.
Joining the NumFOCUS team, Project Jupyter hired a full-time Community Events Manager in February 2022 to focus on both Jupyter Community Workshops and producing an in-person JupyterCon coming in the Spring of 2023.
Jupyter Community Workshops bring together small groups of Jupyter community members and core contributors for high-impact strategic work and community engagement on focused topics.
A Community for All Is
Better for Everyone
The values of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are inherent to the principles behind open source scientific computing. A more inclusive community that shares ideas, methods, and code can make a profound impact. Our DEI efforts are vital to NumFOCUS’s core mission.
The research portion of our Contributor Diversification and Retention Project concluded in Q3 as we turned our focus to disseminating our findings and plans to pilot several recommendations with projects throughout 2023. Working in collaboration with a DISC subcommittee, we began the organization of the 2023 Unconference in the spring of 2023, which will develop sharing mechanisms for learning outcomes and using these guidelines and best practices.
In 2020 NumFOCUS was awarded a two-year grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to launch a research project focused on improving the understanding of diversity, inclusion, and barriers to participation within NumFOCUS-supported projects and the broader open source community. Project Leads from 20 of our Sponsored projects are participating in the CDR project.
PyData Global’s Impact Scholarship Program welcomed a new cohort of 60 scholars to participate in year two of the event’s DEI initiative aimed at supporting career development. As part of this year’s program, scholars had access to a specialized conference track with opportunities to network with mentors, access industry experts, and socialize with fellow scholars.
The track included beginner sprints on how to contribute to Open Source projects and mentored sessions giving scholars tools to become a contributor to some of the most widely-used Python libraries. In selecting scholars, the committee looks for leadership, community support, and the willingness to make a difference, be a role model, and contribute to a more diverse and inclusive tech world.
Driving the Next
Generation of Innovation
NumFOCUS benefits from a diverse body of stakeholders who believe in the promise of open science and, more importantly, realize that the need for support grows more pronounced each year. These corporate sponsors, foundations, event participants, and generous individual donors provide NumFOCUS with the resources needed to maintain the highest level of service to our Sponsored and Affiliated Projects.
In turn, NumFOCUS strives to be a responsible steward of the financial support we receive, as demonstrated this year by our earning a Gold Seal of Transparency from GuideStar, an independent organization which evaluates nonprofits against multiple transparency and accountability metrics. We consider it both a duty and a pleasure to retain their confidence in us.
The groundbreaking work of the James Webb Telescope is made possible with the NumFOCUS-supported tool Astropy.
Eight NumFOCUS projects were awarded CZI grants this year. This funding, life-changing for many projects, supported critical development, maintenance, and community initiatives. We are grateful for the continued support and positive impact of CZI’s EOSS program.
Our partnerships with corporate users are essential in sustaining our work. Enterprise stakeholders provide needed resources and crucial insights into the numerous domains and myriad of applications of NumFOCUS tools. We extend our deep appreciation and gratitude to all participating in our Corporate Sponsorship program.
Principal
Sustaining
Contributing
Community
With Support From
The NumFOCUS team, our board, and advisors make everything you’ve seen in this report possible. To learn more about the people you see here, visit our website.
NumFOCUS Staff
Executive Director
Director of Events and Resources
Director of Business Development
Open Source Developer Advocate
Operations Manager
Communications and Marketing Manager
Project Finance Manager
Financial Administrator
Grants Manager
AP/AR Specialist
Events Manager, Project Jupyter
Events Manager
Events and Digital Marketing Manager
Events Intern
Board of Directors
President
Chair
Treasurer
Secretary
Advisory Council
