Toronto’s Tech Event Organizers Don’t Care About Women or People of Colour
It’s been over seven months since I first started tweeting stats about speaker diversity at tech-related events in Toronto, and not much has changed when it comes to improving representation of women and PoC at tech events.
To provide some insights, here’s how 12 organizations that host tech-related events in Toronto are performing based on their last three events with two or more speakers as of month ending July 2016:
Some organizers believe that it’s not sustainable to have 50% women and 50% PoC represented at every event. I say they’re wrong. They simply need to start making an effort and stop asking others to do it for them—especially when there’s a resource with over 100 speakers available already.
Here’s what you can do
If you’re an event organizer, visit womenandcolor.com to find women and PoC available to speak at tech-related events in Toronto. Alternatively, consider asking for a woman and/or PoC from the company being featured to be the speaker.
If you’re an event speaker, ask the event organizer about how many of the speakers are women and PoC; direct them to womenandcolor.com if there’s a lack of representation. Alternatively, consider giving up your seat to make room for women and PoC speakers.
If you’re an event attendee, ask the event organization—in public—why it isn’t making an effort to create better representation of women and PoC. Alternatively, consider boycotting the event until they commit to ensuring equal representation for women and PoC.
Disclosure: All of the event organizations are aware of Women and Color as a resource to find women and PoC speakers for their events—I personally reached out to most, if not all, of the event organizers asking them to use Women and Color as a means to find speakers for their next events.
We Are Wearables recently reached out to provide me with an opportunity to plug Women & Color at their event. @ExploreTechTO started reaching out before the directory was launched to ensure their events had equal representation. @RubyTalksTO previously used womenandcolor.com to find speakers for their June event.
