On this episode of Redefining Society, we grapple with the lingering question: Why are we still talking about diversity and inclusion in cybersecurity? We discuss the unresolved challenges and systemic barriers that make this an enduring issue with Nicole Schwartz from The Diana Initiative.
Guests:
Nicole Schwartz, COO at The Diana Initiative [@DianaInitiative]
On Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/amazonv
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/CircuitSwan
Mastodon | https://defcon.social/@CircuitSwan
On YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqzohGI80B7I9-wOmcgJgjg
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
On this episode of Redefining Society, we grapple with the lingering question: Why are we still talking about diversity and inclusion in cybersecurity? We discuss the unresolved challenges and systemic barriers that make this an enduring issue with Nicole Schwartz from The Diana Initiative.
In today's episode of "Redefining Society," I, Marco Ciappelli, dig deep into a conversation that is as pertinent as it is perennial—diversity and inclusion within the realm of technology and cybersecurity. It's a topic that prompts me to utter phrases like, "Why are we still talking about this?" and "I wish we didn't have to discuss it." These phrases are an acknowledgement of the dissonance between our rapid technological evolution and the sluggish moral progression in how we treat one another, both in society at large and within specialized communities.
Why, you may ask, is this conversation appearing on "Redefining Society," a platform typically dedicated to musing on the societal implications of technology, rather than a specialized InfoSec or cybersecurity channel? The answer is simple: The issue of diversity and inclusion transcends the boundaries of any one field. Though today's discussion is deeply rooted in technology and cybersecurity, it is, at its core, a human issue, a societal challenge.
Our guest today is Nicole Schwartz, the COO of the Diana Initiative, an organization founded to address issues affecting underrepresented gender minorities within the tech and cybersecurity spheres. Established informally during a lunch conversation at DEF CON—Hacker Summer Camp—the Diana Initiative started as a gathering point for like-minded individuals. It has since evolved into an organization of significant heft, hosting events and supporting budding professionals in the field.
Why focus on the Diana Initiative today? Because when it comes to addressing the pressing issues of diversity and inclusion, this organization doesn't just walk the talk—it runs. It's an organization that has manifested change so palpably that it has faced "shutdowns" from fire marshals for exceeding capacity—ironically, a glaring testament to the unfulfilled needs and pent-up demands it seeks to address.
The Diana Initiative is a reminder that inclusion is not just a word to be thrown around but a practice to be lived daily. It serves as a physical and conceptual space where marginalized voices can find resonance, away from the discordant echoes of an industry not built with them in mind.
And so, in an age where our virtual identities often speak louder than our physical selves, the Diana Initiative provides an indispensable counterpoint, a reminder that the most significant firewalls we need to break down are not those made of codes and algorithms, but those constructed by prejudice, bias, and societal inertia.
Stay with us as we delve into a conversation that aims to challenge and redefine society's understanding of technology, cybersecurity, and above all, humanity itself.
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Resources
The Diana Initiative: https://www.dianainitiative.org/
The Diana Initiative Linktree: https://linktr.ee/dianainitiative
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To see and hear more Redefining Society stories on ITSPmagazine, visit:
https://www.itspmagazine.com/redefining-society-podcast
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Hello, this is Marco Ciappelli on Redefining Society podcast. Today we are going to talk about a topic that if you have been following me for a while, you know I always say this. I wish we didn't have to talk about this. Or why are we still talking about this? Which is diversity and inclusion and all those beautiful words that many times are not followed by The talk is just, uh, you know, by the walk, it's just a talk.
But, uh, the truth is that, uh, I wanted to host this conversation on Redefine Society and not on a cybersecurity InfoSec channel because it is pretty much a societal. Issue and it's very much connected with technology and the world and the industry of cyber security I'm not saying it doesn't happen in other industry But technology and cyber security is what we focus the most what we know the most what you know Sean and I have been connected and we've been connected actually with with this organization for for a long time.
I visited Uh when it did happen in las vegas, I think it was 2019 And, uh, and I get the opportunity to meet some of these amazing people in person. And a lot has been changed since then. So today we're going to catch up, uh, learn about the Diane initiative with Nicole. Hi, Nicole. How are you today?
[00:01:27] Nicole Schwartz: Hey, I'm Nicole Schwartz.
I'm currently the COO for Diana initiative, uh, which just means that I do all the things, uh, and. I am also during my day job, a product manager at ActiveState. Uh, and I've been with Diana Initiative, uh, three or four years. I can't really keep track anymore because the pandemic made everything squishy.
