"It gives you visibility and credibility" - Winstina Hughes
Rutgers alumna Winstina Hughes is the founder of Support Inclusion in Tech.
“If you're looking for tangible ways to make someone's life better, this is where it's at,” says Winstina Hughes RC’07, BSPPP’17.
Hughes was talking about her work as a transportation planner, a role in which she’s focused on major infrastructure projects—roads, bridges, tunnels and railways—aimed at helping the public get around safely and easily.
But even when she’s not at her job at the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, Hughes is working on ways to make people’s lives better.
In 2022, she founded Support Inclusion in Tech (SiNC), a volunteer initiative aimed at increasing the diversity of speakers at major tech gatherings known as WordCamps or WordPress events, which draw scores of online professionals to conferences held around the world. The conferences are associated with WordPress, the free and open-source personal publishing software.
The initiative, as designed by Hughes, seeks support from companies and individuals to cover the travel and lodging costs of speakers from underrepresented communities. SiNC has funded speakers from five continents and the Caribbean, provided small grants to contributors on four continents, and completed its first mentorship cohort.
In the interview below, Hughes discusses her initiative as well as her longtime involvement with open-source technology.
"My ultimate goal is to create pathways for students to become involved in open source," says Winstina Hughes.Q: What made you come up with Support Inclusion in Tech and what do you see as its overall mission?
A: Within our WordPress community, there's always been questions about why there are so few women, people of color, people with different abilities, younger people, and those from LGBTQ communities at our conferences. As a planner, I bring a systems type of thinking, and my conclusion was that there is a financial element to this we have to think about. If you can't afford the travel, you're not going to apply to be a speaker. If you can't get there in the first place, then you're not going to throw your hat in the ring. That in itself keeps a lot of smart, creative, vital people from coming.
Q: Why are these conferences so important, and how does it make a difference in the lives of those who attend?
A: It’s huge. For our recipients, the support from SiNC means they can be present, network with people, meet decision-makers, and get more opportunities. It gives you visibility and credibility. So, being at these conferences is like the difference between having no presence and minimal interaction to breaking through a divide and starting to make those connections that change the trajectory of lives and careers.
Q: This initiative reflects your longtime interest in open-source software. Can you explain what that is, and why it’s important?
A: There is open-source software, and there is closed source software which dominates the consumer landscape. The distinction matters more than most people realize. Open-source software is software whose source code is publicly available. You can inspect it, study how it works, modify it, and redistribute it depending on the license. Closed source software is the opposite. Its code is private. It is owned and controlled internally by a company. That split shapes power in the technology landscape: open-source guarantees access to the code. Proprietary software does not.
My ultimate goal is to create pathways for students to become involved in open source. There are versions of open source for students who would never connect technology to the work that they do, and this would create avenues for them to contribute to a project.
Q: You were introduced to open source during a class you took at Rutgers. How can it benefit students today who are already so tech savvy?
A: There's great value for students to be introduced to the concept of open source and to identify the open-source software and technologies that align with their areas of study. They can start learning outside of class, begin creating a project, and ultimately step into entrepreneurship. I see entrepreneurship as a mindset, not just as a pathway for income. Once you're thinking outside of these standard structures that we're in, you're thinking creatively and finding solutions that can come from your lived experience and the classes that you're taking at Rutgers, just like what I've created comes from my own lived experience, and from what I studied at Rutgers.
Q: You have described Support Inclusion in Tech as your effort to realize the “fifth freedom.” What does that mean?
A: WordPress has the four freedoms that let you know what you can do with the code . . . essentially you can see the code, use it, edit it, and redistribute it. An entire global community has developed from these four freedoms. I see the fifth freedom as removing the barriers and structures that limit people’s participation. So, for me, funding speakers and contributors who are unable to afford it is the way you create a fully inclusive community. The fifth freedom is full inclusion for everyone.