There’s been a groundswell of open and honest conversation in recent weeks around women, gender equality and sexual harassment. This meant bringing in diverse speakers from around the world, as well as committing to a mandate to host an inclusive event, with equal representation from male and female speakers alike. And often the argument from event organizers has been that it’s just too difficult to find enough female speakers. So, if you’re organizing an event, here are three keys to ensure you’re making it an inclusive event before tickets ever go on sale: Be public about your commitment to diversity. This not only held us accountable but led to referrals from people who knew we were actively looking to change the ratio on our stage. When we decided to host the conference, we put together a great list of companies we wanted to have speak about their digital transformation efforts. There is no shortage of female speakers, but sometimes they’re not the ones companies offer up first, so make an effort to ask. Tap into great communities and community leaders. I found at times that women needed a little more encouragement to accept the opportunity. Diversity of thought and backgrounds leads to interesting discussions and more compelling content, and we challenge all event organizers to commit to making their gatherings more diverse.
There’s been a groundswell of open and honest conversation in recent weeks around women, gender equality and sexual harassment. More and more women are stepping forward to share their stories of assault. Men in high-powered positions are being publicly called out in all types of industries, from entertainment to news to technology. And, most recently, women have been bravely using the social media hashtag #MeToo to bring awareness to what they’ve felt personally when subjected to harassment, disenfranchisement and in a few cases, rape.
When, earlier this year, we decided to host an innovation conference in Toronto, we had these types of swirling conversations top of mind, and we knew we wanted to use the event to shine a spotlight on a more diverse group of speakers.
This meant bringing in diverse speakers from around the world, as well as committing to a mandate to host an inclusive event, with equal representation from male and female speakers alike. A lot has been written about the disproportionate number of male speakers at events (often focused, ironically, on diversity). And often the argument from event organizers has been that it’s just too difficult to find enough female speakers.
Conferences like ours — FITC Toronto — have added diversity mandates to require gender balance in their programming in terms of gender, race, religion, orientation, disabilities, etc. In this context, we’ve recently seen the launch of conferences devoted to LGBTQ diversity in technology (an example:Venture Out)
But we need more, which is why diversity was a priority in nearly every decision we made when we hosted the first TakeOver Innovation Conference earlier this month. We’re proud to have had more female speakers than male — a 52 percent-to-48 percent ratio, to be exact.
So, if you’re organizing an event, here are three keys to ensure you’re making it an inclusive event before tickets ever go on sale:
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