DrupalCon Seattle: Sessions and Strides
DrupalCon Seattle is looking different than the DrupalCons of years past.
The overarching goal when planning DrupalCon Seattle 2019 was to expand both outreach and accessibility so that attendees would be representative of the community as a whole. The value of the conference is in the perspectives, energy and diversity of experiences participants share.
DrupalCon began setting goals to overtly increase diversity starting with DrupalCon Baltimore 2017. This continued in the planning of DrupalCon Nashville 2018, and is prioritized for DrupalCon Seattle 2019.
The Drupal Association, along with our volunteer program team, actively identify ways to include more community members presenting on our stages. To track progress and provide a metric to gauge effectiveness of the outreach efforts, the call for papers includes an ask for self-identification in the following categories: ability, age, ethnicity, gender, learning differences, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. We track this information in order to reflect on the submission process and implement additional outreach efforts for subsequent DrupalCons.
In the first year of the initiative, Baltimore, 33% of our selected sessions were from underrepresented speakers. The following year, 40%. For our upcoming 2019 conference, that figure is 50% for the Builder track, signifying DrupalCon's largest ever number of underrepresented speakers in the sessions selected. The number of first-time speakers has increased as well, to 37%.
This approach and initiative to diversify our event caught notice of other organizations; Red Hat is one that aims to take similar strides
“I've long been impressed with Drupal's incredibly inclusive events strategy and have recently peppered [Drupal Association Senior Events Manager] Amanda (amanda.drupal) with questions about how they make it work,” said Arrie Brown, Content Strategy Lead for Events at Red Hat. “I was glad to have that resource when we started building the call for proposals for the 2019 Red Hat Summit. I wanted to be able to capture diversity data with inclusive, welcoming language, and DrupalCon's CFP nailed it—so much so that I incorporated much of it into ours.”
Going hand-in-hand with expanding DrupalCon outreach was the increased amount of inclusion funding from DrupalCon specifically for travel and lodging expenses for those identifying as part of an underrepresented group. We received a record number of requests for these inclusion funds—all of which were granted, resulting in an allocation of $20K and the overall increase of community members who may not otherwise be able to speak at DrupalCon Seattle.
Background
This year’s Call for Papers deadline was earlier than ever before; October 31. Outreach was via social media, newsletters (sign up), and by contacting active contributing community members. This resulted in 671 submissions total. Of these, 517 were 30-minute sessions, and 154 were 90+ minute sessions.
The community team reviewed all submissions, and the final lineup is specially selected in a tailored-to-fit fashion for our unique 2019 track selection.
In the Builder Track, rising questions make up several session titles: “What Should I Use? 2019 Developer Tool Survey Results,” “Why Will JSON:API Go Into Core?” and “What’s for Dinner? Using Predictive UX to Help Users Decide.”
The most popular submission tags within the 37 options were: back end development, site building, and architecture. These types will be placed throughout the conference among the 169 total sessions in the builder track.
Once you’ve registered, view the schedule of sessions where you can begin crafting your own schedule.
Customize your agenda by logging in, reviewing the sessions, and clicking “add to my schedule.”
An unrivaled lineup of learning, sharing, and networking opportunities await for DrupalCon Seattle attendees in April 2019. Are you one of the presenters, or has a session piqued your interest? Share your excitement; here’s how.
Didn’t submit a session or want to try again? Submit to a DrupalCamp, or opt for other DrupalCons; the Call for Papers for DrupalCon Amsterdam opens in Spring 2019, and for DrupalCon Minneapolis opens in Fall 2019.
Join us for DrupalCon Seattle 2019 April 8 - 12 at the Washington State Convention Center.
