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Diversity at Testing ConferencesFiona Charles & Anne-Marie Charrett

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Previous Experience

We both had worked on the program committee for CAST2012 and so had personal experience of the difficulty in sourcing speakers for Conferences. When it came to Let’s Test Oz in Australia, Anne-Marie worked hard to encourage female speakers and inexperienced speakers to try their luck speaking with limited success

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But is this true?

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Perhaps program committee?

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REASON 1It’s a reflection of the

number of women in IT

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Vizuri 2006

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REASON 2Women don’t want to

speak

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REASON 3Conferences try but

Women don’t APPLY to Speak

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REASON 4Women don’t want

tokenism

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Reason 5We take people on merit

only

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What is Merit?• You have spoken before? • You are known by the community? • You are a member of the program committee’s

tribe? • You are good at speaking? • You have speaker credibility? • You have a reputation as a good tester? • You are entertaining? • You are loud and noisy?

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Moving Forward

• The way to improve the pool of women speakers is through personal one on one mentoring.

• The program integrated with conferences so that women being mentored had a specific goal in mind.

• We wanted conferences to secure a speaking spot – (inspired by the Yow! Women in Tech competition)

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Ways to increase Female Participation

• Female Organisers• Female Program Committees• Strong Presence in Female

Community• Conscious Effort by Program

Committee to encourage Diversity (CAST2014)

• Early Action (CAST 2015)

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‘if you are going to wait until you feel

like you are an expert, you are never going to do

it’

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One thing I know for sure, I would not have done that first 5 minute lightning talk at CAST weren’t for the support of some amazing people.

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What you can do• Become a Volunteer • Become a mentor • Conference allocate a Speak Easy Spot• Companies can donate and support

Ru Cindrea Lee Hawkins

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QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?

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