Gender Gap in IT and the WordPress Community
In 2012, Matt Mullenweg stated his concern about how we get more women involved here in the WordPress Community. And during the last six years, attempts have been made to balance the number of men and women working on WordPress, but the reality is far from this ideal.
We know that this is not a unique problem in the context of WordPress but of the tech world in general. Therefore, in this talk, I will summarize what I’ve found in research articles on the numbers of women involved in technology. I will also summarize the evidence shown in a large-scale study of gender bias, comparing the acceptance rates of men’s and women’s contributions in an open source software community. Finally, I will also provide similar figures in the context of the WordPress Community.
This issue is too complex to provide easy solutions. So this talk is only meant to give a vision that can serve as a starting point for us to feel more comfortable discussing and working on finding solutions to something that interests us all.
Speaker: Ruth RaventĂłs
A Greener Web is Good for Everyone
The internet has huge potential to move us towards a sustainable future through dematerialising products and streamlining industries. Despite its many benefits though, it is not perfect. The storage, processing and transmission of data consumes electricity and that has an impact on the environment.
The good news is that there are simple things that we can do about it, and contrary to what some may think, a green website can actually be a better website for everyone. Approaching web projects through the lens of sustainability can have benefits not just for the environment, but also in terms of improved SEO, accessibility, user experience and even cost savings.
We will look at some practical steps to green the web and the benefits that they bring.
Speaker: Tom Greenwood
The Business Case for Web Accessibility
Making websites more accessible for persons with disabilities creates good karma, but often gets dropped from projects because it has a perceived negligible impact on the bottom line. Accessible websites however, have good ROI (return on investment) for both developers and the businesses who make their sites accessible.
This talk will not deal with technical aspects of making sites accessible, but will focus on why building in accessibility is good for business. Anyone who builds sites for businesses (and nonprofits!) and business site owners will find this talk helpful.
Speaker: Bet Hannon