Diversity in the West of England’s burgeoning tech sector will come under the spotlight at a major event next month.
Called DIVERSITY? and taking place on Saturday June 24 at Bristol’s Watershed media centre, it will bring together a wide range of people from across the region who are keen to increase diversity in tech. 
The event is being staged by Women’s Tech Hub as its first annual conference and takes its starting point from the widespread agreement that women and people from BME communities are “woefully” under-represented in the region’s tech community.
The event will find out more about what the interventions essential to support under-represented groups of people and help them become an integral part of the tech community.
There will be three sessions with invited speakers on three Rs – recruitment, retention and resilience.
- Recruitment: What can be done to go beyond the current workforce? Is it the language used in job ads that blocks women from applying for them? How hard is it to recruit someone who does not look or sound like the people already there?
- Retention: What can companies do to develop workplace cultures that appeal to everyone? There’s more to this than compulsory training days on unconscious bias but at least they are a start. How about flexible working for everyone, not only for mothers?
- Resilience: How to support employees to be resilient in a changing work environment? How do you keep going when you are the only woman or person of colour at work? What can meetups in and out of the workplace do to support people?
The day will run from 10am to 4.30pm. There will be a free creche sponsored by Bristol-based UX-focused design agency fffunction and a code club for eight year olds and above sponsored by Bristol data specialist KETL. There are also sponsorship opportunities.
To register for DIVERSITY? click here
