Here's Why You Should Go to the Next Lesbians Who Tech Summit

Concur Labs | 03-19-2018

By Amanda Casari, senior product manager and data scientist

The beginning of every year is time to start planning for conference season. I like to share ideas and meet new people, so it is a balance between calls for proposals and evaluating past speaker selection to gage the depth and breadth of conferences. Because traveling and speaking are not my life, this becomes an optimization conversation with my family and company.

Being a data scientist, here’s my qualitative methodology for how I rank conference and speaking opportunities:

Maximize:

  • Opportunities for professional growth through meeting new people and old friends
  • Speakers and audiences who will challenge my current assumptions
  • Technical topics that will advance my team’s work and my own personal roadmap

Minimize:

  • Events that do not develop and support codes of conduct
  • Events that create hostile environments or invite speakers who intentionally incite hostile environments
  • Cost of tickets and travel expenses
  • All commitments between end of May and mid-September, when I am off the grid as much as I can be

For me, it comes down to this: If I am not spending time with my family or moving forward with my team to push technology horizons, where do I want to spend the most valuable resource that is my time?

Enter Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit, 2018, San Francisco, with more than 5000 attendees from more than 30K members. Turns out that SAP has been attending and sponsoring this amazing organization since its inception five years ago.

I was honored to be invited as one of the 20% of ally speakers accepted to the conference, and I was completely blown away by the breadth of brilliant, badass people who showed up to share their experiences.

Wondering if you should go? Yes. You should.

Wait, what if you aren’t a lesbian? Lesbians Who Tech gives the best answer on community inclusion, and why your identity is not as important as your dedication to improving the lives of this vibrant community.

Now, are you in a position to wonder if you should sponsor this conference with money, time and people? Yes. You should.

Here’s why:

 

Cross Functional Dream Team

Technology and technology teams are evolving. No longer can we build teams and silos of specialists, throwing projects over walls and retreating to their caves. We need a spectrum of talents and specialties. We need diverse backgrounds, points of view, and analogues to understand our customers. For three days, these are the people that surround you at the Summit.

Everyone I met was an “and” with clear potential and experience. This is the future of what our teams will need to reach the next technology horizon.

 

Your Heroes are All Around You

The level of access to powerful, inspiring people in tech at this conference was unprecedented. Usually there is a divide between keynote speakers, speakers, organizers, attendees, and conference staff. A feeling of a star-provider-customer relationship. Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit is the largest, coolest, and most well-organized family reunion you’ve ever been to, where your once-nerdy aunt became the most powerful technologist in the US government and your cousins are now breakthrough artists and philanthropists.

 

The Mountain Continues to Grow

It may have been called a “summit”, but don’t let that fool you. The challenges of gay women and non-binary identifying people in technology has not been overcome by bringing together these events. We are not yet at the top of a mountain of cultural and institutional challenges in technology that this community faces every day.

 

Showing Up Matters

Weak networks and information bubbles are no longer an excuse for lack of diversity in conferences, speakers, or technology hiring searches. So much of the work has already been done for you! Not only is there a huge list of proven technologist speakers, but entire directories of potential hires await you with just a simple sponsorship.

If you have privilege, power, money, you have a responsibility to use it. Build soapboxes. Shine spotlights. Amplify.