[00:01:49] Marco Ciappelli: Yes, it sure did. It sure did. So, thank you for ready... We've done the introduction, so we're over with that. Now we can start talking about the initiative itself. And we just finished the main event, let's say the main course, which is what happened in Las Vegas during Hacker Summer Camp. It happened every year except for the pandemic, although I think it did happen.
We happened online. Yep, it still happened. Thank you, technology. And, uh, and so... I know that the whole concept, and I'm going to get you started with that, happened in 2015. And I'm saying this because it's when ITSP Magazine started. And at the time, we were already saying, why do we have this diversity and inclusion problem?
And here we are, but a lot has happened. So I would love for you to give an introduction for the The public that doesn't even maybe know about the Diana initiative. Uh, we hope they know about the issue, but, uh, yeah, an introduction, a little history on what it is, what you guys do, and why it's so important that you do this.
[00:03:02] Nicole Schwartz: So our founders, um, we're having lunch together at DEF CON. Uh, so for anybody who doesn't know, Hacker Summer Camp is a whole bunch of events that happen in Las Vegas and everybody goes and spends the week there. And, They were talking about issues that came up being a underrepresented gender minority.
And they were like, we can't have these conversations in a lot of the rooms because there's too many people who don't look like us. It would be really nice if there was a space where people just look like us and we could discuss the problems that we're having because we're not the majority. And that kind of spouted the idea for The event, and the event was originally more of just like a suite party.
So for anyone familiar with a lot of groups like the DC groups who get together and rent a suite and everybody hangs out together because they're local, same concept. It's meet people who are where you are. And then go out into DEF CON. So for anybody who has not been to DEF CON, it's a large event.
Think like Comic Con, or Dragon Con. There's a lot of people there and if it's your first time or nobody there looks like you, it's a bit intimidating. But if you have the opportunity to go like to a sweet party, socialize with some people, make a friend, and then go, it's a lot less intimidating and a bit more fun.
And so for the first few years, that's really what it was, and people kept saying, Hey, can you add talks? Can you add this and the other? And so there was hands on activities, talks, and it just got to the point that it was so big, the fire marshal kept shutting us down, which is not good. You don't want the fire marshals shutting you down.
And so we had to find a bigger space. So we kind of became our own event next door at the Westin. And so it is like a very short walk. If you walk from the food court, which is where actually everybody originally started the idea. Across the street to the West End. It's like five, seven minutes, and we have talks, and villages, and workshops, and all sorts of cool stuff.
And we happen at the beginning of Hacker Summer Camp. We've experimented. We've tried happening at the beginning, the middle, you know, slightly toward the end. And I think the beginning actually went pretty well for especially our purposes of everyone meeting one another. And so this year we were at the very beginning on Monday, and it allowed people to like come in, meet one another.
Make buddies, and then go to the rest of the event throughout the week, like Black Hat. We had 20 student scholars this year, we joined with Black Girls Hack, and so together we raised enough money to send 20 people to the whole of Hacker Summer Camp, covered like, part of their travel, their hotels, etc, etc.
And it just made their lives a little bit smoother, because they knew they had friends, they knew they had a Discord that they could ping people, and I think... It worked out pretty well, and we're going to probably keep up with that trend.
[00:05:48] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, and actually you mentioned the Black Girls Hack. We had a conversation with them before actually, uh, Hacker Summer Camp.
And, uh, this year they had their own. Uh, there are an event outside of DEF CON and we're not going to go into the reason why, but they did. And, uh, the description of how the Diana initiative evolved is, is very typical in, in some, in the term of you kind of connect with the same people that have the same.
issue. They feel, they feel the way you feel, right? And then sometimes it ends there, but at least you can support each other. And sometimes it's such a, create an echo chamber, because the problem is really big. It's like, you realize it's not just you. It's not just me. It's, it's a bunch of us. It's a bunch of.
Everybody. And so when the fire marshal shuts you down, I think it's a good sign. I mean, it's not a good thing. It's a good sign, right?
[00:06:48] Nicole Schwartz: You know, you're in the right direction.
[00:06:49] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. So how, I mean, apart from the fact that obviously you're doing the right thing, I know you're growing, you're more and more volunteers member.
And again, let's remind this is an all volunteers type of situation here. Why do you think that you The Dayan Initiative has been so successful. Like, is it lesson learned? You say you try different things, maybe do it at the beginning, at the end, that, you know, what, how do you find out what works and what doesn't?
And how do you recruit more people?
