Building a more diverse Clojure community

Introducing the speaker

Ali King

Software Engineer at

Volunteer Coding Educator

@ali_king

What is ClojureBridge?

Coding workshops

For women

Run by volunteers

Introduction to Clojure

Beyond women

Ethnic minorities

LGBTQIA

Disability

Class/economic background

ClojureBridge Edinburgh26th & 27th September 2014

Image: argylehouseedinburgh.com

Partners and sponsors

Talk to people

Book a date

Tell the world

Help! How do I do this?

Why?

Went to Clojure/FP events

Almost only woman there

People are missing out!

RailsBridge

1 day workshops

Increase % women at confs

Bridge Foundry

ClojureBridge in 2014

April - Durham, NC

May - San Francisco, Brisbane,

Minneapolis

August - Melbourne

September - San Francisco, Edinburgh

December - Sydney

Image: Google Maps

Comparisons

RailsBridge

Rails Girls

Django Girls

Why outreach

Gender diversity in tech

Functional Programming

Not well known?

Unhelpful?

Gershom Bazerman - Letter to a Young Haskell Enthusiast

“If your primary goal is to spread knowledge, then you must be relentlessly self-critical of anything you do or say that gets in the way of that. And you don’t get to judge that — others do.”

Hacker School rules

No feigned surprise

No ‘well actually’s

No back-seat driving

No subtle -isms

Odd one out

Image: flickr / Cliff Muller, CC2.0

Comfort level

Image: Max Frear, CC3.0

Growing a community

Codes of conduct

Consult outside group

Teaching aims

Thought processes

Engagement

‘Selling’ ClojureBridge

Modern

Minimal keywords & syntax

FP before OOP

Portable

REPL

How you can help

Organise

Teach

Sponsor

Contribute

Bootstrapping diversity

Chicken and egg!

Women in lead roles

Cross-train

Visiting experts

Recruit former students

How to organise

github.com/clojurebridge/organizing

Mailing lists

Mentors

Teacher training

Social comfort

Technical capability

Monitoring engagement

San Francisco, May 2014

Image: ClojureBridge SF

ClojureBridge Solingen, June 2015

Image: ClojureBridge Solingen

Follow up

Mailing lists

Meetups

Local Clojure groups

Feedback surveys

What we’ve learned

Organiser guide

Workshop feedback

Curriculum design

Community impact

Diversity

Energy

Community discovery

Virtuous circle

More Clojure programmers

More Clojure in production

More Clojure jobs

More learners

Resources

clojurebridge.org

github.com/ClojureBridge

groups.google.com/group/

clojurebridge-workshops

Building a more diverse Clojure community