Hi, I find this article interesting and relevant for our efforts: https://medium.com/samsung-internet-dev/help-someone-has-pointed-out-my-conf... Of course, there are differences: she is writing mostly about _developers_ conferences, and smaller ones too, organised by volunteers -- but there is quite an overlap, and similarities are greater then the differences, IMO - so this is what I got as tips , that we can learn from:
Don’t ask people from underrepresented background to help you with your diversity work for free, their work has value.
People who are underrepresented in tech are often also underpaid in tech. Being expected to work for free compounds these issues. Ensure that the people working to diversify your community are fairly compensated for their labor.
I think that RIPE NCC/RIPE meetings are doing some good things in this respect: - we payed for the training of the "trusted contacts" - we subsidize RACI candidates (young, academic, from less wealthy countries) and fellows (newcomers to the community) - we are offering childcare We can think about what else can we do to improve in this area. Next, she identifies 4 different categories of important "actors" (organisers, speakers, volunteers, participants), and says :
By changing only one aspect, such as the speakers, the diversity issues of the conference have not been solved,
We are trying hard to improve the diversity of speakers and participants -- and to measure our progress -- and it's a good thing that we do; but, as Mirjam also pointed out -- we need to do better when it comes to "organisers" (Programme Committee) and "volunteers" (WG Chairs). Then there is a matter of general inequalities in the society, mirrored by the tech-industry, such as:
To have this time available is to be very privileged.
We can not be expected to fix _all_ of the social problems, but we can consider doing this more often:
providing a speakers fee for any speaker you have asked to speak from an underrepresented minority.
I'm aware that this suggestion would spark a discussion, specially about "meritocracy" and "experts" and "quality", but personally I am not going to engage in this on the list - I am assuming we agree on the staring position that it is valuable to the RIPE Community if the diversity & inclusion are increased, and we are only talking about *how*, not _if_ we should aim at that goal. Vesna