[00:07:25] Nicole Schwartz: So we do a lot of surveys. Um, so anyone who buys a ticket gets a survey to our event. Um, and they, we ask them about. Things that happened this year and things they'd like to see in the future, and we really honestly dig through that feedback because as a volunteer org, and as an org meant for the community, there's no point in us in existing.
And one of our questions specifically is, do you feel we're fulfilling our mission? And Everyone usually answers yes, and I hope that trend continues because we try to be like, how do we support the community? Our goal is to increase the number of underrepresented groups in information security. Pretty straightforward.
Are we raising up new speakers voices? We have CFP training, we have Uh, first time speaker training. Are we helping people get jobs? We have a career fair and a career village, you know, are we doing everything we absolutely can? And like, we're open to ideas for more stuff. And so if you look at a lot of other events, I think there's a couple conferences that are meant for new people, but a lot of conferences, like Women's Cyber Jitsu is great.
They have a ton of beginner content. I love them. Um, but then there's also a lot of conferences that just assume you've already gotten into the industry. Or you're already in for a couple of years, which is great. We need those. We need conferences for people in the middle and you know, who are trying to get into upper management.
We're trying to focus on, okay, do you feel alone? Let's find you buddies. Let's refer you to some of our community partners like Black Girls Hack or Latinas in Cyber. And also let's mentor you and get you so that you get to that first conference or that you get that first job. So you're not in the group of people anymore who is a beginner.
That you can go to the conferences where you're supposed to have one or two years experience. And so we're kind of the training wheels, or at least I see us as the training wheels. And we partnered with Black Girls Hack this year. We tried to partner with more organizations. We really want to partner with everyone possible, so that we can feed people into these other organizations.
Like I love that people are with us for multiple years, but you shouldn't be Our target audience for a long period of time, you should be able to switch over to being on the mentor side, like you should be able to mentor those new speakers or mentor those new CFP people or tell people like, hey, I can teach you how to solder or I can teach you how to do this, you know, capture the flag thing.
[00:09:52] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. And for those that are not familiar with this, because I want to. I wanted to bring this on Redefining Society because we start with the cyber security, but I want to make it a little bit wider in terms of conversation, but there probably a lot of people listening to you and say, you know, like, okay, so soldering, you know, it's related with badges and things, uh, hacking, lock picking.
So, you know, I want to make sure that people understand that this is all about cyber security and what, what entails like going to DEF CON. It's, uh, it's quite an adventure the first time you go there, and to be honest, quite overwhelming if you don't have friends, if you don't have a community that you can refer to, and that initiate you to have a really good experience there.
So the whole industry, why do you think is so, I mean, Why do you think on a certain level, it's not welcoming anymore, but at the lower level, I have to be honest, I, because of my job and talking to so many people in the industry, I mean, I love this community so much. And I feel like maybe I just talk to welcoming people.
What's the story there?
[00:11:13] Nicole Schwartz: So, and this is not unique to cyber. It's not even unique to IT. So a lot of the research I've read. Way too much research. I like pay to get academic research because I'm that kind of person. It applies to STEM, all of STEM really. So because There has been certain attitudes and like if you roll back in your head 10 or 15 years We've both been in the industry that long there used to be booth babes where they would hire just attractive ladies to stand at the booths And so the industry set itself up.
Let's go stereotypical This is not exactly correct, but everybody put in their head like that whole madman thing We're a whole bunch of marketing guys. We're like, we're the marketing guys for tech companies. We're going to put pretty ladies, but the pretty ladies can't answer the tech questions. And so you, you've started having the industry where, A, that makes it so when people go up and talk to a lady like me, when I'm in a booth, they're like, and can I talk to the technical person?
In a lot of cases, I am the technical person, but they've been previously trained that that's not the case. So on the one hand, you can blame them. On the other hand, we kind of set ourselves up for that. Also, in the workplace, because in a lot of cases, like most of the jobs I've had, when, especially when I was younger, I was the only lady there.
And it was all men. Um, in my current job, There's three ladies, but it's still mostly guy programmers. And that sometimes it only takes one bad apple to bring about bad habits. And so if anyone's unfamiliar with the term microaggressions, like it may not seem like a bad workplace, but there may just be little things that are constantly.
Glue work, making the ladies always do the glue work, or just the underrepresented people do the glue work, or just constantly not thinking to include people. Because a lot of times we don't even do it on purpose, we look for people, just like Diana Initiative started, because we were looking for people that look like us.
