The lack of racial and gender diversity is a persistent issue in tech. One of its most obvious illustrations: check the speaker lineup for any given conference in the industry, and you’re likely to see a whole bunch of white men. It’s something our sister site Technical.ly Philly has called out more than once, and as the issue rises to prominence, more people within the industry are working to fix it.
Iheanyi Ekechukwu, a Brooklyn-based software engineer at Soho-based cloud computing company DigitalOcean, is tackling the issue by compiling a list of underrepresented speakers as a repository on GitHub. He announced the list on Twitter, encouraging others to contribute to it. It reminds us of the @WritersOfColor project, with a tech bent.
See the list
Tired of lack of diversity at conferences? I am! I created this repo as a directory for underrepresented speakers: https://t.co/heN2FFzsh2
— Iheanyi Ekechukwu (@kwuchu) September 5, 2016
Ekechukwu’s tweet sparked a lengthy discussion (at least, by Twitter standards) on the best way to diversify tech conference lineups.
Matteo Collina, a software engineer in Italy, countered that conferences should do a better job of encouraging underrepresented speakers to submit proposals rather than having to reach out to them after the fact. He and Ekechukwu batted around additional ideas, such as a list of conferences that are particularly encouraging of diversity.
This is likely an issue to be addressed from several angles. Many others have compiled lists of women and people of color in tech. Catt Small, our Brooklyn Technologist of the Year, wrote a step-by-step guide to becoming a good speaker. And Sarah Milstein, the Fort Greene-based co-founder of Lean Startup Productions, has some detailed thoughts on how conferences can put together a diverse group of speakers.
Here’s hoping Ekechukwu’s list adds to the conversation.
Before you go...
Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.
3 ways to support our work:- Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
- Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
- Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
Join our growing Slack community
Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!