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RIPE 90 Diversity in Tech Session Minutes
by Mirjam Kuehne 03 Jun '25

03 Jun '25

Dear colleagues, The minutes of the DEI session at RIPE 90 have been published on the website: https://www.ripe.net/community/community-initiatives/diversity/ripe-90/ Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Many thanks again for the active participation and constructive suggestions. Kind regards, Mirjam

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DEI session at RIPE 90
by Mirjam Kuehne 24 Feb '25

24 Feb '25

Dear colleagues, At RIPE 90 in Lisbon, we will have a session again dedicated to DEI. It is scheduled for Tuesday, 13 May at 18:00: https://ripe90.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/ If there is a topic you would like to bring up, please let me know. Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair

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Roasting the RIPE 89 Meeting
by Maria Matejka 12 Nov '24

12 Nov '24

Dear DEI WG, it's a third time I'm writing a dump of how the session felt to me. Still quite hesitating whether this is a good idea, yet I learned the hard way that if nobody speaks up, then things may start moving backwards very quickly. Please feel free to join me in roasting, I'd appreciate to not be the only one. Also, if you felt differently, please say it. I'm not the authority on roasting. And also if anybody here feels that these feedback e-mails do not belong here, please tell me. Also, what I don't comment, was probably OK, or under my radar. Feel free to roast that yourself. As always, some things went better. I must explicitly appreciate the board game evening, it was fine and peaceful. (Sorry for stealing all the sets, I couldn't help myself.) We shall definitely advertise this "side-social" a little bit more, also maybe with more information what is provided and what one should bring themselves. Also the steno log, which was too short last time, was fixed for this time, thanks! The meeting venue was OK, nothing was really confusing, yet I think that for the plenaries, the two halls could be converted to one. Also showing the current agenda item (e.g. Connect WG) to the screens at the entrance … would be much convenienter than opening the agenda on screen and then choosing the right or left room. (These notes are probably not diversity-specific but we may have some people who would benefit from these changes more than me.) Meals went worse than what I can remember. - at lunches, the signs were there and looked accurate (this is good!) but one had to pull the signs from the stands to see the miniature number at the bottom (and then remember which number you can't eat) - also at lunches, most of the meat was marked as containing gluten and in some cases also milk, which is quite unnecessary and kinda reckless and it typically led to a very limited choice - I would very much appreciate next time if RIPE requested not only catering, but also something like "do not add unneccessary alergens to the meals" - all in all, not only was it under my expectations, it was quite a challenge to eat well, which felt very unusual for me - also iirc eating vegan wasn't much pleasurable (not directly on my radar tho) - monday and tuesday social lacked markings iirc altogether - at thursday dinner, i got served a dessert containing gluten without knowing it, and i had to explicitly ask after starting it – this happened despite me repeatedly informing the staff about my gluten intolerance - also at thursday dinner, i didn't care too much but apparently many vegetarians / vegans didn't consider the risotto appropriate because of the black coloring which is (as i learned later) hard to get without harming animals - apart from a limited choice of fruits, there was nothing gluten free at the coffee breaks (or at least i couldn't find it); and it also looked quite diabetes-unfriendly - all the mentioned problems can be resolved by putting a bunch of tickboxes to the registration, saying e.g. "gluten", "milk", "eggs", "dia", "crustaceans", "vegan", "other" (i don't remember the most common food limitations), collecting this information, passing it to the suppliers and requesting appropriate accomodations – nowadays it's not hard to do inclusive catering, one just has to think a little bit in advance Tuesday social was quite noisy even before the DJ started but bearable for me. Enough non-alcoholic drinks as well. Thursday dinner alcohol preference (sadly) returned to the Rome standard, and also the noise level went above my parser limits so I was barely able to understand simple sentences. (Not so noisy as in Rome but still significantly worse than in Kraków.) Also, thanks for rescheduling the DEI session, yet now there were BoFs right before the dinner so the problem kinda stayed as before. And even though I'm not planning to attend the thursday dinner anymore, it may be handy for others. I shall reiterate that if these problems were just me-problems, I would just somehow cope, yet I'm quite an experienced traveller capable of many workarounds. I'm speaking up for those who will come after me. Have a winter the way you like it, and see you in Lisboa! Maria PS. Thanks to Annika for consulting and proofreading! -- Maria Matejka (she/her) | BIRD Team Leader | CZ.NIC, z.s.p.o.

