[diversity] Draft minutes - RIPE Diversity TF Meeting - 15 May 2018

Amanda,

Thanks for this!

I did raise some of the points about encouraging more diversity from companies to the PC and WG Chairs. This was somewhat in passing and I think we need to develop this further before bringing more concrete proposals.

Brian

Brian Nisbet 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: diversity <diversity-bounces at ripe.net> On Behalf Of Amanda
> Gowland
> Sent: Tuesday 29 May 2018 11:03
> To: diversity at ripe.net
> Subject: [diversity] Draft minutes - RIPE Diversity TF Meeting - 15 May 2018
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Please find the draft minutes from our last meeting below.
> 
> If you have any comments/changes, please send those through before these
> get posted online.
> 
> Warm regards,
> 
> Amanda
> 
> ---
> 
> RIPE Diversity Task Force Meeting - 15 May 2018
> 
> Present: Amanda Gowland,Brian Nisbet, Sara Marcolla, Cristian Sirbu, Ingrid
> Veling, Mirjam Kühne, Vesna Manojlovic, Denesh Bhabuta
> 
> Agenda:
> 
> - On-site Childcare Pilot at RIPE 76
> - Gender Metrics update
> - Mentoring at RIPE Meetings
> - Outreach w. local tech community
> - AOB
> 
> On-site Childcare Pilot at RIPE 76
> 
> Amanda gave an update on the on-site childcare pilot. The room was perfect
> - large with a lot of natural light. The provider, WorldWide Kids, did an
> amazing job with the set-up. As expected, the take-up wasn't massive
> (originally eight children registered but half dropped out before the
> meeting). There were five children that ended up in the room but the buzz
> on Twitter and at the meeting about the service was hugely positive.
> 
> ISOC was the sponsor for the pilot and we hope that we can secure
> additional sponsorship for RIPE 77 in Amsterdam. We expect the take-up to
> be much bigger now that word of mouth is out.
> 
> Gender Metrics Update
> 
> Shane gave an update on gathering metrics. He sent an email to the Diversity
> TF mailing list with some more ad-hoc metrics, but found it hard to pull info
> like this out of the existing data.
> 
> ACTION: Amanda send Shane the data from the gender question linked to
> the RIPE 76 registration process.
> 
> ACTION: Amanda to ask Martina to have the gender question actually
> integrated into the registration software rather than via a third-party tool +
> ask RIPE NCC legal about any GDPR ramifications
> 
> Shane added that he will give an update in the WG Chair Lunch AOB if time
> allows to see how they can use the data he's collecting for their working
> groups.
> 
> There was a discussion in the group about how the metrics don't take into
> account the diversity (or lack thereof) of leadership roles in the RIPE
> community - specifically, the RIPE Programme Committee and the Working
> Group Chairs. This is something that the TF should start addressing.
> 
> Brian noted that there aren't that many women in leadership roles currently.
> 
> Ingrid asked if there was data on how many women commented at the mics.
> 
> There isn't but the group agreed it would be good to gather this data, let's
> think about the best way to do it.
> 
> Shane mentioned that he'd done some software tweaking to try and make
> better guesses of gender based on the names. He's still working on it, will be
> on GitHub soon.
> 
> Vesna said that she would like it noted that we are aware of the binary issue
> (Male identified names, female-identified names) and we will go from there,
> it's a starting point.
> 
> Mentoring at RIPE Meetings
> 
> Amanda gave an update on mentoring. They been doing it for the RIPE
> Fellowship for the past two meetings and it's worked well, but it's all done ad
> hoc and it's quite a lot of work. She would like to implement a more formal
> and automated process for getting experienced RIPE community members
> on board. She's working on a project plan currently and the plan is to launch
> this in time for RIPE 77.
> 
> Ingrid mentioned that she was speaking with a young woman who was
> intimidated going to socials. Amanda said that this isn't the first time that
> they've heard comments like this - which is why she thinks it's really
> important to start fostering allies at meetings so intimidating behaviour can
> be recognised more easily.
> 
> Outreach for local tech community
> 
> The TF efforts to engage more actively with the local tech community in
> France were not so successful. Brian mentioned that it would be much easier
> to do this in Amsterdam.
> 
> Amanda mentioned that she tried very hard to get some French women
> working in tech to speak at the Women in Tech lunch but no luck.
> 
> Sara commented that at Europol, they aim to get at least 30% of women at
> their conference. Mirjam mentioned that we could consider making it it a
> requirement that slots need to be occupied by a certain number of women.
> 
> Denesh commented that it can be a real challenge. At UKNOF, 50% of the
> presentation submissions in general are rejected, so they don't have a lot of
> female presentation submissions to consider.
> 
> Ingrid asked if there were ever duo-presentations and if not, perhaps it's an
> idea to encourage frequent RIPE Meeting presenters to bring a female
> colleague on the stage to co-present with them.
> 
> Cristian suggested that perhaps the RIPE PC and WG Chairs could be
> proactive about asking their contacts for female presenters.
> 
> Vesna mentioned that many conferences provide funding to bring in more
> female presenters. The financial barrier is often a factor.
> 
> Amanda commented that the RIPE Fellowship provides funding to attend
> and perhaps it would be good to market this more towards potential female
> speakers.
> 
> AOBs
> 
> ACTION: Vesna will schedule the next TF meeting.
> 
> Sara asked to have a meeting with the RIPE Diversity TF and Europol's
> Diversity TF. In 2019, they are organising a conference on diversity.
> They have budget to fund presenters.
> 
> ACTION: Vesna - organise meeting with Sara.
> 
> Cristian mentioned having a 'companion' ticket - discounted ticket for people
> to bring their partners to events.
> 
> Denesh asked why the RIPE NCC explicitly mentioned not having kids on the
> conference floor on the childcare page. Amanda explained that when they
> announced they would be doing childcare at the last RIPE Meeting, they
> received a few negative comments from attendees imagining kids running
> around the meeting, so that text was added to just set expectations.
> 
> Mirjam complimented Denesh on UKNOF's diversity and inclusion efforts and
> suggested that he give a presentation about this at RIPE 77.
> 
> *Open Actions*
> 
> ACTION: Amanda send Shane the data from the gender question linked to
> the RIPE 76 registration process.
> 
> ACTION: Amanda to ask Martina to have the gender question actually
> integrated into the registration software rather than via a third-party tool +
> ask RIPE NCC legal about any GDPR ramifications
> 
> ACTION: Vesna will schedule the next TF meeting
> 
> ACTION: Vesna - organise meeting with Sara
> 
> 
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