Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Tech Diversity Gets Another Conference: Tech Inclusion 2015 Brings Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

By Salvador Rodriguez, International Business Times

SAN FRANCISCO -- A few weeks ago, Melinda Briana Epler and Wayne Sutton were unsure whether anyone would show up for Tech Inclusion, the technology industry diversity conference they’ve been planning for months. This week, they had to start turning people away after the event sold out, the latest sign that the tech industry’s diversity movement is quickly gaining momentum.

Although conferences focusing on women and specific ethnicities have been around a while, Tech Inclusion 2015 is the one of the first of its kind, focused on diversity and inclusion in Silicon Valley for people of all ages, ethnicities, genders, sexualities or other kinds of backgrounds. It is also the latest effort by techies to bring more diversity to their industry, whose inclusion figures for women, Hispanics and African-Americans are embarrassingly low. Kicking off Friday morning, the conference has drawn more than 350 attendees and 120-plus speakers, including people from major tech companies such as Facebook Inc., Google Inc., Pinterest, Twitter Inc. and Yelp Inc.

Read the story here.

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