Thursday
Room 1
15:00 - 16:00
(UTC+10)
Talk (60 min)
How to Close the Diversity Gap (or, How Not to Perpetuate Bro Culture in Tech)
Inclusion has been proven to have direct, measurable effects on stability and success in businesses, large and small. Indeed, most organizations actively pursue diverse representation in their workplace, but this won’t necessarily ensure that all employees feel included.
Unconscious bias is part of the problem -- but not the only one -- especially in areas like recruitment, promotion, and performance management as well as being a major barrier in efforts to improve diversity and inclusion. The Covid-19 pandemic has also added additional strain to the pre-existing social challenges, which make it difficult for programs to gain any ground.
In this talk, we'll cover the problems and pitfalls in creating diversity programs, and why it's so important to keep trying to build a culture of inclusion in your team.
Some takeaways:
Best practices for empowering, engaging, and attracting creators of diverse backgrounds to your organization
Discuss Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and how to embed these three pillars throughout your business
Strategies to close the digital divide of historically excluded groups, internally and externally
Heather Wilde
Heather Wilde is CTO of theDifference and is also known as the Unicorn Whisperer because of her special focus on entrepreneurs. She is a professional growth expert, executive coach, best-selling author, and speaker. One of the founding team of Evernote, and co-founder of TWIP, she has won multiple awards for her writing, technology, coaching, and mentorship, including the 2020 International Impact Award for her latest book, "Birth of a Unicorn".
Both a patent inventor and game designer, she is trailblazing the way for other women to do the same.
She has appeared on Huffpost Live and ABC News, and has appeared in Mashable, BBC News, Huffington Post, and in the Wall Street Journal as well as many other industry publications. Her clients cover North America, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East and she offers training internationally on tech topics such as Cybersecurity, Anticipatory Design, and the Dangers of Overwork.
Wilde's popular Inc and Forbes columns span social media, entrepreneurialism, startups, leadership, fundraising, and diversity issues. She lives in Las Vegas.