In the early days of the Internet, we had an opportunity to build a new sector; a more just and equitable sector; a space where women, regardless of skin colour, received the same pay and progression as their male peers; and lay the foundation for more people having greater access to the world’s capital.
Is this the opportunity to restructure the future of [tech, society, government, education]? Ada’s List, the global community of women and who work in and around the internet, thinks it is.
Our ReStructure and Sustainability track features a variety of talks and panel events which focus on big, structural change, and how each of us can contribute.
Community building for systems change in tech - Naomi Alexander Naidoo
Communities are a vital part of the tech ecosystem, and benefit members with connections, support and inspiration. But what is the role of community building in systems change, and how can we harness the power of community to create a more inclusive and socially impactful tech sector?
This workshop will share insights on the role of communities in systems change and, through interactive activities, crowdsource further input about the role of tech communities in transforming the tech industry, generating ideas for how we can build and work with communities for systemic change. This workshop is relevant for anyone working towards a better tech sector, and will be particularly relevant for people involved in building or managing communities.
Designing the Future of Working Parenthood - Karolina Belwal
The pandemic has put the challenges faced by working parents squarely in view. For many mothers the imbalance between career and home has been exacerbated. On the other hand, greater work flexibility has been a boon for some families and companies have benefited from the increase in productivity.
Where do we go from here? What learnings do we take with us? What needs to change? What should the future of work look like for working parents? How can we ‘change’ work to support greater equity in the workforce? Let’s walk through how we can co-create a future of work that works for working parents.
In April 2020 we surveyed over 1,300 professional women mainly living in Europe and US to quantify the impact of lockdown on their unpaid work.
The pandemic didn’t discriminate women’s age, job status, or career level. The effect was especially prominent for full-time employees at the top of the career ladder and those with both schooling and caregiving responsibilities, with some of them reporting beyond 40hr/week on unpaid work during lockdown. We’ll likely lose at least one female leadership generation due to the pandemic.
The average respondent missed an annual income of £5,256 on unpaid work before the lockdown, which with the pandemic may increase to £11,821 annually. Extrapolating to the 7,800 Ada’s List members, this translates into a total of £41 million/year and £92 million/year, respectively.
We propose a list of recommendations for individuals, employers, and governmental organizations to support professional women in balancing work and family life.
Rapidly scaling advice services - Kylie Havelock
This talk is about how Citizens Advice rapidly scaled our advice services for millions of clients during the pandemic.
I’ll explain how we stopped face to face advice at 270 locations, and dealt with a massive change in the type of issues people needed help with - by creating trusted advice content at speed based on live issues; by shifting to phone, chat, and online advice only; and by provisioning advisers to work remotely.
I’ll talk about how our data and scale makes us an early warning system for the live problems people are facing, and how we use feed insight to our advocacy and policy teams to influence government policy publicly and behind the scenes. I’ll give real examples of the impact we’ve had.
I’ll finish by sharing our future plans to build on this product capability: replatforming our underlying technology; tailoring our content; and experimenting with new channels.
The need for anti-racism at work - Cassie Myers
The workplace is a breeding ground for inequities to grow and continue to disadvantage racialized groups. In this talk, we will reveal some of the research into racism at work, and introduce some ways that you as individuals can be actively anti-racist in your workplaces.
Building the digital infrastructure for the circular economy - Lauren Dudley
What role can data play in transitioning the world from a culture of single-use to a circular economy? Existing data on reuse models is scant and often inaccessible, hindering progress in environmental and commercial optimisation. If businesses are to develop effective, cost-efficient, environmentally thoughtful circular strategies, they will require data.
At Reath, we are working to create the digital infrastructure to support a circular economy, by developing collaborative tools which enable companies to integrate reuse data effectively into their own systems. The environmental benefit of reuse could be felt for generations to come.
On COVID, communities and climate breakdown: organising for change - Emily Tulloh
Over the past 6 months, climate activists the world over have been asking themselves the question: what does COVID-19 mean for the climate and ecological crisis? How might we make sure that the ideas on the table for “building back better” balance the needs of people and planet? How might we use this moment as a real turning point on the transition to net zero society that is fair, equitable and ecologically sound?
