Programming Diversity
Click here to watch Programming Diversity.
It's been scientifically proven that more diverse communities and workplaces create better products and the solutions to difficult problems are more complete and diverse themselves. Companies are struggling to find adequate talent. So why do we see so few women, people of color, and LGBTQ people at our events and on the about pages of our websites? Even more curiously, why do 60% of women leave the tech industry within 10 years? Why are fewer women choosing to pursue computer science and related degrees than ever before? Why have stories of active discouragement, dismissal, harassment, or worse become regular news?
In this talk we’ll examine the causes behind the lack of diversity in our communities, events, and workplaces. We’ll discuss what we can do as community members, event organizers, and co-workers to not only combat this problem, but to encourage positive change by contributing to an atmosphere of inclusivity.
Objectives:
-Educate about the lack of diversity and why it is a problem
-Examine what is contributing to both the pipeline issue as well as attrition
-Isolate what is and isn't working
-Inspire direct action by examining our own behavior and learning more about the people around us so we can empathize better
Comments
I'm really excited that this one got submitted, and I really hope it's accepted. There are countless examples of tech conferences/communities giving short shrift to these conversations, or complaining that those bringing them up are "divisive." As a white guy, I want our spaces to be more inclusive and empowering -- that's what I love about open-source! -- and so I hope to see more of these kinds of conversations happening. This looks like a great one.
Agreed on all counts, and if anyone should be giving this talk it is ashe, who has been a leader in this space for years.
Would love to see the Drupal Community be a leader in this area for all and support Ashe 100%!
Would love to see the Drupal Community be a leader in this area for all and support Ashe 100%!
Definitely want to see this one. I'd really like to hear about ways to work toward more diverse user groups and workplaces.
This sounds like an informative and quite needed session! I recently saw this talk by the CEO of Etsy about why they wanted to increase the number of female engineers and what they did about it. http://firstround.com/article/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-Female-Engin...
I think he makes a good case for the need for a lot more awareness and proactive strategies to increase our diversity in just about every way we can imagine (and probably some we haven't thought of yet).
I would love to attend this session. I think the Drupal community is in a better place than many tech communities to kick some arse here, but only by valuing these conversations by making space for them.
Definitely hope to see this get accepted, for obvious reasons. Maybe we'll even have enough imported diversity that I won't be the only person of color in the room!
This would be an important, much-needed session. Perhaps it would be an appropriate place to talk about how initiatives like TransCode can help welcome more trans/queer/LGB people into the developer community.