Re: IDCG ideas for consideration for building an action plan

On 6/11/2020 9:35 AM, Siegman, Tzviya wrote:
>
> Thanks, Judy
>
> This is an excellent list.
>
> I think another area for W3C to explore is member recruitment. This 
> may be what you intended with outreach. W3C does not necessarily have 
> much say about which individuals from a member organization 
> participate in groups, but W3C does a lot of active recruitment. Is 
> there active recruitment in Africa? South and Central America?
>
The short answer is not enough.

In Africa we have had Offices in Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, and South 
Africa.  But we have not had much activity on recruitment - either 
directly or through the Offices.

We have a fairly active Office in Brazil.  In the last year, we have 
worked with our Spanish Office to have them facilitate more active 
recruitment in the balance of Latin America.

> Are we reaching out to organizations that promote diversity within 
> their organizations?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tzviya
>
> *Tzviya Siegman*
>
> Information Standards Lead
>
> Wiley
>
> 201-748-6884
>
> tsiegman@wiley.com <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>
>
> *From:* Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 11, 2020 2:18 AM
> *To:* public-idcg@w3.org
> *Subject:* IDCG ideas for consideration for building an action plan
>
> Leonie, thanks for pulling together a meeting of the Inclusion and 
> Diversity Community Group.
>
> All, I'm particularly hoping we can discuss elements of a multi-point 
> plan of action, even if part of our discussion is focused on a 
> possible W3C statement.
>
> It may seem hard at first to figure out what W3C can do for an action 
> plan given that we're an international technology consortium. But on 
> other aspects of diversity, including disability and gender, W3C has 
> made some progress over the years, even though we often questioned 
> whether any particular step would have an impact, and even though 
> there's lots more to do. On racial justice issues I'm hoping that we 
> can think broadly when considering possible actions across the W3C 
> community. Here are some possible ideas to brainstorm on, mostly 
> phrased as questions. I'd welcome discussion on these on the IDCG 
> list, in meetings, and in any other W3C fora, and also an expansion of 
> an ideas list that might provide us good options to turn into an 
> action plan. Some of these repeat a few things already mentioned on 
> the list, and I also haven't captured them all.
>
> 1. *_Principles and practices_*: W3C has the TAG's *Ethical Web 
> Principles* [1]; does anything in that that need updating to better 
> capture current issues? W3C also has a proposed new version of the 
> *Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct* (CEPC) [2] currently under 
> Advisory Committee review, which goes into more detail on racism than 
> the previous version.
>
> 2. *_Learning_*: There are many reading lists which have useful 
> resources for learning about racism. It can also be useful to look 
> specifically at the intersection of racism and technology, such as 
> this list from Venture Beat [3]. Are there other reading lists on 
> racism and technology that we could pull together, and perhaps curate 
> a list that could serve as a resource for the web community?
>
> 3. *_Discussion_*: We can let W3C colleagues know about discussions 
> within the Inclusion and Diversity Community Group  [4], and also 
> encourage discussions in other W3C settings. For instance, do we want 
> to promote this as a discussion topic for our upcoming TPAC? Other events?
>
> 4. *_Participation_*: W3C doesn't do a lot of hiring, but occasionally 
> does, and many of our member organizations do. Do hiring managers know 
> where to reach out to to increase the diversity of candidate pools, 
> and could that information be shared?
>
> 5. *_Outreach_*: What conferences and events do we all show up to, and 
> with what messages? Early on a few women in standards organizations 
> started showing up to conferences such as the Grace Hopper Conference 
> on Women and Computing, and talking to women engineers about what's so 
> compelling about working in standards organizations. They had not 
> heard of these opportunities from their managers or colleagues, and it 
> took some spreading the word. Maybe finding different venues and 
> talking about participation in standards organizations would be 
> relevant around race as well.
>
> 6. *_Work areas_*: Are there any particular topics or issues that 
> we're missing work on, such as AI bias around race? And looking at 
> intersectional issues may be useful as well -- for instance, the 
> intersection of racial and cultural issues with disability can doubly 
> disenfranchise people from the training and mentoring opportunities 
> that help bring people into the field. Are there intersections between 
> race and other areas of W3C work that we could explore?
>
> 7. *_Individuals_*, *_organizations and communities_*: People have 
> already raised ideas around diversity scholarships, and/or equipment 
> support, for individuals. Could we broaden this approach to 
> encouraging the web community to look for coaching, mentoring, 
> partnering and support opportunities with local community 
> organizations that could help feed a pipeline of engagement?
>
> 8. *_International context_*: Anti-black racism is an issue in many 
> countries especially at this moment, and needs focused attention. But 
> we should probably also continue to work on how this fits within 
> braoder diversity issues that that W3C has worked on worldwide.
>
> 9. *_Action Plan?_* Some of these ideas may not be a good fit for W3C, 
> and a lot of other good ideas may be missing. If we think ahead a 
> year, what kind of progress would we want to be able report, and what 
> among these possibilities -- or other possibilities -- might help get 
> us there? Anyone interested in starting to build an action plan from 
> these or similar ideas?
>
> - Judy
>
> *_Refs_*
>
>  1. W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles:
>     https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles-20191204
>  2. Proposed new version of Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:
>     https://www.w3.org/2020/05/CEPC <https://www.w3.org/2020/05/CEPC>
>  3. Some essential reading and research on race and technology:
>     https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/02/some-essential-reading-and-research-on-race-and-technology/
>  4. Inclusion and Diversity Community Group (IDCG):
>     https://www.w3.org/community/idcg <https://www.w3.org/community/idcg/>
>
> -- 
> Judy Brewer
> Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
> at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
> 105 Broadway, Room 7-128, MIT/CSAIL
> Cambridge MA 02142 USA
> www.w3.org/WAI/  <http://www.w3.org/WAI/>