Debugging Diversity - Why It Matters and What To Do?

Does diversity in the work-place just happen as a by-product of other stuff, or do you need to have a strategy?

Does it matter?

For example should we just accept that the majority of tech staff, and their managers are men?

We (Ted and Owen) and our speakers think it really does matter, that its not just a nice-to-have politically-correct thing you do because you should, but it actually counts, its good for teams in fact, and we should care about it.

Whatever you think, we invite you to come along and hear the speakers and join the conversation. Be part of the discussion.

Whereas previous evenings have been epic (..... the firey metrics debate, the panel of CEOs, the Continuous Delivery night) this evening will be epiccer..... if epiccer is even a word. For these reasons:

[1] We have an awesome venue. Tank Stream Labs are hosting us. Its very centrally located and has great atmosphere:

http://tankstreamlabs.com

[2] We have great speakers. People who are at various stages in their careers and have either direct experience in this area as a minority or done significant research into this issue. Speaker list to be fully released over the next few days.

[3] If Syd Tech Leaders is anything, its a great discussion - and that's what you'll get......

Register soon - space will be limited.

Speakers listed below - more detail coming in next 2 weeks:

First Talk: Paula Ngov and John Sullivan

Paula's world revolves around connecting the dots between technology, ideas and smart people to help digital solutions come to life. She is a big believer that we should all be contributing our amazing skills towards helping our world be a better place. Her thought leadership and role within the Australian technology scene sees her manage and lead volunteers on initiatives that promote STEM, and gender diversity including Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), Flying Robot School, Rails Girls Melbourne & Sydney, The Beauty of Tech as well as business and technology conferences.

John Sullivan -Product Delivery Manager - Business Division, MYOB.

Second talk: Dan Draper and Catherine Jones

Daniel Draper is CEO and Founder of Codehire (http://www.codehire.com) and host at Codr.TV (http://codr.tv). Geek, muso, health nut and rev head. Helping coders be better coders. Based in Sydney, Australia.

Catherine Jones is Head of Operations @ Fame & Partners. A former fashion designer turned Engineer Catherine is a passionate advocate for women in technology. A participant in Rails Girls Summer of Code and former co-organiser of Women Who Code Sydney she now spends her free time mentoring businesses on improving diversity in their engineering departments.

Panel Discussion:

The talks will be followed by the signature Syd Tech Leaders panel.

The speakers will be joined on the panel by Rebekah Campbell, CEO of Hey You for further discussion about diversity.

Kris Howard will be the Panel MC.

Kris has been building websites since the original dot-com boom in a variety of different roles: front-end and back-end programmer; business analyst; iteration manager; team director. Career highlights include helping build a world-first online car purchasing platform for Subaru's BRZ, as well as the launch of both 9Jumpin's web platform and Android app for Australia's Nine Network. She's now working at Canva, an Australian startup with a goal of democratising graphic design.

Format:

We'll start at 6:00 with food and socializing then move into the talks by 6:45. There will be plenty of space for audience questions and discussion.