Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology: Community Organizer
About GOAT:
Agriculture spans science, engineering, technology, and society. To grow plants, raise animals, feed communities, and steward the land, water, and air, humans design information tools and reconfigurable hardware. An ecosystem of open source agricultural technologies has emerged, fueled by an urgency to regenerate resilience in food systems, agriculture, and the environment. The Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology, GOAT, is a community of practice focused on improving the resilience of our food system by coordinating technology design and development through connecting diverse people and fostering hard conversations. GOAT is a space to build consensus and cultivate relationships across multiple aligned visions for the future. We believe that a just and resilient food system demands open source technologies and open access data that support a new generation of farmers and food workers as they improve integrated ecosystems and human communities. Digital technologies have been historically designed for well-resourced food system actors (often agri-food corporations, industrial farms, and people in power), resulting in a lack of access to technologies designed for a more diverse food system with a diverse community of workers. GOAT seeks to support and network those interested in open source technology in the agricultural community and grow a diverse and collaborative community. While a growing number of open source hardware and software projects are being produced at public universities, farming communities, small companies and activist-technologist groups, each of these large scale grant-driven projects are isolated, losing opportunities for social and technological synergies.
Compensation:
Up to a total of $10,000 for 350-400 hours of work ($25-$30/hr based on background and skills), with opportunity to find continued funding. Quarterly budget plans will be constructed with the selected applicant.
2024 Work & Expectations:
The primary work of this position is to facilitate the organization and running of the 2024 GOAT conference. That work entails:
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Attending monthly community calls!
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Serve as Lead Conference Organizer
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Make bite-sized conference organization roles
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Get folks signed up to volunteer for those bite-sized roles
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Coordinate recruitment
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Attend the 2024 GOAT Conference
- Shepherding discussions around governance
- Lead on-site coordination with conference site
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Facilitate Post-Conference Materials Dissemination
- Grant reporting
In addition to organizing the conference, the community organizer will jumpstart the community on a range of initiatives, including but not limited to:
- Coordinate GOAT volunteer network
- Identify bite-sized community roles. Get folks to sign up to volunteer for those bite-sized roles, and take on some themself. For example:
- Identification and maintenance of conference opportunities
- Maintaining a list of funding opportunities (grants, RFPs, etc.)
- Quarterly Email newsletter
- Curated monthly events list
- Help Desk (inquiries to goatech.org@gmail.com, requests for info on forum, etc)
- Manage the GOAT calendar
- Identify bite-sized community roles. Get folks to sign up to volunteer for those bite-sized roles, and take on some themself. For example:
- Conduct as-needed community needs assessment
- What does the community need and want?
- Create a GOAT map
- Drafting the State of GOAT Report
- Synthesizing what we’ve said in the past
- Review 2023 materials and content
- Manifesto
- Establish GOAT Principles (Norms and Values)
- Strategizing GOAT Sustainability
- Inventorying grants and connecting GOAT-members to them
- Organizing collaborative funding for conference opportunities
- Preparing for GOAT sessions on this topic
- GOAT-Connect
- Make connections and identify opportunities
- Community discovery
Potential Future Work:
Potential future work includes items from above that fall out of scope with current funding resources. We continue to seek funding to extend, expand, evolve, and duplicate this position. The future of this position beyond 2024 could include outcomes from the 2024 conference and the following:
- Production tools farm advisor
- Host workshops and create training materials that are producer facing
- Identify GOAT adjacent locations
- Forums, discussions, list-serves, etc. where we can communicate about GOAT and identify those interested in our community.
- Be active / provide positive support for GOAT-based tools forums or other public areas (slack channels, etc)
- Supporting new users, creating a responsive persona to help those interested in GOAT tools.
- Provide tool-based needs assessments
- Example: working with farms interested in a tool to perform needs assessments around common features / needs, creating artifacts to provide to developers.
Desired Experience:
NOTE: Underrepresented people are less likely to apply unless they meet 100% of the job’s requirements. We believe in hiring people, not checklists, and encourage you to apply even if you do not check all of the boxes.
- 2 + years of administrative experience or community organizing experience
- Experience in writing reports, SOPs, and/or grants
- Experience in organizing small to medium sized events, programs, or other similar experiences.
- A passion for agriculture and a passion for building community.
Logistics:
- Position type: Independent contractor
- Location: Remote
- Equipment: Self-provided
- Desired start date: March 2024
- Hours per week: will vary depending on workload. Total hours available (350-400) is based on a $10,000 budget.
Apply Here: https://forms.gle/Tced5ZVnJuxFuMxd9
Contact greg@our-sci.net and jnnorton@purdue.edu for additional details and to express interest. We look forward to working with you!
