Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

PASS Data Community Summit aims to create an inclusive conference and foster a community where everyone can succeed and thrive.

How do we define diversity?

Our global community is made up of data professionals from a wide range of backgrounds. Although the list cannot be exhaustive, at our conference we explicitly honor diversity in age, gender, gender identity and expression, culture, ethnicity, language, national origin, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, physical and psychological differences, and technical ability. 

Together, we strive to create an environment that values diversity, promotes an inclusive culture, and establishes a profound sense of belonging for each member of our community. We prioritize marginalized community members’ safety over privileged community members’ comfort. 

Our goal for 2023

Our aim for PASS Data Community Summit 2023 is to achieve 40% speaker diversity, as we strongly believe starting by improving speaker representation is key to reaching our diversity & inclusion goals.

How else do we measure diversity and celebrate an inclusive conference?

We can’t realistically measure all forms of diversity, and we rely on our speakers and attendees to provide us with this data. We recognise that building an inclusive conference and community takes time, and we want the conference to offer a platform for underrepresented speakers and attendees.

We’ve set measures to define speaker diversity as a speaker who belongs to any one (or more) of the following groups:

• Women, non-binary or transgender speakers
• BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) speakers
• Neurodivergent speakers
• Disabled speakers

How you can help

We ask you to be patient with us; building a truly inclusive experience takes time, it’s a learning experience for us as conference organisers as well as for the community, and we know we won’t get everything 100% right first time.

We also ask you to consider any biases in your interactions with other community members, and to keep in mind that diversity among the community might not always be immediately visible. Our DEI&B steering group, made up of members of the community, has been guiding us and providing valuable input and steer to ensure we stay on track with our goals in this space.

If you have any suggestions or ideas on what we can do to be better, please do reach out to us via email.