 Hi everybody. Hope you're doing well today. I'm here at Matt Cantu Snell. My badge says Matt Snell. The schedule said Matt Cantu. I have both last names. So I'm also really excited to present this Kias Diversity and Inclusion Open Source Badge initiative with you today. So let's start by talking about the people. Ruth was not able to make it today, but she provided a lot of the information for this presentation. So I wanted to keep her on there. She's a founding member of Kias Badging. She works as a technical content manager at a company called Animals as a GitHub star and loves to eat cake. Now me and myself, Matt Cantu Snell, I am a founding member of Kias Badging as well. I'm a graduate assistant at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and I'm a fan of Kias since 2018, summer of 2018 is when I started. I love to build. I like to build speakers, keyboards, all kinds of fun stuff. So did we talk about Kias a little bit? Let me talk about that. It's Community Health Analytics Open Source Software. That is a company that kicked off at this Open Source Summit in North America in 2017. We have multiple working groups such as diversity, equity and inclusion, risk. We have an evolution working group, all kinds of things that we can use to measure open source project health. We have over 50 distinct metrics. These are all windows at which we can view a project to understand health a little better. And we have relaxed and low structure calls. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we have all kinds of calls. Just to mention, our DEI call is on Wednesdays. Well, it's a different time everywhere. So we have some community-centered initiatives, and one of those initiatives that we like to talk about is the Badging Initiative. So you might ask, what is the Badging Initiative? Let's talk about the Badging Initiative. So we have this initiative that we started. We want to make DEI practices feel better for everybody, and we want to improve them in the open source community. We are focused on technical open source events, and a lot of the work that gets done in the project is done by people who want to, and friends of ours that would really just like to contribute. So an event organizer can apply for a chaos DEI badge, and then we go through our review process, which I'll explain later, that gets them that badge. And let's move forward to talking about the two components of the Badging Initiative. I just want to reiterate, we have diversity, equity and inclusion at the Chaos Project, and we have software badging at the DEI Badging Initiative. Those two come together and use metrics to put together a better DEI practice in the event space in open source. So you may be wondering, what are the chaos metrics? What metrics do we use for the Badging Initiative? And for virtual and in-person events, I'm going to explain a couple of those. The first one we want to talk about is code of conduct at an event. How does the code of conduct support a better diversity and inclusion practice in the event space? Now, this is the one that we see a lot of improvement on as we work through the applications. We have diversity access tickets, which is something that some people don't even know exists, but is very important to having diversity at your event and welcoming people that would not otherwise be able to. And the question is, how do we use those to support those people that want to come to the event? We have family friendliness, which is how we get situations where people would like to bring more people from the family to an event or need to bring more people to their family to attend the event. And how do we get that to event organizers that they need to have that? Attendee demographics and speaker demographics are fairly similar in which we have information collected about the attendees and speakers, and even the volunteers in a case that I'll mention in the future, that we are really looking forward to how that's going to change the demographic space at events in the open source community. I'd like to talk about how metrics hold the badge together. So we have metrics and we have the badges, but the metrics are the core component to the existence of these badges. So you may be wondering, what is the validity of this situation? What has the badging project, the badging initiative done? Now, we've had 35 events badge since September of 2020, which was our launch. And just last week, we had quite a few applications from a large event and it's co-located events. So that number is going to increase dramatically over the next few days. And it's also worth mentioning that the open source summit, this open source summit, has earned the gold DEI badge from the chaos project. You may be asking, how does this project work? And I'm going to pause for just a moment. Do we have any specific questions about how the process works or anything about how the, anything about the badging project, really, so far? Go ahead. Sorry? One more time, sorry? Oh, yes. Yeah, I can go into that in a little bit that we talk about how automation helps the process, but we have to have some real reviewers. We have to have real peer review system. And I'll talk about that in a little bit too. That's a great question. Go ahead. Oh, great question. Yeah. So diversity access tickets, it's basically, if somebody doesn't have access, the access ticket to the event, or doesn't have the ability, the funds or the ability to get the ticket, then an event may provide more access to that person through giving them free registration, getting them, getting them to the event, things like that. And that's something that is a requirement for, as a single metric requirement for the badge, for the DEI badge. Yeah. So let's go into the process. Now, when we, when you submit an event for a chaos badge, you do it on the website. If you want to find it yourself, it's actually the short URL chaos.community. Well, maybe not so short. But we have, you may be able to see here that we have in-person and virtual events. The event organizer comes from, comes into the website and applies for an in-person or virtual event. They're kind of distinct. The big difference right now is that virtual events do not have the family friendliness component or the metric applied to that. But we will have more information on that in just a little bit too, how they're going to be differentiated in the future. So they fill out the online form. GitHub issue is created for them, but they use, they use their GitHub account and then click submit. Everything else is filled in for them and marked down. Everything that we need for