11-10, 15:30–16:15 (America/New_York), Central Park West (6th floor)
When talking about diversity, inclusivity and sustainability for open source projects, the "pipeline problem" is sometimes mentioned. Is it really worth reaching out to minoritized or underrepresented groups? It seems like this is a lot of work with a low "return on investment". In this talk, we'll discuss a few ideas on how to nurture and grow healthy communities and what can go wrong.
Many open source communities are working towards changing their contributor base to be either more reflective of their user base, or to be more diverse and equitable in general. This involves a few actions such as implementing (and enforcing) codes of conduct, explicit internal governance and adapting communication guidelines to be more inclusive. However, change is slow and it can be discouraging to not see the results immediately. In this talk, I am proposing a conversation around what we can improve in these efforts, how we can better make use of new or existing funding opportunities and how to manage these changes internally. This talk is based on the current work me, Inessa Pawson and Noa Tamir are doing in four scientific Python communities: NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib and pandas.
No previous knowledge expected
Melissa is an applied mathematician and former university professor who fell in love with open source communities. She has been involved with the Python and PyData communities for some time, with a focus on outreach, education and DEI. She works at Quansight as a Senior Developer Experience Engineer, is a maintainer for NumPy and SciPy, and believes in the power of contributions beyond code.