Last year, Courtney Stanton organized a conference for game developers whose 12-person speaker roster was half women, and half men.
And she did it without considering the gender of applicants.
In the world of tech conferences, that gender ratio is almost unheard of — let alone getting there without actively saying yes to certain applicants just because you know they’re female.
Stanton is a product manager for a video game publisher. She wanted to put together a conference for game developers, make it accessible — and get onstage speakers more diverse than, as she put it, “the same four straight white men agree(ing) with each other on some panel.”
How did she do it? By actively recruiting women through every possible channel. She attended events and spoke to women. She encouraged women she knew to submit speaking proposals. She recruited online. She met people for coffee and promised to mentor them, review their slide decks, help them brainstorm — whatever it took to get women to apply.
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Read the original story at http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/30/what-you-need-to-do-to-get-more-women-at-your-conference-or-company/
Photo credit: Stephen Brashear/Flickr
