Diversity

A common theme at DebConf14 (and before) has been diversity and whether/how to increase it. This document serves to collect ideas. Please feel free to add/edit whatever you feel is relevant.

For the purpose of this document, let's look at diversity in a multi-modal fashion:

Diversity shall not be limited to gender or race. Diversity shall encompass different ways of thinking and living, ethnicity, religion, gender, sex, choices, language, preferences, and pretty much everything else.

Furthermore, diversity needs not be limited to people. Diversity can include topics of presentations, types of events, ways of organising, contributions, etc.

With this in mind — feel free to edit — please share your thoughts on the following with everyone!

Benefits of diversity

How do you think would DebConf (and ultimately Debian) benefit from more diversity?

• Mika Matsuzaki: Being a project that is known to be diverse makes it more attractive for minorities to join.
• Mako Hill: If we only recruit developers from one class of people (or make them be the only ones welcome), then we are ignoring the mostpart of people out there.
• Mako Hill: More diverse contributors scratching their own itches means Debian becomes more universal and can scratch more itches of a wider audience.
• bgupta: Human beings prefer monocultures. Making efforts to avoid monocultures, breaks us out of our tendencies for the betterment of the project. Project members learn to become more tolerant, and progressive, and develop more advanced socialization skills.
• …

Getting there

What do you think could be done to increase diversity in DebConf?

• madduck: newcomers' session on the night of arrival. Such a session would include sharing a bit of the spirit of DebConf, letting newcomers get to know each other, and maybe make some suggestions what to do during the week, if more active participation is desired by each individual. There could also be a follow-up session mid-week to report and share…
• Caroll: sponsor a person from a special program, like [Vets in Tech] to attend the conference. There are some tech companies that are working and training them to have a tech career after come home;
• Caroll: promoting a special activity during DebConf where the attendees could work together to "give a wish". [Make a Wish];
• your idea here…

Topics

Should we expand the range of topics presented at Debconf? If yes, what types of topics would be appropriate to include? For instance, we had Biella give a talk on Anonymous this year.