Hi, few weeks ago there was an event in Amsterdam, that had many participants & topics that overlap with the RIPE community. I wrote about my personal impressions; some of them are relevant for the diversity-task force, so I'm pointing you to the RIPE Labs article: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/becha/experiences-from-nlnog-day-2017

NLNOG keeps improving year after year ...

NLNOG has just introduced the Code of Conduct, summarised by Job Snijders during the opening speech. (video). NLNOG also appointed two "trusted persons" for during and after the event. These are people that are instructed on how to deal with undesired behaviour and report back to the organisation.

Having a Code of Conduct for events is one of the items on the elusive checklist for increasing gender diversity, as pointed out here.

In my opinion, gender diversity is lacking at NLNOG: out of ten presenters there were ZERO female presenters, and out of ~150 participants, there were about 10-15 women. I had a talk and a brainstorm with some attendees on what can we do to make the next event more interesting (or more safe) for our female colleagues. There were a lot of ideas: reach out to university students, invite female speakers in order to provide role models, provide contact for babysitters during evening activities, open fellowship for women on parental leave, etc,. But what's key to remember is that actions take time and effort and energy, and it again places the burden on the minority to try to improve the situation.

Now, several weeks later, and after visiting / hearing about other events, I realize that this is a very long process, and the improvements will be small & far apart -- and we need to be grateful for small victories (like, 10-15 women this year at NLNOG was actually an increase!) Do you have some more encouraging news to share? Thanks, Vesna