Hello everyone and thank you for coming to the Inclusion and Diversity at W3C talk for the AC meeting.

My name is Wendy Reid and I am one of the chairs of the Publishing Working Group and EPUB 3 Working Group as well as a member of the Inclusion and Diversity Community Group and the Positive Work Environment Community Group.

Today I'm going to introduce both of these groups to you as well as some of the reasons why we do this work.

We are gonna talk a little bit about what we have done to date, what we plan to do in the future, and what you as members of the AC can do to contribute to our work.

The Positive Work Environment and Inclusion and Diversity Community Groups are two groups within the W3C community that focus on producing documentation, policy, and process around increasing our inclusion and diversity efforts here at the W3C.

PWE focuses mainly on the CEPC, the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct while IDCG focuses on process and policy in order to make the W3C the best place that it can possibly be.

These two groups are really important though some may wonder why we do this work.

It's really important to all of us that current and prospective Members feel welcome in our community as well as safe.

We want to make sure that the documentation process and practices that we develop signal to people that this is a place that they can be themselves, that they are welcome, and that they can be valued contributors.

One thing that's really important to realize is that tech is not neutral.

This phrasing comes from Kim Crayton's Caus A Scene work and it's important for all of us to realize as technologists that the standards we produce and the development work that we put in has an impact on the world around us and sometimes that impact can be negative though we should always try our best to ensure that it is positive.

This is a sensitive time; in the last year we have seen things like the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise of democracy movements around the world.

People have, I think, come to the realization that we must do more.

Martin Luther King Jr. said the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice and that is true, but it doesn't happen without action.

And thanks to so many people that have inspired us in the last year and further back into the past.

We see that action is important, We have to do more.

We have to become an anti-racist organization and we have to do that work every single day in everything that we do.

So, what have we done so far?

The first thing is the CEPC.

This is the most important I think.

The newest revision of CEPC was released in July of 2020.

So just a few months ago.

The new revision focuses on acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for our members, how to respond when you make a mistake and how to report violations.

If you haven't had a chance or you haven't been able to share it out to your groups or to your colleagues, I really, really recommend it.

It's really important for everyone to realize that there are things that are and are not acceptable behavior.

That many things can happen and it's possible to make a mistake and it happens.

And one of the biggest takeaways I think from the document is understanding how to recognize and acknowledge a mistake in a respectful manner.

We work together, we get passionate.

We all care a lot about what we do and having a really strong way to create that environment where it's okay to make mistakes, is really powerful.

And so I really strongly recommend that you share it with your organizations, share it within your Working Groups, your Community Groups, and make sure that everyone understands and has read it.

One of the other big programs is over the last few years we have developed the Diversity Fund.

The Diversity Fund was started initially to provide funding to Invited Experts and other participants from underrepresented groups for travel to TPAC.

Obviously this year we're not doing a lot of traveling, unfortunately, but TPAC has gone virtual and a virtual meeting comes with its own special costs.

And we really wanted to expand the fund in order to cover those associated costs that you might not see when you attend a meeting in person instead of over the internet.

So, this year we've expanded the fund to cover things like child or elder care, equipment that is required for attending a virtual meeting like webcams or headsets, costs of internet or other utilities, office space rental, and even covering things like time lost to freelancing while attending meetings.

And we really hope that this has helped many people attend a meeting.

The other thing that we've worked on together between the two groups is to gather a list of resources that are linked here.

For members that are interested in topics like race and tech, sexism, feminism, harassment and assault and even other codes of conduct.

This list is constantly being updated as we learn more and people publish even more really excellent content.

We've taken a lot of it from blog posts and things like that.

And if anyone has anything that they've found has been particularly helpful, please do share because we always wanna update the list and make sure it is a good resource for people who wanna learn about these topics around the world.

As we continue this practice, we're always working on new things.

One of the biggest things coming from PWE is training.

We wanna work on training sessions for members, chairs, and ombuds people.

On the contents of the CEPC, but also how handle situations that might arise.

This training is going to include things like de-escalation and the role of ombuds people and chairs within groups and within incidents, and we hope to see that very soon.

One of the things that the IDCG is planning on implementing is the concept of an Equity Review Board.

Equity is about giving people what they need in order to make things fair.

It's not the financial version of equity.

This essentially means that, for two people who want to achieve the same goal, they might have different needs and you wanna make sure equity means you're providing whatever each person needs to achieve that same goal.

What this means in terms of specifications is that we want to introduce equity review into horizontal review.

which means that any new specifications that come through the REC track process would be analyzed not only for their accessibility, privacy, security, internationalization and architecture, but also for their potential impact on underrepresented communities.

We really wanna make sure that all the specifications that we publish and put our name on and stamp of approval don't have negative impacts towards any group whatsoever.

The ombuds program is also a really big part of what we're doing.

PWE is focused on helping the ombuds people to understand incidents and train them on handling issues related to the CEPC but it is also going to clarify the role of the ombuds for people who need to report to them.

The ombuds are really important in the CEPC framework because they ensure fair treatment and safety for all members that have to deal with the ombuds process.

This brings me to what the AC can do.

There's a lot.

(chuckling) I really strongly encourage everyone to look internally at their organizations.

I'm sure many people, maybe you or maybe colleagues have thought about DEI efforts at your own organizations.

If you found something that works at your company that happens to work really well or maybe it was a really good speaker or a program that you had adopted, please do share it with us.

We would love to create resources for every company.

So if you've done something that's worked really well for you and you feel comfortable sharing it, we wanna share that so that other companies can do the same thing or something similar for their own DEI efforts.

We also wanna make sure that we're getting the best possible resources.

We also ask that you be proactive in recruiting members from your organizations.

Many of us come from companies that are located all over the world.

We have really diverse workforces and I think for many of us we've come to standards maybe because of a passion or because we knew about them, but not everyone knows about what we do at the W3C.

Not everyone knows about the world of standards.

Not everyone knows that they could be really good at it.

And so I would ask all AC reps and do this with the members of your company as well; look inside your companies, see who you think might actually be really good at the standards table.

Who would have really valuable contributions that maybe they just don't know that this is something that is an option for them.

So, I would ask that you please recruit, please look inside your companies and identify people who would be really welcome and wonderful in our community.

The other thing is please help us.

We are two Community Groups.

We have a fairly good number of members but just like with everything we do we're not just in our Community Group.

We have a lot going on and it's really hard to kinda juggle all the responsibilities.

So if you have any time or you know someone who might have some time to spare, please help us continue to work on what we're working on and provide us any resources that you might have to be able to share.

I'd like to thank everyone for attending this talk.

If you have any questions or you would like more information on any of the topics that I've covered, feel free to reach out to either the IDCG or the PWE.

We are always here to help.

You can reach out to me personally if you would like as well.

I also would really like to thank Tzviya Siegman, Léonie Watson, and Coralie Mercier for their help, not only in chairing these groups but also in their help for preparing this presentation.

And I hope everyone has a lovely AC meeting.

Thank you again.