I'll bet you a full Bitcoin that there's a negative correlation between the folks who can afford a £200+ ticket to a tech conference vs the folks who are actually doing interesting things in tech.
I once knew a tech event organiser who said he wanted more minority rep at his events, but no-one ever applied for the financial aid.
My brothers in tech: no-one applies for your financial aid because you're making us write essays to explain why we should get the money rather than anyone else. "Explain your poverty"? Fuck you.
I don't know a single person who'd claim to be the most in need in a room full of people in need. Solidarity isn't a dirty word in my world.
Until something changes, you're never going to get the most interesting people at your events, and the wealthy will continue to network and hire the wealthy.
@cariad Relatedly, it's always slightly baffling to me how so many of the guys (it's almost always guys) who claim to want more minority rep, consistently question everything minorities tell them in how they should go about it.
Like, dude, if you actually knew how to solve this problem yourself, would you still be having it?
@joepie91 Right! Down here, it's "we'd love to attract more women to our events, but our survey said the rape jokes make them uncomfortable" or "we'd love to make the tickets more affordable, but our guest speaker cost us a couple of grand, plus their travel and hotel, so…"
(And I believe that was the year that the "guest speaker" presented a slideshow of clouds that look like penises. Y'know. At a tech conference.)
I'm absolutely raging against these folks' disinterest in obvious solutions!