At your workplace, you may be looking for people that look like you, and you may think of them first. And if you think of them first, are they going to get the raises first? Are they going to get the promotions first? Are they going to get the opportunities first? So even if it's not malicious, you have a lot of people who are already at a disadvantage.
And this is all the fields. And the great thing is, all the research that has been done Is that if you let people be aware of the fact there are these unconscious biases and they don't make that person a bad person, that they just have to pause and think. Like when I was at GitLab, I was like, hey, write up all your notes from an interview, take a minute, do a meeting, you know, whatever, come back in an hour, read through, remove anything that is not relevant to the position.
Then reconsider. And just that process of checking your own self for biases can remove a lot of biases. You don't necessarily need all sorts of fancy tools or technology to help you mitigate biases. You just need people who genuinely are like, I'm gonna give it a try. I'm going to take a break and then I'm going to reread my notes and be like, does that really matter for this job position?
No, let's remove that. It didn't matter that they were a homemaker or that they took a year off. No big deal. They've got the skills. Let's bring them in anyway.
[00:14:28] Marco Ciappelli: And I love that because by doing that, you created, you create a pattern and then eventually turn into cultural change because the fear that I always have is many beautiful initiative.
A lot of people want to check. You know, Mark, uh, been there. I listened. So now I'm right there. I'm supporting now. You're not, you know, you got to do something. So I'm connecting here with the theme for this year event, which is lead the change. So let's talk about that. Like what happened when you want to tell people and how do you tell people empower people to lead the change?
[00:15:11] Nicole Schwartz: You do not need to be in power to lead the change. I have. Rarely been a manager at any job I'm at, and I definitely leave my mark, whether people like it or not, on everywhere that I go. Just... Like you said, it takes small changes to change culture. Just be that small change. Do you have an employee resource group?
No. Start one. Tell the company we don't need any funding. I just need one hour each month and we're going to have an ERG. Start an ERG. If that's not your jam, how about you make sure like, Hey, I am a person who participates in interviews. I'm going to review our interview process and I'm going to make small incremental suggestions for how to reduce bias.
It doesn't need to cost money. You don't need tools. You can literally, like I said, Read a whole bunch of research, and if anyone wants the research, like, just Google around for it, to add in a pause. Like, take your notes immediately after the meeting, because that's very important, but then take, like, a short pause.
Don't, like, come back two days later, you're gonna forget everything. An hour or two, and then come back and read it. So just introduce those small things, making sure the questions in the job interview are relevant to the job, that you don't have any miscellaneous bullshit questions. Everybody knows those.
You've been in an interview and they ask you, like, what letter of the alphabet you would be. Like, that's not going to help anyone. Like, take that thing out. Um, so maybe you don't participate in interviews. Maybe you don't feel like you represent a group that could be part of an ERG. Can you, in your meetings, pay attention and see if certain people are getting talked over constantly?
Can you be the bull and be like, hey, you just talked over so and so. Can they finish their point? Be the rude person. Like, or if you can't be rude, circle back later and be like, yeah, like so and so was originally saying and just like do that subtle passive aggressive thing if more people get recognized for what they're saying.
That's going to help their voices be heard. There is something everyone can do. I don't care if you're like brand new to the company one day. If you're brand new to the company one day and you're onboarded and you notice that the onboarding process is very confusing and upsetting, is that because you're neurodivergent?
Can you help them improve the process so it works for neurodivergent and neurotypical people? Like, there is something every person at every company can do. To help people be more inclusive of people with disabilities, people with different thought patterns, people of different genders and races and religions.
Like, does the company give off for Christmas and not have like a flexible holiday day for everybody else who's a different religion? Like, why don't you recommend that for the next year's things? Like, hey, you have Christmas off, can we just give everybody one other day to apply to one of their religions, you know, things?
So, I guess that's my personal thing, is I've always been a bull in a china shop, like, just pick one thing, and do it, you know, like, lead the change, it does, you don't need to be a manager, you don't need to be a director, you don't need to be a VP, whoever you are, you can do Something unless you are that underrepresented person that's constantly getting talked over, in which case, maybe you need to find a buddy to help call out when you're getting stomped all over in meetings, you know,
[00:18:20] Marco Ciappelli: right.
And it's a good thing to participate to the kind of event like the one that you have. And that's what I meant by empowering not not power, meaning sea level position, but empowering meaning, you know, Inspiration, getting that inspiration and knowing that if you do something, somebody else is probably going to join you because you're, you know, you think you're the only one, but probably you're not.