the, for the GitHub issue. And I get, really, it's called an issue, but it's the, it's just a thing to pay attention to. So in this case, it's an application. So the badging bot, badging-bot is the name of our bot. And it's going to welcome the user and, and assign reviewers algorithmically. And at that point, the badging bot has, has done its work, but we'll have it here, we'll have it again in the future. So after they provide all this information, so they have, they have an application. They have all the information for each metric. We have specific questions for them based on that, based on those metrics. And the reviewer fills out a review checklist. So in this case, that means that they go down a list of checkable boxes and they check all the boxes that the event meets. Now this is the first step of the review. So there are two reviewers, just to reiterate, there are two reviewers for each application. And each, each, each reviewer fills out their own checklist, which then, if they have any questions, that is, we always encourage them to ask questions, but if they have any questions, they ask those of the reviewer, or of the applicant, and then they, and the applicant incorporates that new information maybe on their event website, or in their event space plans. So we have, we have kind of a feedback process here, in which they can get more information. And then I also want to mention here, and there are two things I want to make clear here too, is that, the first one is that the application for the badge is actually something that we should be able to find all the information on the website, really, because that should, that information should be publicly available. And the other thing is that we're not looking for the, the numbers, the, the, the demographics, the information about who is doing, who is, you know, of what type in the, we don't want any of that. We want to know that the event organizer is working on their practices for their event organization, and that they want to improve the DEI practices, or at least making an effort to. So the final aspect of this, and this picture is actually from the Hyperledger Global Forum application, we have the badging bot, we, we provoke it for a result, and then it calculates the, the percentage of how many checks have been met. If it's above 80%, in this case it was 100, with two reviews, which is wonderful. And, and it's, it pulls that information, it, and we have to have the applicant accept the result, or ask for further deliberation, and then they can work for it in the future. And generally, we, we originally had a one-year kind of roll-off period, but we've realized that if an event is going to happen, it's going to happen, and once it happens, you, you know, you can't really use the badging anymore for the, unless you, unless you have another event, and you have another badge for that. The only exception we've made is a, like, 30-day, events that happen every 30 days, or less. So, let me talk a little bit about what we want to see in the future of KSDEI badging. We want a release cycle of six months, which we've been keeping to kind of well. We've had a couple months leeway time. So, our next release, version three, is coming November 1st, and that's going to be real exciting, because we're going to have some new metrics. And our outreach to the open source community, we, we have a separate meeting from the badging meeting. We have a badging meeting every once a day. We have an outreach meeting every Tuesday. And that outreach meeting, the focus of that is to get more people involved in the badging initiative, because it is a fairly new project, and we'd like to have more people to know about it, both outreach to event organizers and outreach to potential reviewers, which I'll mention in just a moment here. We're increasing the requirements, so that 80% has been met, almost every application, so we'd like to talk about putting some more requirements in, and that comes through adding new metrics. And you might be asking yourself, what metrics? And that is a really good question. I'll ask you all for some, for some suggestions of metrics, but I'm going to talk about the ones we're adding in this next release. So, inclusive experience at event, this is an all inclusion kind of metric to see how, it's really about how people feel about that event they went to, how inclusive they felt it was, and what kind of gut feeling it gave them. This is something that we, it's going to be hard to measure in a badging initiative, but we're doing our, our darndest. So, time inclusion for virtual events, how can organizers really put together an event in a way that is going to be helpful to, to everybody on the planet in a way that, in any time zone, someone would be able to attend and not have to be up at like one or three a.m. And the last one is kind of a reform of the demographics, so we're talking about attendee and speaker demographics already. But we wanted to add volunteer demographics, volunteers for the event. And instead of adding another metric for that, we're just kind of collapse them all into, event demographics have a, and have a lot more checks for that demographic session. It's going to be our main metric really at that point. And at this point, does anybody have any good ideas for, for metrics that they might like to see in something like this? Something, something on DEI that you haven't seen in an event before. Go ahead. Yeah, that's great. We've been working on a metric. It hasn't been released in the past, in the past release of the chaos metrics, but we've had an event location inclusivity metric that's been focused on that very thing. And it's in the works. And as soon as it gets finished, we're going to put it into the next release of the badging initiative. So thank you. That's a great suggestion. Do we have any more ideas? Go ahead. Yeah, that's that's great. That's something we're just stepping into in the chaos project, to be honest. We've talked about, we've talked about inclusion for individuals experience and colorblindness in a project. We've had a couple other metrics that are related to that but we haven't had that in the event space. So that's a great suggestion. And I'll have more time for suggestions as well soon. I just wanted to say we are really thankful. There are so many people that have contributed to the badging initiative in the past year and even before that, when we were just working on the workflow in a summer of code projects. So I wanted to put the names out there. These are all the people that have made major contributors to the badging initiative and it's