Over the past several weeks 8th Light craftsman Doug Bradbury hosted a three part series during 8th Light University titled “For All Without Discrimination”. The series focused on gender and ethnicity issues in programming.

In the series’ opener Doug talked about the research and numbers in regards to women and minorities in programming and in the second and third parts he hosted panels of guests to discuss the issues. Both panels included active members of the Chicago software community, including Sarah Gray, Ginny Hendry, Francesca Slade, Pallavi Anderson and Ray Hightower, as well members of 8th Light’s own team.

It was a powerful series and big props to Doug for organizing and getting the panel to engage in some tough topics. There were a few things that really stuck out for me.

Something Different == Something Extra

Members of both the panel on women in programming and the panel on minorities in programming made comments that it wasn’t just a specific gender or ethnicity that brought something “extra” to a team, but more importantly it was just that they brought a different perspective and different approach to solving a problem. Doug hinted at this a little bit in the series opener, pointing out that diversifying any group is always advantageous in making it stronger. I talked about this last week in my post on Team and how I immediately felt the positive impact of having other people’s perspective and experiences in the internal project meeting.

Role Models?

Another topic that both panels discussed was how exactly to go about diversifying the programming community. Both panels agreed that it’s important to give as many young kids as possible the support they need if they want to develop their math and science skills. Another specific question that was semi-answered but I’d like to hear more discussion on was “do minorities and women need more strong role models in the software world?” I think it was Francesca that brought up the awesome Grace Hopper, but there was no one at the Steve Jobs or Bill Gates level that sprang to mind- or a decision on if someone at that level would be helpful or not.

Reaching Out

Lastly, both Ginny and Francesca talked about how important it was to explicity invite a group that you’d like to attend your meetings or hackathan. Ginny said that if she failed to include the simple words “Beginners Welcome” for a Ruby Hack Night it would be a decidedly different and smaller crowd that showed up. Francesca said that if she was organizing a hackathon and invited women through the general email list there would be a smaller turnout of women than if she sent an invite specifically to the women programmers’ email list. It makes sense that people will be more likely to attend if they feel welcome before they even set a foot in the door, but it’s one of those little things that I could see getting lost in the details of organizing an event.

I’d taken a few more notes on the series but those were the points that really stuck out. Again, a big thanks to Doug and all the panelists that participated.