Stronger Than Fear: Mental Health in the Developer Community

There is a crisis in the tech industry. At least 20% of our colleagues, friends, and teammates suffer silently with mental illness, but our work culture does little to help. Based on real data, we'll show the enormous impact of mental illness in our industry, and how we can change – and save – lives.

Mental disorders are the largest contributor to disease burden in North America, but the developer community and those who employ us are afraid to face the problem head-on. In this talk, we'll examine the state of mental health awareness in the developer workplace, why most developers feel it isn't safe to talk about mental health, and what we can do to change the culture and save lives. Attendees will leave with 5 things they can do to make their workplace safer for those dealing with mental health disorders.

ABOUT OSMI: Three years ago I started Open Sourcing Mental Illness, a speaking campaign and non-profit 501(c)(3) to change how we deal with mental health in the tech community. Together with a team of volunteers, we’ve done research, created educational tools, and spoken at dozens of tech conferences and companies about my personal struggle with mental illness, and how it impacts the tech industry.