been wonderful. So I wanted to go over the summer of code. The summer of code and season of docs are both Google projects that we've learned from and we've had interns throughout. Well, summer of code happens in the summer, season of docs happens in the later part of the year. And I cannot thank these people enough. They've done pretty much, they've done a lot of work on the project. And we have maintainers. These are the people that really do the shepherding along of an application. And assigning reviewers in the case of the bot camp and doing things like that. And the reviewers, we've got a lot of reviewers but with the amount of work, with the amount of applications coming in, we'd always like to get more reviewers because it's always nice to have people to look at that. I mean, the more diverse and open we have our reviewer team, the easier it's going to be to be helpful to the DEI space for any event organizers. And I just wanted to mention upcoming reviewers. Kevin's one of them here. And I don't mean to point you out, but we've got some people that were still doing the orientation to be reviewers. And honestly, the orientation is a 30 minute meeting. And then the kind of the ask for being a reviewer is about 20 minutes per application. It's more like less than one application per week. Just wanted to mention that. And thank you to everybody who's been a contributor to this project too. I wanted to put that out there. In case anyone's watching the recording and is part of that or anyone's here and is part of that. Thank you. I mean it. Yeah. So I just wanted to say it enough. And this is the time for suggestions, questions, interesting, interesting factor. Is anything you'd like to, yeah, go ahead. That's a great question. To start, we do have an organization that's separate from chaos, but it's really still an initiative of chaos. We did get the name github.com slash badging, which is really cool. But I think as far as the separation, the new direction for the badging initiative, we are working on, I don't know if I like to say this, but a case we're working on some kind of project badging as well that's going to go out into the project space. But as far as event badging goes, we are really just excited to look at new directions. And I'm trying to think if there's anything specific, other than making it more, the requirements are to get a badge. I guess we don't have a lot of other extra things we're doing right now. As far as this next release, it's going to be more metrics as the focus. But once we have all the metrics we need and we're kind of slowly moving those metrics in, that's a great thing to look at. What's next? So I don't really have a good answer to that question. Go ahead. Yeah, the questions we get a lot of the time when it comes to badging an event, the demographics have kind of been the pain point for people. We have a few people that have gotten really good at knowing what we need and they can get an event through in maybe a couple days or less. But the pain point has been demographics because it's hard with how touchy demographics can be, especially with things like the GDPR regulations in California, it's been difficult to ask people to measure demographics. And also the other thing we ask in the application is do you request feedback from attendees and speakers regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion at your event? And people get a little uncomfortable about that. But I think getting uncomfortable can be a good thing here because it gets us, getting out of our comfort zone really gets us in a spot where we grow. Not only as event organizers but as people, you know? I hope that was a good answer to your question. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, I guess there's something I didn't necessarily cover in the workflow is that we've had people that come, event organizers, that come to the badging initiative and open an issue before they even open an application and say, I don't know what I'm doing here. And what we like to do is when that happens is we'd like to say, let's get someone to talk to you. Let's talk about that. Let's work through that and figure out how we can get you this badge because we want people to be badged. We want events to be badged, I mean. And the workflow process that I necessarily didn't cover is that if they ask for further deliberation, we can adjust the checklist. I mean, they're just checkboxes on GitHub. That part is easy. It's just that a lot of the time we'll ask them to change something and they will. And that's kind of what we want to see if they're following best practices of these metrics. We want to see that they're following them, really, necessarily. And it's a human process. That's how to the badging about it. It's a very human process and we like it that way because that's how you can, like working with people is really the only way to do DEI. Go ahead. I have a question about how is that black demographic significant about race and gender? Because both of those are things that you can black and green about in a lot of different ways. And depending upon the way that you act, you will get very different results. And also, there's, it's not even an increase in numbers that you can black and green about. Yeah, that's a great question. There's not really, I mean, there's no standard, of course. There are good things like the open demographics collection. And what I really like to push, we don't have it in the checklist yet. We don't have anything about how they measure the demographics just that they do and their request feedback. That'd be a great thing to add to, light bulb. But I think as far as collecting demographics, I think the important things are opt out. You can just prefer not to say, but some kind of opt out. The other thing is allow people to have a text box for goodness sakes. Allow people to put their own thing in if they want to. And maybe even not even suggest specific subsets, but like, what is your race? Text box. What is your gender? Text box. I think that's a great thing to do, but it makes standardization more difficult, but it makes the process a lot more human DEI focus. Go ahead. Yeah. Originally, we asked for a two-month lead time for any badge application that comes out a little bit, at least a little bit like two months before their event, but then we've had people come and apply for a badge for their event in like two weeks beforehand. And we're not mad about it. I mean, if they get a badge and they want to get it so soon before the event, I think that's their decision. And I'm super excited to help them through that