After many arguments and debates on gender and national inclusiveness, the tech society have appreciated the diversity of people working in the field. These days the companies are more open-minded and friendly to employees from all communities, controversially to their previous (intentional or not) policies. Read why diversity in tech society matters so much in our previous article.
Now activists are fighting to attract and encourage women to speak up, the reason for it being multiple panels, conferences and teams almost always headed by only men. The work resulted positively and now few tech events and conferences do not include both male and female leaders and experts. There are some special steps you can take if you want to attract more female speakers on your event to make it really successful.
Step 1. Provide a Powerful Call for Speakers
Make sure the target audience will be informed about the event. Display the releases of you event in places and environments where a lot of women work and make sure it attracts their attention. Do not limit the area for business or tech companies. A lot of female speakers are professors at the universities, which broadens the searching area.
Step 2. Encourage Women
Organizers often excuse themselves for the lack of diverse speakers explaining that there are fewer submittions from women. It is possible that women just feel less confident about themselves that male speakers and do not always get support, so try to encourage them. Set a special call only for women or announce that you need them in the submittion form or the advertisement.
Step 3. Find Speakers Yourself
Make a research on the companies and successful figures in the field. You can also try searching on specialized sites or just ask others - your colleagues or surrounding people about such outstanding persons. Contact the companies or organizations that deal with the gender inequality, so that a lot of perspective female speakers. to attract more women’s attention.
Step 4. Try to Approach People Personally
It is more favorable that people will accept your invitation if you contact them personally - this will signal them that you truly care and respect all the participants. Instead of just waiting for speakers to submit, do not hesitate to send them invitations or contact them via e-mail or social networks.
Step 5. Go Beyond the Field
It is not necessary to all of the speakers to be occupied in the same industry. Find passionate, talented people - individuals the audience will admire - and let them inspire and motivate others on their way to success.
Step 6. Use The Networking
Find ways to meet new people and share your aims and values with them. Attending all possible events and conferences related to your area is a must-do, as well as communicating with other organizations. A trick you can do to discover brand-new talents: there are a lot of people willing to speak up but without knowledge how to start, so hold a female-speaker workshop and pick some passionate newcomers.
Remember that eliminating the gender bias is not an easy task and all of these steps require some time and effort to work out. But building a more inclusive community will result in bigger achievements.
Coding Girls's aim is to bridge the gender gap in tech by inspiring girls to go into coding. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-date with our tech events and news.