So let's talk a little bit about the this year event. So what happened? So speakers, any notable thing that you want to highlight?
[00:18:51] Nicole Schwartz: Oh, so much stuff. Um, so we had Tanya Janka talking as our keynote speaker, and that was securing, shifting security everywhere. Cause we've talked about shifting security left or right or wherever.
She talked about shifting it everywhere. Uh, so that was a great talk and we will be having our recorded talks pop up starting in September. So anybody who missed the event, feel free to, uh, watch it. Um. There were three separate speaking tracks. So we're literally filling every single day of the month of September with a new talk.
So, uh, as long as I work fast enough, I am the video editor.
[00:19:29] Marco Ciappelli: Oh, so it's on you. Okay, I get that feeling. So I know the pain. I feel the pain.
[00:19:36] Nicole Schwartz: Yeah, so I'm hoping, I've got like at least a week or two already, so we're doing good for the first part. We'll see if we keep going. Uh, we had three different villages.
Maker Village is always super popular. It's where you get to learn to solder and solder your badges and everything. We also have like coloring and crafting and knitting. So it's not just about It's a maker village, um, and we are hoping to kind of keep expanding that. We had our lockpicking village by Lockpick Extreme as usual.
They are lovely people and always like come on out and people. There's that moment when you see people figure out like, Oh shit, this is the same lock on my front door. It's a great moment. Uh, and we also had our career village. And that was where people could do mock interviews, resume reviews, and they helped about 42 different people, so that was great.
We did have a career fair this year because everyone kept saying, have a career fair, have a career fair. It was kind of a little empty. Uh, there was like a couple sponsors who were like, Banging it up and talking to a lot of people, but I think uh, We may need to review the feedback and the career fair may have to go by the wayside because we've tried it a couple Different ways and it's just it's not working.
So anybody who did attend don't forget to do your feedback. We really do read it and It helps inform our stuff every year. And we had three workshops. This was our first year for workshops. GhostCat was in charge of workshops. It was great. We had BlackHoodie come and teach reverse engineering. We had, uh, JPMorgan Chase do an after the ARR workshop as well as an Active Directory workshop.
And all the feedback on the workshops was phenomenal. Um, a lot of people complained that they missed talks to go to the workshops, but the talks are recorded so I feel like it's okay. Um, so we'll see about that. Um, overall though... It was 85 volunteers helping about 470 registrants find their way around, learn stuff, make friends, and uh, a very busy hallway with our sponsors and community partners.
There were 72 different sponsors who came. Uh, and hopefully everyone had really good conversations with them. Um, a comment I see continually on social media and other places is because we're so small, you can actually have real conversations with people as opposed to Defcon. I know a lot of time I'm doing like the high and then you like talk with someone for three seconds and then you like cut off and then, you know, that's it.
That's all you get to talk to them. Um, And like I had mentioned, we had 20 joint scholarship winners for Black Girls Hack and Diana Initiative, where they got, um, Black Hat tickets, Defcon tickets, Squadcon tickets, Diana Initiative tickets, B Sides Las Vegas tickets for half of them. We ran out of money to get the other half.
Maybe next year everyone can get B Sides Las Vegas tickets as well. So, I'm trying to think. Oh, goodness. We had our party. Um, QueerCon came to our party. Um, that was like a last minute scramble. I'm hoping we can plan a little bit earlier next year. Because we'd love to have like the DCFurs and the QueerCon and everybody else come.
Because obviously we're all inclusive. Uh, and the QueerCon folks are just fabulous, so I love them and all their stuff, so next year hopefully they can, we can plan it out a little bit better, but we play board games and Legos, so if you're like used to the uns uns parties, we are not an uns uns party, we are, we are Legos and board games party, so we're like the low key chill party, which I like.
[00:22:52] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, of course, I do too, it sounds like in, in line with the Maker Village. Like, actually, even when you're partying, you're making something. You're making the Lego, you're playing, and that's great interaction anyway. So I like to highlight that because a lot of people, and I had this conversation with, for many years, when The first reaction when they see a group of people that say, well, I want to be all inclusive, but then I'm going to call myself Latina who hucks or black girls, uh, the Diana Initiative, anybody.
I need to highlight, and I want you to help me doing this because they, I. This group, they, they need a name. They identify that's how it starts, but the name does not define the group. And this collaboration that you mentioned, I think it's really, really important to understand. And in my opinion, the more These groups and the more you guys come together, uh, that's a good sign.
