Diversity and Inclusivity
We’re always striving to improve diversity in our community – here you will find resources and our posts on the subject
Useful Resources
- Our code of conduct
- Findings from our diversity workshop
- Procedures and how to handle code of conduct violations
- Tips on how to build accessible events [link 1] [link 2]
Tagged posts
So it’s been a month since our 2020 Virtual Conference and we thought we’d share some of the diversity stats we collated from our attendees this year. Diversity is something we strive for in all of our events and we’re proud to say we were even more diverse than last year’s conference!
Age
We didn’t see many differences between this year and last year in terms of age other than a few more in the 55+ categories and a few less 16-24 year olds.
Gender
You’ll see that this year we labelled the options for gender differently, showing our constant strives for improvements at TechExeter. While half of our attendees chose not to disclose their gender, the statistics we did received showed a more equal distribution between male and female
Ethnicity
We don’t have any data to compare from last year but this year’s data shows 65% white and 35% non-white or did not disclose. We are looking forward to improving this even further in the coming years.
Sexuality
We’re sad that Exeter Pride didn’t take place this year, but there are virtual events taking place with our good friends at PRISM Exeter: https://prismexeter.com/.
Disability
Low Income Household
We’ve made a habit of sharing with you the diversity statistics of our speaker submissions, and since our CFP has just closed, the results are in!
Compared to last year’s data, we’re continuing to move in the right direction, but we know our work isn’t finished yet!
[ See all posts about Diversity & Inclusion ]
Following Kris’s comments on the debate about the lack of diversity at the Bristech conference, I felt inspired to post to the website for the first time since Jacob and I joined Kris as leaders of the community.
Many of you will already know that TechExeter is entirely volunteer-led, and with a demanding full-time job, an old thatch cottage to renovate, and the challenge of fitting everything we’re expected to do into one life these days, taking on the responsibility of helping to lead a vibrant, active community (with amazing events like GAME>PLAY and the conference to organise) has been a big commitment. I love the community and getting involved, but there was one very clear reason that drove me to get involved, and that was my passion for improving diversity in tech.
(more…)(Note from Kris: This is a bit of a rant, but I think it’s important!)
This morning I noticed a tweet about BrisTech’s response to feedback about diversity at their latest event:
Fair enough I thought. I click to read the article, which doesn’t fill me with confidence. Then I look at twitter.
How does a bigger city, with a bigger event than ours, manage to do so badly with diversity and inclusivity?
(more…)We’ve published our findings from our diversity workshop held earlier on in the year. Thank you to Kathryn for writing it up!
We sponsored our second Diversity workshop, this time working with PRISM on a session with Kayisha Payne from the Black British STEM network.
We try and be as transparent as possible at TechExeter, and one of the ways we do that is to report back stats on our events.
What follows are a few statistics from our call for speakers for this year’s tech conference on the theme of security and hacking.
Please note: These are statistics from people who submitted talks for our conference. Not everyone answered our diversity monitoring questions. We advertised for speakers on our website, social media, and through our member network.
Whilst at this year’s AWS Summit London, I had a chance to chat with the lovely people on the We Power Tech stand.
At AWS, we believe the future of tech is every color, gender, belief, origin, and community. The future of tech is accessible, flexible, and inclusive. We all have a long way to go before realizing this future. Join the We Power Tech community to meet allies and leaders who are powering the future. Build skills, get engaged with the community, and inspire the next generation.
These pronoun badges are a great idea, and one that I think we’ll be bringing to our conferences and meetups. Even as a cis male, wearing a badge helps to raise awareness and normalise pronoun choice, which can only be a good thing!
We’ll be at Exeter Pride on the 11th May alongside ExIST, PRISM and the Institute of Physics, showcasing some VR and gaming – come say hi, and look out for our banner in the parade!
