Nathan Torkington writes an update to the drive to sponsor Damian Conway for a year. Go to http://registration.yapc.org/ to find out more.

As of midday Wednesday, regular contributions to the "Sponsor a Hacker" project total just over $16,000 of the $27,500 needed. At $27,500, Blackstar's matching contribution will take it up to the $55,000 it'll take to get Damian full-time next year.

We, the Perl community, only have two more days to get this figure to a point where it looks likely that the rest can be made. Damian's University wants to know whether he'll be out on Perl work (please please please) or teaching undergradutes how to use C++.

If you haven't pledged to the fund, please do so now. This is our chance to start a new model of user-community involvement in open source projects. This way we get a leading light of the Perl community working on Perl, with no possible corporate taint. If your company uses Perl and wants to return something to the community, a $1000 donation would be an excellent way to show it.

To recap: we still need another $11,000. Your pledge will bring us closer.

Thanks,

Nat