Makoto Nozaki

I have posted a formal version of the Grants Committee 2014 report.

Here is another, a bit less formal and more personal version.

Here I am

I took over the position of the Grants Committee secretary at the beginning of this year. I wanted to try a lot of things, some of which went great, but others were challenging.

People change

Besides me,

• Daisuke Maki joined the committee as the first voting member from Japan. Perl community in Japan is often "invisible" and TPF is invisible in Japan due to the language barrier and he has been working hard to increase the visibility.
• Mark Jensen joined us as a grant manager. I am sure a number of you enjoy his grant updates already. Behind the scene, he spends good amount of time to help the grants run smoothly.

Grant rules change

• The grant evaluation is conducted every 2 months. It was quarterly until 2013.
• The grant limit was raised from $3,000 to $10,000.

Can't be a bad thing.

Challenge 1: Marketing

Our favorite topic. The grant program has to be more known. Our committee people tweeted and blogged. I spoke about the grant program in my local Perl Mongers meeting. The program was mentioned in multiple talks in YAPC. You may have seen our Google ads which I have been testing. But marketing is never enough.

Challenge 2: $$$

The grant program isn't possible without our sponsors. As the Grants Committee, one of the best ways to give back the value to the sponsors is to deliver grants successfully to advance the Perl language. We need to have more successful grants, which will lead to the sponsors' satisfaction and, in the long run, more sponsorship and more grants will be possible.