In this talk, Emily pulls these questions apart, exploring the danger of “post-covid thinking”, and the idea of a “new normal”. We’re heading into a period of transition, and this talk will look at different ways to frame our current moment, pointing to signals of good things happening and how we need to organise differently and more flexibly in the face of climate and environmental breakdown.
Rethinking the role of government in a COVID and post-COVID world
How can they invest, regulate, and create space for all to thrive on the internet? What can governments do to support women and people of colour in tech (and every sector)? Are there new departments we should be creating? What policies should we be advocating for, writing, or rethinking?
We don’t pretend to have any of the answers to the questions we are posing - but working with our brilliant panelists and audience members, we want create new frameworks for how we can move forward.
This panel is an exciting opportunity to submit some ideas firsthand about the post-COVID world we want to create, together.
Panel Discussion with:
Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, is the Chair of the House of Lords Covid-19 Committee. She wants to use her skills as a tech entrepreneur to help the UK recover from COVID-19, and that's exactly what she's going to do as Chair.
Martha will be joined by Dr Železný-Green from the Internet Society, a global non-profit working to ensure that the Internet of opportunity can benefit all. For more than five years, Ronda has co-organized the London ICT4D Meetup group, a community of nearly 1,200 people interested in the use of technology in international development, and co-founded and led Panoply Digital, a women-owned, socially conscious organization leveraging expertise in tech, education, and gender to create sustainable solutions to development challenges
When: Thursday 15th October from 4-6pm UK time
Life Right Now: Working from home in a pandemic
Overnight, the pandemic has shifted our ways of working and livelihoods - and this will impact each of us for decades. Hear firsthand from speakers who are looking at the impact this shift has had on women - from a digital anthropologist, to a HR professional, to the Director of an organisation that supports the most vulnerable girls navigating the journey to adulthood.
This event will allow us to take a pause and understand what is happening, what is happening to women and their careers, and what is happening to the most vulnerable women and girls in our community.
Panel discussion with:
Okela Douglas has spent over two decades working in the Children and Families Workforce in London, across the UK and in the Caribbean. Okela’s work has coincidentally mostly been supporting girls and young women in a plethora of roles and service provisions. Okela is a qualified therapist, assessor and trainer, learning mentor, behaviour and restorative justice practitioner. She is one of three sisters currently raising two daughters of her own. All of her experiences have led her to focus on empowering girls to overcome the many barriers that emerge during the female adolescent journey to adulthood. Okela is passionate about health and well being, social mobility and equality. Her professional lens and personal experience along with frustration in current provision, labelling and ghettoising of girls led her to connect with 5 girls and 4 colleagues whose experiences solidified the creation of Sister System.
Dr. Caitlin McDonald is the Digital Anthropologist for Leading Edge Forum. She gives businesses the leading edge through boosting customer empathy, finding new solutions to old problems, and enriching the insight power of big data through multidisciplinary approaches. Her research has been featured in publications like CEO Today, Verdict, and Computer Weekly. @cmcd_phd
Hannah Smith is a HR Consultant within one of the largest global banks in the world with extensive experience in leading global HR Transformation programmes. Additionally, she is an advocate of diversity & inclusion in the workplace and spearheads initiatives to ensure the organisation can reach its goals. Hannah also works as a career coach, workshop facilitator and speaker (www.serwasmith.com).
The discussion will be emceed by Ada's List Co-Founder and CEO, Merici Vinton. @merici
When: Wednesday 14th October from 6-7pm (UK time)
Join us and get your tickets today 🎉🎉🎉
Ada’s List wouldn't be possible without the support of our awesome sponsors. We always ensure our sponsorships are meaningful for both parties, but don’t take our word for it, see how Spotify found sponsoring our conference last year.
Interested in sponsoring? Email merici@adaslist.co for more information and a sponsor pack.
More links and info -
Join the Ada’s List community (For all women (trans, intersex and cis) and all nonbinary, agender and gender variant people who live anywhere in the world and work in and around tech)
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