Diversity equity and inclusion in tech session
Main room
6pm
Thursday, 23rd May 2024.
VESNA MANOJILOVIC: Good evening everyone. Welcome to the evening session of today. My name is Vesna Manojilovic. Today I am here in my capacity as all‑time activist and social justice warrior, and I am helping to curate this diversity session. Today we are going to have two topics which are very dear to my heart, but let me start with a bit of historical overview of how did we get here.
So within the RIPE community, we identified a long time ago that we do have a problem with a lack of diversity and we try to solve that in the informal ways first by having the so‑called net girls, while we were girls at some point in the past. And then we moved towards a bit more structure, the Diversity in Tech lunch meetings where we would invite experts on diversity matters to talk to us, to talk to the RIPE community, and then we moved even to the more formal setting of actually having a session as a part of the programme which was about diversity in Tech and then it became about diversity inclusion and equity. And so here we are.
We vary with topics from meeting to meeting and we have covered all kinds of stuff, for example how to increase the participation of youth or like young or junior participants. We also talked sometimes about accessibility. And I can't remember now, it's been a long time ago. And one of the outcomes of Diversity Task Force and diversity sessions was the introduction of the Code of Conduct team and we have that now for several meetings already.
So today I am happy to introduce two speakers that are going to talk about on one hand health an the other hand the neurodiversities, in a very holistic way, it will be the first talk by Natasa will be about a plan tree health community health and personal health on both physical, mental and spiritual level and the second talk will be by Rob Lister about neuro diversities and we have have plenty of time for your questions, comments and discussions. So please save your questions and then after every talk we'll have a short discussion and then we will move on and if there is more time at the end, there are two other volunteers who wanted to talk but I only heard about it today so I am not sure if we are going to be able to find any time for it, we'll see how it goes.
So enjoy and I am happy that you are here. Thanks.
(APPLAUSE.)
VESNA MANOLIJILIC: Introduction again, Natasa Mojsilovic. Natasa is my colleague from the RIPE NCC and she's also my favourite yoga teacher and so much more. So this is her story.
NATASA MOJSILOVIC: Thank you, Vesna, and thank you everybody for being here at this time. Welcome.
So as the whole weekday four, we have been focusing outward on the presentations, on the slides, on the screens, I would like to invite you to bring the focus back into your body. So maybe put the screens away at least for a little while and sit a little bit straighter up in your seat so. Close your eyes if you wish to. I invite you to close your eyes and to take a deep and long inhale through the nose.
And exhale all the way down towards your hips feeling the touch of the seat bones on the chair, an the tallness of the spine and feeling the way that your feet are planted on the ground right now. Are you touching, touching the earth. And with every exhalation, grow deeper in this awareness of being connected with the earth underneath you and with growing roots as if you are tall and steady tree, fully rooted into this space.
And your roots are branching out, deep into the ground underneath us all.
The solid ground is holding these roots that are branching in all directions, intertwined roots of all of the people sitting here in this room. So your roots are touching, connected. This vibrant network of roots underneath us all, it's holding us altogether. Just become aware of that, how supported we all are from below, fully held by the mother earth.
So that we are sitting maybe a little bit taller when we open up our eyes again.
So welcome again. So yeah, my first slide has this question that I am still busy with. So as you, as Vesna has introduced me, you will see me maybe at the services desk, I am part of this community for over 15 years and I work for the member services with RIPE NCC. I am also grateful to have made my first steps as a yoga teacher, the old office of the RIPE NCC and I see some of my old students here. Yeah. So I am a yoga practitioner for over 20 years and still busy with this self inquirying question whom I and how am I part of the communities that I'm a member of and I found that there is this common ground as you have hopefully all tuned into this common ground holding us all here and also holding all of this seemingly unrelated communities like technical community, yoga community and ancient wisdoms of yoga, buddism, Hinduism and all of the other spiritual teachings.
And lately I also am a part of the perma‑culture community and family, and I just wonder whoever is familiar with, raise your hands, with perma‑culture? Okay, a few. So I have spent a lot of time in this farm and you see this beautiful pictures and they are a farm that's applying the principles of perma‑culture, it's not only dealing with how we manage the land, it's actually redesigning the holistic approach to redesign your environment and our behaviour by just imitating nature. So just doing as the nature is doing.
And as simple as that, that brings the thriving to this community of this farm that they are seen of the RIPE community, there's a lot of things in common. And there's not going to be any communities if the planet is gone to the dogs like it's on its way, right? So the principles of perma‑culture are the earth care, people care and the fair share.