process even right before, right as registration is ending or whatever. I think it's a great signal. Even without the registration in mind, it's a great signal that event cares about DEI and is doing something to improve it. And so I did answer your question. Yeah, that's a great question. That's a really good question. I do not have any examples of that impact, mostly because the badging initiatives have only been around for about a year. I'd like to know though, I might start asking people about what this has done, because we've had some people even come back after a year and say, I'd like to get a badge for this next year of this event and see how that impacts the future of their event. So it's almost like a suggestion in the question. I love it. If you have no more questions or suggestions, I want to talk about how you can get involved, if you'd like. And there is a link there to apply to be a reviewer for the initiative. This isn't the end, by the way. I have more after this, but we have a maybe a 20, 15, 30-minute orientation session that I have with you on Zoom or whatever your preferred platform is. And then from there, it's just a matter of being able to find things on people's websites, asking questions, everything like that. And then applying for a badge is for event organizers, really. But if you want to help with the workflow, if you want to, any kind of contribution is welcome, because we try to be an inclusive community ourselves. I mean, if we weren't inclusive, then that would be a really bad thing. So I have some questions for y'all. I was originally thinking we would do a roundtable discussion, but there's no, there's not a lot of room for that. And I'm just going to ask the questions. So what kind of positive DEI experiences have you had at events? I'm going to get, I'm going to be out here. I'd like to be a little more human. Am I still audible? Okay. So what kind of positive DEI experiences have y'all had at events? Something that's kind of stood out to you that you has had an impact on you, as far as DEI? Go ahead. That's awesome to hear. Yeah, an application can make all the difference. Sometimes it's the first point of contact, you know? Yeah. Do we have any more good stories? Go ahead. Okay, I think one of the things I'd like to do next, any questions for them in general, is they have taken, what is CCC benefit, most of these are gender justice, it's specifically marketed as gender legal, and one of the lessons that you're able to get made on available. But if someone take action like that in a very proactive way, and taking conscious steps to make an area more accessible, mental awakening, not only is it convenient, but also in the fact that this is like, this is something that's like, you know, they have to have people on the ground doing things and taking action to make the process more accessible, which is something that's stood out to me. And there's a good amount of work that actually just exists purely in the sort of, I guess, informational area, or how you would interact with people, and that's just an impact on specific things. And I've just got very important work, and I'm really glad that it is happening, and it makes me so much happier when I see it happening. But at the same time, I feel like a lot of physical, on the ground, it's getting more interesting in the process of taking action like that, really that's a lot for me. Yeah, definitely. I have to change a question on our upcoming questions. Do you have gender-neutral bathrooms? I don't have to make it RE bathrooms, don't have to, but we are going to make it RE bathrooms gender-neutral. That makes a lot more sense. Do we have any more good experiences? We can move on to the next question too. Go ahead. Have difficulty walking or, you know, with a cane or wheelchair or whatever, but they had listed on the website how many steps it was from the curb to the door, and if there were steps going up, there was a ramp, and they just really put a lot into giving people that information ahead of time so that they could plan which door they would go in, and how many steps, and how that would logistically work for them. I thought that was really awesome. Yeah, accessibility is absolutely something that gets overlooked a lot of the time until someone needs it, you know, so it's great. Go ahead. That's awesome. Yeah. Very much not a thing that would happen here as much, but I think it can. There's no reason it can't. That's a lot of what the DEI badging is built on is why not. Why not make it easier and more inclusive to attend? And I'm just, I got the next question. I'm going to get emotional. By the way, I do identify gender queer and I identify as they, them. For anybody who doesn't know, I just don't identify with the gender, so I really relate. I don't know if my situation is as bad as other people's with gender, but I feel that too. I don't know. And let's go on to the next question. I think we're just going to do one more question and I'll wrap it up. And what today has helped you frame what you think of badging or what has changed from this presentation on how you think about badging? Go ahead. Cool. Thank you. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. That's that's a big one for me too. Thank you. That's something being at the badging program from the start has really had an impact on the way I think about how metrics can be used too. So we have these, before we had the badging, we had these DEI metrics. We had these, this repository basically of metrics for diversity, equity and inclusion, but what are we going to do with them? We didn't have anybody consuming them really as much as looking at them saying that's cool. That's good awareness. But where do you move from awareness to action? It's just, I think that's a great point. It's definitely where my mind's been lately too, kind of thinking, wow, it's been a year and it's completely changed my perspective on a lot of things. We can have like one more maybe or and then I'll go ahead and wrap it up. So I just wanted to thank you all for coming here too. I know this cliche, but like I really want to thank you all for coming here too because the badging initiative wouldn't mean anything if nobody looked at it. If it was in a vacuum and all those badges were just there, there would be no signal, there would be no human aspect of it. And you all are the human aspect of it, especially in person. And I'm just really glad to see that so many people are interested in this little project that started a year ago. I don't know. And it just means the world to me. So thank you for coming. And I think that's it.