Speaker diversity

PyCon UK 2016 aims to present a high-quality and balanced programme of talks and other sessions (workshops, sprints, panels).

These sessions will represent the diversity of interests within the Python community, and also the diversity of people who are active in the community.

PyCon UK 2015

At PyCon UK 2015, we had approximately 70 talks.

About 57 of the speakers were male, and the vast majority were white. Historically, we have not done as well as we could in attracting proposals from beyond this easy-to-find constituency of speakers.

Target

Our target at this PyCon is to receive at least one-third of our talk proposals from women, and a substantial improvement in the representation of other PyCon minorities amongst the talk applicants.

This is not impossible to achieve, by any means.

PyCon US:

  • 2011: about 1% of speakers were women
  • 2014 and 2015: about one-third were women

DjangoCon Europe:

  • 2014: two our of 32 speakers were women
  • 2105: approximately one-third of speakers were women
  • 2016: approximately one-half of speakers are women

It’s less easy to put numbers to other under-represented groups.

How to meet this target

To achieve the numbers we’re aiming for, we will need to encourage people in under-represented groups to submit more talks.

Specifically, this will involve (all of these things have been tried, tested and successful):

  • having published diversity and accessibility policies
  • making a big deal of the fact that we want a more diverse speaker line-up
  • asking particular people to submit proposals
  • making it clear that speakers who require financial assistance can expect to receive it
  • setting up a speaker mentor scheme to help speakers who’d like it
  • providing and advertising a quiet room at the event
  • providing and advertising a crèche
  • providing and advertising speech-to-text transcription (may depend on budget)
  • stressing that PyCon will be an oaf-free-zone, and that the code of conduct will be taken very seriously
  • making it clear that attendee well-being matters (for example)