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion topics at RIPE89
by Vesna Manojlovic ＠ RIPE.net 23 Oct '24

23 Oct '24

Dear community, I am happy to announce DEI session (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) on the upcoming RIPE meeting: Tuesday, 29 October 18:00 - 19:00 (UTC+1) https://ripe89.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/diversity/ You can join online (for free ), in the Local Hubs [9] or in Prague, by registering at the meeting web site. This time, we will cover three quite varied themes, that still have continuity with previous sessions: * Francisca Niklitschek will talk about "Postgrowth Society: Feminist Insights", continuing on (my favourite) topics of DeGrowth [0], [1] & (data) feminism [2] ; * Leo Vegoda will explain to us "Visual Processing" as an aspect of Neurodiversity, which was a topic that sparked a lot of interest at RIPE88 [3], and covered previously on RIPE Labs [4], [5] ; And we will round it up with Zuzana Pechová from CyberLadies: she will talk about "Community for Underrepresented Folks in Czech Cybersecurity", which goes nicely with the focus on local community we had at the "student webinar" [6], plus fits with the newly named "Security-WG" [7] and the historical start of these sessions : NetGrrls [8]. Please join us, contribute with your questions/comments, & enjoy! Regards, Vesna Manojlović Senior Community Builder, RIPE NCC Links: ==== [0] https://ripe86.ripe.net/archives/video/1001/ [1] https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/environmental-impact-of-internet-urgency… [2] https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/data-feminism-from-data-ethics-to-data-j… [3] https://ripe88.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/diversity-equity-inclusion/ [4] https://labs.ripe.net/author/agowland/the-microphone-is-the-devil-some-know… [5] https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/ripe-community-resilience-embracing-neur… [6] https://ripe89.ripe.net/programme/parallel-events/student-event/ [7] https://ripe89.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/security-wg/ [8] https://seclists.org/nanog/2000/Jun/64 [9] https://ripe89.ripe.net/attend/local-hubs/ -- I work part-time :: 60% :: 22.5 hours per week Monday to Thursday :: 10AM-4PM CEST/CET Latest articles: https://labs.ripe.net/author/becha/

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"Technical women and women-in-tech"
by Vesna Manojlovic ＠ RIPE.net 17 Oct '24

17 Oct '24

Hi, Here is a very painful-to-read blog post, about "Technical women and women-in-tech", by Iris Meredith. Date published: 2024-10-07 https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/women_in_tech It starts with: > The tech industry is and will likely remain misogynistic: women are > comprehensively excluded from senior or technical roles, relentlessly > abused and have serious trouble making headway in tech careers. > However, there's also a massive amount of writing and literature that > gets put out about how the same companies are doing wonderful things > with women in tech, and we regularly see profiles of women tech > leaders be given pride of place in industry literature and suchlike. > I've been trying to resolve this contradiction in my head for a while, > and I think I've finally reached a conclusion: the way that much > misogyny in tech operates is by creating a category of women-in-tech > that's distinct from technical women or women who have technical > skills in the wider sense, and in fact has very little overlap with it. ... points out a lot of intersectional-marginalisation... and issues with emotional labor... ... goes into the core of a problem: > women-in-tech as a construct seem to exist primarily in order to > suffer abuse. Actually being technical or making a technical > contribution is, by-and-large, irrelevant, and women in the wide sense > are not accepted or allowed into tech: we have to force ourselves into > the women-in-tech mould and take all of this abuse on. ... and ends on a very sad note: > We try and make our own way in the world: pushed out of the > prestigious spaces where the abuse is the strongest, we make a meagre > living on the margins of technology, some of us in the public sector, > some of us trying to scrape together freelance and contract work, some > of us trying to build more involved businesses, knowing that it's an > uphill fight every step of the way. We're exhausted, burned-out and > broken down. If you, too, recognise yourself in these descriptions -- please know that you are not alone, that we are here to to support each other, and that you are seen! Alternatively, I wish that we can gather some counter-exmaples on this list. Please share that too. Because: > It shouldn't have to be this way. > Regards, Vesna

