An important message from our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Team!
At SQLBits we take Diversity, Equity and Inclusion very seriously. We started working on this over 18 months ago and we hope you noticed some of the initiatives we put in place at SQLBits 2022.
Since this topic is so important, we have worked on it continuously since the last event.
Beginning one week after the 2022 event ended, we started meeting weekly to ensure we remembered and learnt as much as possible. We have spent time reflecting on how things went at SQLBits 2022, discussing what we thought went well and how we can take it one step further for 2023!
There were several initiatives that we believe provided real value to our attendees, speakers and the orange army of volunteers – these included:
- Bits Buddies: who helped new attendees with onboarding ahead of the event, welcomed people every day and worked in the Community Zone to connect with attendees.
- Free child care: this meant that people with children could attend the conference, as well as knowing their little ones were taken care of
- A ‘quiet party’: which is an alternative quiet zone next to the party to provide another option for anyone who didn’t want to join a loud crowded space.
- Optional pronoun stickers: that you could add to your badge, so we could avoid mis-gendering and create a more inclusive space
However, now, we’d like your help. We would like to set up a working party to help us. If you have an interest in this topic, have experience in making spaces more inclusive, or would just like to give us your thoughts please email us at dei@SQLBits.com.
Let us know your interest and we will try to organize a meeting to suit. We are, ideally, looking for about 20 people across different regions and backgrounds, we won’t be asking you what makes you diverse though!
If you are, like me, incredibly shy and unless you were with a crowd of friends wouldn’t even consider coming to a big event, or have experience of having your thoughts not considered because you are a minority in your work team, or any other experience you have had that has not been a nice experience, we’d love to talk to you.
If you would prefer to give us your thoughts, but not in a group environment, that’s also fine, we can organize for a couple of us of talk to you and get your thoughts and ideas.
We really want to make SQLBits an inclusive, safe and welcoming place to be and we can only get there with your help so please get in touch.
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team