Session Submissions and Speaker Diversity

DrupalCamp NJ recognizes the importance of diversity in tech, and we have been purposeful in our efforts to make our camp as diverse, inclusive, and welcoming and possible. Here’s what we have been up to for 2020:

  • We hired a consultant to do outreach to underrepresented communities and solicit session proposals. We know nothing happens unless we do the work!
  • We committed to having 25% of our sessions have a speaker who identified as underrepresented or a first-time speaker.
  • We advertised the camp in newsletters geared towards a diversity-minded audience.

Here’s our breakdown of some of the numbers for submitted sessions:

Note: we borrowed these self-identified categories from Decoupled Days. 

 

Of 52 total submissions, here’s how many submissions have a speaker who identified with one or more of the following underrepresented groups:

  • Women: 23
  • Asian, Pacific Islander, or Asian American: 4
  • Bisexual: 4
  • Black or African American: 4
  • Desi or Desi American: 4
  • Trans(*): 3
  • Deaf or hard of hearing: 2
  • Gay: 2
  • Latina, Latino, or Latinx: 2
  • Person of color: 2
  • Other: 2
  • Lesbian: 1
  • Veteran: 1

Of 25 total accepted submissions, here’s how many submissions have a speaker who identified with one or more of the following underrepresented groups:

  • Women: 10
  • Asian, Pacific Islander, or Asian American:1
  • Bisexual: 1
  • Black or African American: 3
  • Desi or Desi American: 2
  • Trans(*): 1
  • Deaf or hard of hearing: 1
  • Gay: 1
  • Latina, Latino, or Latinx: 2
  • Person of color: 1
  • Other: 2
  • Lesbian: 1
  • Veteran: 1

Of the 25 accepted sessions, 10 had one or more speakers who self-identified as a woman (40% of total), and 15 have one or more speakers who self-identified with an under-represented group in tech (60% of total)!

Here is some interesting data on intersectionality: we took a look at our data and saw that people often identified with more than one group. Here are some examples:

  • Woman, Bisexual, Deaf or hard of hearing
  • Person of color, Black or African American, Latina, Latino, or Latinx
  • Woman, Asian, Pacific Islander, or Asian American, Desi or Desi American
  • Woman, Black or African American
  • Woman, Latina, Latino, or Latinx

Here’s what we’ve done in the past:

  • In 2019 we reserved 25% of our session for folks who identified as underrepresented or first-time speakers
  • We added a Diversity and Inclusion page to our site.
  • We tried doing blind submissions for a few years to eliminate bias, and we found this somewhat helpful, especially in terms of not favoring those speakers whom we knew, but stopped doing this in 2019 in favor of asking more questions about diversity. 

And as always, we have a Code of Conduct, which we take very seriously, as well as our photo policy. Your safety and well-being while at DCNJ is of the utmost importance to us! This year we also have Alanna Burke on the organizer team, who is both a member of the Drupal Diversity Leadership team, and who has had Code of Conduct training with Sage Sharp, organized by the CWG.