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Re: Diversity & Inclusion Links, July 2024
by Vesna Manojlovic ＠ RIPE.net 23 Jul '24

23 Jul '24

Correct links : > "Qualifying and Quantifying the Benefits of Mindfulness Practices for IT > Workers" > Cristina Martinez Montes, Fredrik Sjo ̈gren, Adam Klevfors > Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Chalmers, > Gothenburg, Sweden https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14393 > "Automation acceptance for sustainable digital daily life" by Emilie > Vrain†, Environmental Change Institute School of Geography and > Environment University of Oxford https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:937dade3-23a2-434f-af86-6136929904ac/file…

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Diversity & Inclusion Links, July 2024
by Vesna Manojlovic ＠ RIPE.net 22 Jul '24

22 Jul '24

Dear colleagues, I wanted to share lots of links that you might find interesting: papers, talks & articles, reports & opinions. Each one deserves a whole post & lots of analysis & discussion -- please reply to this, or start own thread, or post it to forum.ripe.net . Regards, Vesna 1) Relevant to the talk by Natasa Mojsilovic at RIPE88: "Qualifying and Quantifying the Benefits of Mindfulness Practices for IT Workers" Cristina Martinez Montes, Fredrik Sjo ̈gren, Adam Klevfors Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Chalmers, Gothenburg, Sweden https://conf.researchr.org/getImage/ict4s-2024/orig/ICT4S2024_paper_45.pdf 2)*quantification* of emotional labour & care work "Automation acceptance for sustainable digital daily life" by Emilie Vrain†, Environmental Change Institute School of Geography and Environment University of Oxford https://conf.researchr.org/getImage/ict4s-2024/orig/ICT4S2024_paper_49.pdf 3) The Iceberg Model: towards unraveling our patriarchal legacy; BY MATT WYNNE JUNE 27, 2024 At the DDD Europe 2024 conference in Amsterdam, Diana Montalion and I co-hosted a hands-on workshop titled Using The Iceberg Model to Improve Sociotechnical Systems. We had an agenda for this workshop that was hidden in plain sight: to analyze the lack of gender diversity in the social system of the software development industry itself. https://www.mechanical-orchard.com/insights/the-iceberg-model-towards-unrav… (& https://2024.dddeurope.com/program/using-the-iceberg-model-to-improve-socio…) 4) "The Four Freedoms We Want at Work", BY LAURA MORGAN ROBERTS | JUNE 24, 2024 Thinking about the freedoms people have at work can help address diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns as well as employee well-being. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_four_freedoms_we_want_at_… 5) W3C annually reports on gender and geographic diversity at W3C, since 2018: https://www.w3.org/about/diversity/diversity-report-2024/ 6) The graying open source community needs fresh blood, by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols Mon 15 Jul 2024 A "Youth and Open Source" panel was held at the United Nations (UN) Open Source Program Office (OSPO) for Good conference in the UN building in Manhattan. There was only one little problem with it. To quote Ruth Ikegah, a young Nigerian open source project manager, "We need more young people here because I see a lot of old people here." https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/opinion_open_source_attract_devs/ === Share & Enjoy, Vesna

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Minutes of RIPE 88 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Session
by Mirjam Kuehne 16 Jul '24

16 Jul '24

Hi, You can now find the minutes of the RIPE 88 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion session online: https://www.ripe.net/community/diversity/ripe-88-diversity-equity-and-inclu… Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne

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Roasting the RIPE 88 meeting (just a bit)
by Maria Matejka 29 May '24

