Empowering Speakers: A Journey to Encourage Women and Diverse Groups

When more people from underrepresented groups start speaking at open source tech events, everybody benefits. At WordCamp Vancouver for WordPress, we started by focusing on women. In 2013, not many had applied. The following year, three times as many women applied and fully half of selected speakers were women. This dramatic shift was no accident. My talk will share how we accomplished it, some of the lessons we learned along the way, the positive changes that resulted in our community, how we've helped other WordCamps achieve the same results, and how you can use this work in your community.