So first we have to take care of the planet that is hosting all of us here together and I have seen this shift from the consumption into what it is that I can take into how I can contribute and what it is that I can give as this farm in Portugal is run by the voluntary principle, so volunteers from all over the world are coming and helping out, and I am also grateful to be one of them just doing whatever I can, digging, weeding the plants or walking our pig, Bacon, that you see here. Yeah, our RIPE community is also ‑‑ I am happy to ‑‑ as you all know, that is run by the voluntary services and it's very important, I think, to give and because and to take care of the life as all the live is sacred and the kids on the farm and everybody, every form of life.
And therefore this sustainability and focus on the environment and awareness has to go even further from next generation, you see it's seven generations, thinking of seven generations have the consequences of every action that we make.
And the diversity session, right, so this slide is very diversity because I learned this principle of mono‑culture in this perma‑culture farm, mono‑culture does not exist in nature so diversity is the nature of all things and if we plant these three plants together, they will thrive better, they will be able to better fight predators, to get more nutrients from the soil and better protection from the elements and we all know about the birds of a feather here, we are using diversity here, but I would say let's go even beyond and that search for the allies in the unexpected corners.
And the people care starts with caring for each of us individually. First put the seat belt to yourself and then take care of the others. And we have to listen to everybody and to acknowledge the differences that are there, right, so that we can better understand each other as a community and that we can serve the whole of the community and it comes to mind this Buddhist belief in everybody has at some point and everyone has at some point been your mother. We have had so many reincarnations, we had so many mothers in this room as well so we have to respect everybody like our mothers, right.
However that's not so easy because there are the intrinsic poisons intrinsic to human nature, poisons of our body, speech, mind, that we are really clinging to something that we like, we push away the things that we dislike and therefore we live in ignorance and on this slide you can see the breathing technique, it's called mind purification breathing if somebody is interested in this, how to cleanse these three poisons. There's this ancient breathing technique that's dealing with that, hands on and the a daily practice, right, to overcome this poisons that are leading to our individual and communal suffering, right. And unwholesomeness of action and deeds.
And these precious pills are very simple. Stillness doesn't mean that you need to sit in meditation. Like I had a talk with Rob before the other presentation, so it's not only meditating and sitting down for whatever, amount of time, it's just dropping into the body and finding the stillness, also five minutes of not doing anything, like (in Dutch) as the Dutch would say, it's already healing so we are tuning into this silence that's also the ground like the ground that we tapped into at the beginning, holding us all here together, the ground of silence is holding all of our differences seeming differences so that we can tap into the spaciousness of our hearts and minds, that is the true nature, I believe, of who we really are, that the sky that's able to host everything with equanimity.
And we have to start with this, we have to ‑‑ I am not saying what you have to do, I am saying what really is my kind of guidelines into helping me kind of find the centre within myself and this may be confusing sanscript word, Niyamas, it's not easily translatable, it's like a guidelines more or less and how to interact with ourselves. First one is I have to focus on keeping my body, my speech and mind pure so I'm actually applying discipline, being the disciple of that which I like. In my case I love yoga, practice yoga postures and breathing meditations and I am a disciple of that, I am coming to a yoga mat even when I don't like it, the self‑study brings me the contentment of a deeper level, knowing who I am, at least asking this question on a daily level. And so doing my best and leaving the rest, having this faith in a higher purpose of everything.
And if I interact in this wholesome way with myself, I am fully equipped to better deal with community and the world around me. So it's natural that I am not going to be able to harm myself or the others. As my truth is I believe that there is no others, right.
I much was helped by the book from SaskiSchepers, "When all Brains Thrive," which is not so much a book for people with neuro diversity but it's a book for organisations for enterprises, companies, telling them be aware of these people, you very much need them in your organisation for your organisation to thrive. Appreciate them for the brilliant contributions that they will, that they and only they can provide for your enterprise. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: We have talked last week for two, three hours during dinner and I don't even remember your name. And I don't expect that you remember mine.
ROB LISTER: It might take a couple more gatherings.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: That's one of the reasons why I ask for contact details from people so I have a chance of remembering what a person is called. I remember the face and you are from England, that's it. Thank you.
VESNA MANOJLOVIC: The mic over there?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you, I think it's great for your first RIPE presentation and I think this is the first time ever I came up to a mic for RIPE and I have been around for ten years so.
(APPLAUSE.)
I was diagnosed with OCPD two years ago, a lot of what you said resonates with me deeply. So I had a lot of ‑‑ I think you hit the nail on the head so to to say that there's a lot of stigma associated with all these acronyms and initialisms like disorders and stuff, but it's actually ‑‑ it's a thing that makes us who we are and that's cool. I will keep it at that because the lines are long but I just say I wish your talk happened at the plenary.
ROB LISTER: Maybe I will be brave enough to to do it there sometime.
