When I first found out about the World Diversity Leadership Summit (WDLS-EU) that was held in Vienna in March, I knew I wanted to be involved anyway I could for many reasons.
For one, the WDLS seeks to ensure that companies and businesses continue to diversify their talent pool and to include this policy in their global strategies as cultural borders continue to merge and blur.
To me, this meant more than just including minorities (race, sex, gender, religious preferences, and such) in their workforce to meet some quota.
It meant truly understanding, recognizing, and respecting the diverse talents marginalized communities and potential employees can bring into an organization.
Before branching out into writing, travel photography, and photojournalism, I was the quintessential career woman in an industry that saw very few black women participate – Geographic Information Systems (GIS). For 14+ years with three companies, I lived, breathed, programmed, developed, designed, and integrated interactive maps. It was a personal journey that progressively got easier as I had to prove myself, grew more experienced, and delivered quality work.
One Monday morning many years ago, I remember sitting in a room during a regular developer meeting, talking code, speaking geek, and outlining client projects for the week. I scanned the room, taking in each of my colleagues.
At that time, though the company had 750+ employees, there were just 10 programmers, 9 white guys and me…female, black, and African.
So naturally, I reached out early on to WDLS-EU organizer and conference manager Beatrice Achaleke, and was invited to moderate a panel on diversity within the realm of healthcare.
Each day of the conference brought solid speech after solid speech by guest speakers and panelists on the virtues and importance of diversity but the one talk that really stuck with me was given by Lord Michael Hastings.
Borderline controversial yet totally on point with his remarks, Lord Hastings tried to get beneath the core of continued “diversity” debates that brought us all to Vienna.
In a nutshell, his argument was to really try and spotlight what the fight was all about and to get us thinking…
Are we fighting for our own personal rights to be included in certain positions and levels of society?
Or are we truly fighting for the disadvantaged and marginalized who can barely exist to be able to have the opportunities we currently have?
Is it truly a battle for continued self prominence? Or a battle to open up existing opportunities for others?
This was one of the reasons why I enjoyed the varying talks and panels I attended at WDLS. It wasn’t your typical “hire minorities” conference, but one on a whole different plane that implored us to assess existing diversity debates from a myriad of angles instead of a tunneled view of what we think diversifying talent within an organization means.
By the time I left the company, our little developer group had grown to 25+ with all 6 continents and both sexes represented, working cohesively in a dynamic environment. And while I still do some GIS consulting on occasion and work on a few web programming projects through Lemurworks, LLC, I decided to focus on other creative outlets and ways to open up opportunities for others.
@Ekua – Thanks!! Hope you’re having a fantastic time in Mexico. I’ve got so much blog reading to do once I get back in town.
I looove this picture. I know this isn´t the right place to put this comment, but it was awesome to purchase a National Geographic Magazine in Mexico City in see your name in it!
@Kiratiana – So true! Yes, my background was (and still is) very technical 🙂
I never knew that you had this other career. I am always amazed by women who enter fields where they are not represented. On the topic of diversity…I get a sense that people don’t understand that diversity will HELP the company, NOT hinder it! Diverse experiences will definitely lead to better products and business.