Generally, I’m a big believer in creating space for women and non male identified folks to get together to talk about how and why diversity is needed. BUT. These are not the only spaces that are needed, it’s absolutely critical for men to be included in these conversations otherwise it can easily become an echo chamber of women “preaching to the choir.”
These is why what EQ Inspiration is doing is so important, they’re bringing men AND women together to have these very important conversations about the necessity of more diversity in the workplace.
Last October a few days before the first Hack the Patriarchy hackathon, I joined EQ Inspiration for their first event and I’m glad I made the time, even in a very hectic week. The evening event included a few solo speakers and a panel of men discussing their experience of and commitment to diversity conversations in the tech field.
Eva Helén is the founder and CEO of EQ Inspiration (and was also a judge at HTP) says this about her focus for these events:
“I am bringing men and women, leaders in tech and related industries together, to discuss how we work together to improve results through inclusion. I worked in tech for 20 years, and I know that we can only accelerate change by working on this together,” – Eva Helén, Founder and CEO, EQ Inspiration
For their upcoming event on January 31st they have an interesting mix of speakers – both men and women who are approaching the diversity conversation in different ways.
Here’s a bit of info from an email I received:
HAPPINESS, PRODUCTIVITY & IMPROVED RESULTS. Meet the experts and leaders in tech. Learn how to BREAK THE CYCLE of habits to further improve results, productivity, and inclusion in the workplace. The change starts with you.
Experts Ellen Petry Leanse, the author of the Happiness Hack and Ray Arata Founder of the Better Man Conference will enlighten us! We will talk to women role models – senior engineers Madhura Dudhgaonkar at Workday, Myra Nawabi at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Sarah Clatterbuck at LinkedIn, and men role models Joff Redfern from Atlassian and Massimo Rapparini from Logitech sharing why and how they support women and underrepresented groups in their organization.
There’s still a couple of days to snag your seat, last time it was a full house so don’t delay!