29 May '24

Dear DEI WG, as I promised, instead of presenting this at the DEI session, I'm writing this report as an e-mail. First of all, I must say that the organizers showed an awful lot of effort. Many of the notes from the meeting in Rome were actually taken and considered. Thank you. Follows a honest dump of how I was feeling. This is my report and you could feel differently. Please feel free to add more info (write your reports), suggest solutions, coping mechanisms or whatever else you feel appropriate. Especially if somebody could assess physical accessibility, it would be nice. The meeting venue map was much better than in Rome, I got oriented soon, it was very much accurate, the only confusing thing there was a too big elevator sign which clashed with a hallway. Only now it came to my mind that I could probably note this earlier (on Monday) and the map could be theoretically updated online! Also in Rome, there were the golfers around who looked at us quite gnarly. In Kraków, there was quite some space outside to vibe and the only really weird thing was that cringe car parked across. A little note to smokers directly in front of the entrance, at least once the smoke went in. I didn't care too much but it may be worth noting. Meals went better than last time but there is still much to improve. - at lunches, the signs were there and looked accurate (this is good!) - the same was at the monday social, the meals were marked well, iirc - at tuesday social, there was iirc no signing of allergens so I had to determine the gluten contents from the sign - at thursday dinner, everything went kinda well; for the next meeting, I would suggest to add "food allergies and limitations" open text field to the registration; there is already a vegan option openly offered … and also the allergens weren't declared at all so one had to guess - most of the time, i couldn't find anything gluten-free at the coffee breaks; only sometimes there was some fruit (which is a good thing!) … and the coffee break pastry lacked allergen signs either -> knowing the food allergies from the registration form could allow the catering company to compose a menu inclusive to everybody The public transportation was OK. Nobody hate-crimed me all around Kraków and I felt OK even walking alone in the night. Also the sidewalks were clean enough to walk barefoot (except for some places around dworzec glówny which is expectable). Stenographers did a great job. Displaying the last 5 lines was, however, conflicting with my ADHD. I'm used to sometimes lose my attention and then raise my head, scan the steno log and get back into the context. Longer steno log, please! The Tuesday social went well, there was enough easy-to-access non-alcoholic drinks and the quiet room with switched-off speakers and board games available … was the place where I wanted to retreat to when the DJ started playing. Somebody probably switched the speakers on there though. Instead of finding somebody to play board games with, I just left because I was too socially exhausted to do anything with the noise. The dinner was fine, there was plenty of non-alcoholic drinks (and people were actually drinking them), the organizer was helpful and it wasn't too loud. Also I was offered earplugs! The spacing between tables here was just right to not overhear conversations from other tables and not to have to shout (and body heat dissipated better than in Rome), so I would say that for the next time it's better to strictly limit number of dinner tickets to keep this spacing. Just, eh, please, could we do _something_ with the 1 hour between DEI and dinner? I would have arrived late even if I had left to dress up right after DEI. My suggestion would be to displace both official BoFs to Monday evening and to move DEI to Tuesday. I may have forgotten something so feel free to ask or add your views. All in all, I'm declaring this meeting much more inclusive and welcoming than the previous one. Many thanks to the organizers. Have a nice summer and autumn and see you in Prague! Maria PS. Hoping that I didn't make anybody uncomfortable by occasionally cracking my whip at the parking lot. -- Maria Matejka (she/her) | BIRD Team Leader | CZ.NIC, z.s.p.o.

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RIPE Labs article: The RIPE Code of Conduct Team Update 2024
by Samaneh Tajali 21 May '24

21 May '24

Dear all, The RIPE community has always aimed to foster an open, supportive atmosphere across its events and communication fora. The RIPE Code of Conduct <https://www.ripe.net/community/code-of-conduct/> helps make clear which behaviours cultivate that, and which don't. In this RIPE Labs article, as the RIPE Code of Conduct Team <https://www.ripe.net/community/code-of-conduct/ripe-code-of-conduct-team/#:….>, we provide updates on the work we do to help uphold RIPE community values. https://labs.ripe.net/author/franziska_lichtblau/the-ripe-code-of-conduct-t… Cheers, Samaneh

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