To the EuroPython organizers, talk reviewers, and community at large, For those of you who do not know me, I am a board member of the Python Software Foundation, the founder and leader of PyLadies San Francisco, and an engineer at Spotify. I have been a speaker at the last two EuroPythons, with 3 talks last year, and a keynote the year before.
I see that the list of preliminarily talks are publicly available. Side stepping my issue with lack of communication to proposers of talks at large, I am writing to bring light to the lack of diversity of the current list of talks, and propose some action items. There is how I understand things as they are. Please correct me if I am wrong. - talk selection was/is being done blindly, as in no identifying information about the speaker is revealed - there are very little women on that preliminary talk list slated to speak - there are multiple selected speakers slated to give multiple selected talks If you do not find a problem with item #2 and #3, please read this article [1] about importance of diversity in a technical field. Here are my suggestions to rectify this issue: - limit speakers to only give one talk. Yes this means going back on the original acceptance. - reopen CfP and reach out to PyLadies globally to help get the word out. As one of the main leaders of the global organization, I know this did not happen originally. - re-review the talks. Give preference or help for those who would be first time speakers. First time speakers may need far more help writing a proposal tailored to the EuroPython audience. As reviewers, you have an understanding of the EP community and should help pull up new speakers. - related to #2, and #3, have open office hours or create general availability during the time that the CfP is reopened to help those who want it craft a good proposal. - select talks for the remainder of the program with the context of the preliminarily talks in mind. I understand that the blind selection process was meant in good faith to remove bias. However, the result is troubling, and needs to be looked at in context. If this preliminary list has any influence on the actual program, the conference will suffer in terms of overall diversity in attendance. I'm not writing to discuss the merit of diversity at a tech conference, because I have faith that the reviewers and organizers already grasp its importance. But this email is to address what I feel needs to change. Thank you, Lynn Root [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/technology/technologys-man-problem.html?_r=0 _______________________________________________ EuroPython 2014 Berlin, 21th27th July EuroPython mailing list [email protected] https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
