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InfoQ Homepage News QCon Awarded 10 Diversity Scholarships for QCon SF 2016

QCon Awarded 10 Diversity Scholarships for QCon SF 2016

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The QCon San Francisco Conference organizers are pleased to announce that 10 Diversity Scholarships were awarded for QCon San Francisco, 2016. The scholarship was open to all underrepresented groups in the technology community. QCon is committed to encouraging diversity in the tech community. While QCon has worked hard to provide opportunities for speakers from all backgrounds (for example in London this year, 50% of keynotes included women on stage, and in San Francisco, 66% of the keynotes speakers will be women), we felt that we could do better to reach a more diverse attendance pool (6% of attendees in London and 11% in New York were women).

Eileen Murray, Conferences and Events Coordinator for C4Media, the organizing company for QCon and InfoQ, notes that the event staff are constantly seeking ways to allow attendees to safely express themselves, and take care of their needs. “We offer a Family and a Prayer room to all attendees and speakers” allowing a space for privacy if desired and requested.

Through nominations from speakers, track hosts, and co-chairs, members of underrepresented groups within the tech community were considered for these scholarships. Recipients were picked randomly from the nomination pool and notified via email. Five Diversity Scholarships included a three-day conference ticket for QCon SF 2016 (Nov 7-9), and the remaining five scholarships also included a travel stipend.

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  • Diversity?

    by Altair J.,

    Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

    66% of women doesn't sound very diverse at all, are you sure you understand what equality means?

    Even if forcing an equal percentage was a feasible goal, having more women than men goes against your pretended inequality.

    Also you need to prove that the low % of female attendees is due to something else than personal choice.

    Also based on you having more female speakers than males, you should think about giving these scholarships to men.

  • Re: Diversity?

    by Roland Heimdahl,

    Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

    Exact equality isn't the goal. 60-40 is an often used estimate of good enough. So, perhaps they overshot a bit but to me it dont compare to the achivement of having a majority of female speakers in my opinion.

    Now i am waiting for the same numbers among the visitors. Guess it will take another decade or so.. :-(

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