Diversify – It can’t be done they said, Bullshit we say

Hey there,
It feels like “long time, no see” is becoming a standard.
I think it’s the way it has to be right now.
But less frequent type of blogger-reader relationships can also be great!
Diversify is whats been on my mind lately (apart from exams and a wild weekend in Germany). What is Diversify one might ask? Lets start from the beginning.

Spotify Street Team is spread across Chalmers, KTH and LiU.
We work at Spotify but we’re also engineering students.
This year we have organized x number of events. 
Hackathons, Meetups, Study Groups, Guest Lectures, I could go on …
Not to brag, but we’ve heard from participants that these events were all great successes.

Despite this we felt frustrated

Why the heck could we not attract a more gender diverse crowd to the things we organized? We refused to “blame” the fact that there are no females interested in technology. I know there are plenty. But It’s not realistic to go home to them, knock on their door and carry them to a meetup. I’m really short and not that strong. Joke aside we were lucky enough to have Judith (working with learning & development at Spotify) to run a workshop with us about diversity. We thought we had our eyes open, minds clear and hearts in the right places regarding diversity questions.

Obviously not

Awareness can play such a key part in the decisions we make. After working for 8 hours straight we left the workshop with refreshed eyes, an inspired mind and a heart that wanted to do more. The second after the workshop ended we started discussing what we could do. Diversify slowly took shape during the following weeks but under the working name 50-50. Big shout out to the part of Street Team who has been coordinating it all.

I’ve been going on for 306 words and still haven’t told you what Diversify is. It’s a weekend hackathon where we instead of hoping to achieve diversity amongst our attendees, have decided to make it a core requirement. There is a website (linked to almost 306 times) with all the details, no need for me to go on about it. What I do want to say is that we want your help. If you’re a tech student in Sweden: apply. If you’re not a student, help us spread the word, the mindset, the example of that you can do something about the problem not just complain about it.

We don’t know how Diversify will take shape, we have a vision but it’s really up to the amazing people who will participate. Together we can turn around a concept that got stuck in unfair stereotypes and preconceptions. Hackathons deserve to be better!

Today Diversify
Tomorrow 50-50
Dream Big
Start Small
Apply here
Share here

Big Love

/Sofster