doteveryone

Despite the fact that people in the UK spend more time online than anywhere else, it’s at in-person events where many of the most important connections in the digital sector are made. Even in 2017, places like conferences, unconferences, and meetups are still where people test out new ideas, share insider knowledge and find new recruits.

Unfortunately, many of these events can’t or don’t take considerations like accessibility, creche facilities, or travel subsidies into account. As a result, their speakers and participants are less diverse and inclusive than they otherwise might be.

At Doteveryone, fighting for a fairer internet means making sure it is more accountable, inclusive, useful and fair. We mainly seek to achieve this through programmes like our responsible technology charter and our work to deepen digital understanding for leaders. However, we also recognise that we can offer important, immediate support for others working towards the same goals.

We often get asked to sponsor events, but as a small charity we don’t have the resources to do large-scale funding or sponsorship. However, as a team, we’ve recently reconsidered how we might spend our limited budget for supporting external events.

So today, Doteveryone is proud to launch our Grants for Fairer Tech Events program.

Three times a year, we’ll give three grants of up to £500 to help make it easier for people who are often excluded from tech events to attend them, speak at them and help run them.

Here are some of the types of opportunities we’re looking to support:

– Creche facilities to ensure parents can attend or speak at your event

– Speaker training for people who might not have ever spoken in front of crowds before

– Bursaries to ensure speakers and interns are paid fairly for their time

– Subsidised travel for people who live outside an event’s host city

– Resources that improve accessibility, including sign language interpreters, venues, transport, audio description, etc.

– Funding for ethical technology sessions that teach more about empowering and protecting people online

In addition to providing some immediate, short-term funds, we see this fund as a provocation for conveners across the UK. How many small things might be stopping people from participating in your tech event?

If you’d like to be part of the first round of our Fairer Events grants, please submit an application here. Recipients will be announced on May 30 through Medium and Twitter.

Entries close on Friday the 26th of May