Hey all - As the new Jupyter Foundation takes shape, I wanted to share an update from my perspective as a board member on some recent progress we’ve made (this isn’t a formal board communication, just my personal perspective). I know that folks are eager to learn about what the Foundation has been up to, as well as what its priorities are. Here’s one step in that direction!
In Q1 2025 the Foundation has been in the process of bootstrapping all of its organizational structure and processes. This is a big and complex effort - it effectively means setting up a new organization from scratch. To begin, we wanted to define our mission, figure out how we’ll operate, and establish our initial priorities.
The Foundation Board met in-person for the first time in mid-March at the Linux Foundation summit. At the meeting we started defining answers to these questions. We then spent the last month refining and converging on the initial direction. We’ve now just merged the first wave of strategic content into the Foundation Board team compass (You can find the PR adding this content here). This includes the following things:
- Our overall mission and structure as a team.
- Our current goal and strategy for accomplishing it.
- The thematic areas where we want to use Foundation funding, along with ideas for the principles we’ll follow in targeting funding.
- The initial process we’ll follow for deciding on funding targets and implementing any decisions about funding.
We think this is a key milestone because it provides a framework for how the Foundation will operate and make decisions. It represents alignment among the board on our priorities and enables us to move forward with targeted action. Our next step is to use these goals and priorities to guide initial proposals for funding.
Community input like the feedback in this issue has been critical in helping the Foundation understand the problems that it can help solve, and what we should prioritize. It will also be key in identifying specific targets for funding. We really appreciate all of the feedback that others have given here, and we’ll communicate out as soon as we have some specific funding proposals approved.
Please take a look at the Foundation Board team compass and give us any feedback that you’d like to share. You can reach out to any of the Jupyter Executive Council team members, give feedback in this Discourse thread, or open an issue on the JEC team compass (we can’t guarantee that we will engage and resolve every issue, but we promise we will read them all).