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[diversity] Increasing inclusion, not only diversity (an article)
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Vesna Manojlovic
BECHA at ripe.net
Tue Apr 24 15:51:06 CEST 2018
Hi, I find this article interesting and relevant for our efforts: https://medium.com/samsung-internet-dev/help-someone-has-pointed-out-my-conference-has-diversity-issues-c1162a1e8d4c 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
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