VESNA MANOJLOVIC: Thanks, that's a good idea, we have 12 minutes and six people in the line so please be careful and Maria.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I will try to be fast. Three notes, first one, the internal monologue is at least in my situation in several languages, so now my monologue is speaking German when I'm going to return home, it's going to speak Polish and it's sometimes speaking English and sometimes speaking Spanish and I am Czech. It's IDIOTIC. It breaks everything. I try to speak English, it speaks German. No thanks.
Second thing, was it Gatwick where the big sign in grass for some time was "Welcome to Luton"?
ROB LISTER: I don't know. I heard...
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: And the third thing, I forgot.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you. Thank you so much for this talk. And to say like you did, there's people like us and I have been diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and I think it was more on the negative side because people started acting, at least in my experience, for the problems they have with you because you go from the normal and don't talk about the super powers you have. And thank you so much for talking about this. I also learned something about myself and maybe to start talking with other ADHDs about things. So thank you, thank you very much.
ROB LISTER: Welcome.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I thought there was somebody at another microphone. Niall O'Reilly, Vice‑Chair. I am not sure which of the catalogue of things I want to claim ownership of, but what I wanted to say briefly was thank you, that was very courageous and like all of the best RIPE talks, it was substantial, thought‑provoking and entertaining. Congratulations.
(APPLAUSE.)
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you, this was an incredible presentation. I want to paper fix it on one word that you used in the middle of the presentation and it's been here in my brain for the last 20 minutes, I don't know what that says about me, I suspect you know the point I'm about to make, but you used the word "ingest" at one point when you said "I am not normal" and this is the kind of community that cares about definitions of words and how we use them, and I suspect it can be useful in the future to disambiguate but normal and abnormal arrives with a value judgment which is different to typical and atypical which is why we have neuro typical an not neuro normal.
ROB LISTER: Everyone is on a scale I think of weird. And it's just finding where you are on that.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hello. I also forgot your name. We had a drink yesterday, but I forgot your name. I mainly remember your dressing. I would like to say many, many things, but I try to be short and just say one thing. When you have disabilities, when you are not straight, when you are interested in many things, you sometimes accumulate some weird token, you need to deal with it and sometime you say it about let me out, you try to be careful but my reality about handicap is the only thing you wish is to be auto nom and try to hide your handicap as much as possible. I am really grateful when I see people, oh, I don't see you have this, this is not your, this is not your kind of ‑‑ my glasses, it's a prescription, it's not something that is funny for me. I need it in society and when people say to me, oh, it's not you, think you need it for to be able to see on the quota ‑‑ I can be able to say yes, I was able to cope and I was able to be myself.
ROB LISTER: Yeah.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi. Thank you for that talk, I learned a lot from you your presentation. And just maybe a thing that may make you feel better, because we are looking to this and doing presentations last minute, actually there's some science behind it: Brains are lazy but also apparently it has been proven that the brain wants you to start your work at five minutes to midnight because it needs all the time to think about different ways, it's actually a good thing. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hello. I am currently doing a ‑ following an online course on diversity and inclusion and this afternoon I had a call with the Professor from the course and I asked them the question on how, if they had advice and tips on how to bring more awareness around neurodiversity and they shared some ideas. But I got the perfect example from you today because what you did is very brave and also the only way to bring the topic to the surface and be able to talk about it. So thank you very much.
ROB LISTER: Someone was going to say it eventually, it happened to be me.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: If you enjoyed this talk, you may also like the talk given by Martha Brown called autism and working in IT and he gave that talk last year at an E NOG day 2023.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I forgot to say earlier, I am glad you didn't fit it all into the first minute.
ROB LISTER: Without, that's, let's keep talking about it, I think that's the best thing to we need to do.
(APPLAUSE.)
VESNA MANOJLOVIC: Thank you very much.
ROB LISTER: I didn't need the manual.
VESNA MANOJLOVIC: So we have four minutes left, and are there any other questions? Last comments? I have Maria who wanted to say something? Do you still want to talk about it? Although there's only a few minutes left. Okay. Thank you. And any other comments also please send them to the mailing list.
And now you can see how wonderful it is to give your first talk at the RIPE meeting. So please send your suggestions either to the RIPE community chair or to me or to meeting [at] RIPE [dot] net, we don't really have official way of contacting us. There is a diversity mailing list so you can always write to the whole list. And I am looking forward to more talks about these topics and about other neurodiversities, there's a lot of space in the spectrum for all of us. So yeah, let's be kind to each other and thank you, Natasa, and thank you, Rob, for these wonderful talks.
(APPLAUSE.)
MIRJAM KUHNE: And thank you Vesna for organising another wonderful session, it was brave by all of you, thank you.
Thanks.
LIVE CAPTIONING BY TINA KEALY, RPR, CRR, CBC
DUBLIN, IRELAND