[00:24:01] Nicole Schwartz: So I definitely do want to plot more with all of the groups because I know that we're all overworked and we're all 100% volunteer run and I forgot to mention we had hacker trivia. So for the trivia nerds bunch of trivia and prizes. Um. But yeah, Black Girls Hack welcomes people who are not black and not girls.
Uh, Latinas in Cyber, I believe, is also pretty inclusive. I know that we're inclusive. We did start out as femme, but now it's like, we don't care who you are, we want everybody. We're also open to allies. Um, some groups do try and keep themselves just to their core group, not including allies, but we welcome allies as well because we need allies and people to make stuff happen.
And so... Yeah, when you first start a group you pick a name at the moment and then once you lock into a name I don't know anyone who's started a business But if you've done that, you know that once you do all the trademarks and copyrights and whatever you're like, I'm not doing that again And so you're kind of you're kind of stuck And so we have definitely considered changing our name, but like at this point we have name recognition And we don't want to lose that.
And we also can't think of something that's better. So one thing that Jamie and myself have been plotting, and hopefully we get better at, is kind of like you said, we want to work closer with Black Girls Hack, and Latinas in Cyber, and WISP, and everybody else, so that maybe we have one big event that somebody is the headliner, or whatever, that signs the contracts, but everybody shows up to.
So that it's clear that everybody's welcome. Because if you say like, hey, we're having the Hacker Summer Camp Kickoff, hosted by Diana Initiative, but also has all of these other groups, and everybody realizes, hey, we're welcome because QueerCon's there, and DCFurs are there, and everybody else, and that's what I would love to get to, is having all of these other community groups totally invited to do whatever they want at our event, you know, just let us know in advance, and we'll carve out, you Space for them.
[00:25:59] Marco Ciappelli: I love it. And I'm imagining. I don't know. I'm very creative brain and visualizing like what a DEF CON with all the villages. It could be all the villages that are all welcoming and inclusive and all together. It's you know, it's a small world after all, but we're all together and with all the difference that there are there and we just need to make it.
More clear and a better job, and I'm talking to everybody that has a microphone, that has a platform, to sometimes it's, you know, it, even if you have three people that listen to your show, I hope I have more than that, but even if you Who cares? Even one person that changed their mind, a person that joined, a person that get initiatives and, uh, and lead the change.
It's, it's a big, big deal. So as we're wrapping here, I want you to tell us what's next, which is my favorite thing to ask. The future. What's going on?
[00:26:58] Nicole Schwartz: Oh, okay. So, we're a 100% volunteer organization. We currently have posted, um, on all of our social medias and everywhere, a call for staff and a call for board members.
Now the call is out there, we're ignoring the call for the next month or two. So if you don't hear from us, don't worry yet, but the process that happens is the event is wrapping up, we're finishing up everything, we're doing our hot wash, we're gonna prep for next year, and part of prepping for next year is a lot of our staff members are gonna be like, I do not have time for this, or I, as a board member, I don't have time for this, and so we're gonna have a lot of openings, and we need people for those open staff positions, and those open board positions, so if you have time, And I'm going to put in a caveat here.
This is a 12 month a year job, and I am not exaggerating when I say that some people, like Marie, our scholarship lead, was putting in 1 2 hours a day, every single day, all year. So, you need to have time. Uh, if you have less time than that... Board. So if you have any board experience, or if you want board experience, our board, uh, meets four times a year, or tries to meet four times a year, so that's a way lower commitment.
But you do have to kind of have some finance experience, or at least be willing to go, like, maybe take a class on finance and stuff. And then finally, if you're like, okay, I really want to help, but I can't do either one of those things, um, fill out our 2024 feedback survey, which is on social media, to help us inform next year, and then volunteer to do day of work.
And that's just literally like the day before, day of, and day after. We need setup, we need teardown, and we need people the day of. And so if that's your level of commitment, that is also awesome. I think we had about 85 people this year doing all that running around. And so you can get yourself on that list.
Other than that, if you want to help teach a class for our members, I know that I'm interested in trying to get a class on negotiation, or like, what is stock? Like, RSUs. Um, because a lot of people, if this is their first tech job, they're like, what is an RSU? What do I value it at? Do I care if I get it? Um, and so we want to have, like, some of those courses for our members, uh, throughout the year, up through the event.
So if you are a teacher and you're willing to donate or give us a super good discount, Also reach out.
[00:29:25] Marco Ciappelli: All right, so definitely call to action to become part of the initiative and I'm assuming there'll be an event again next year. So there better be. Too early though to ask you, you know, who you have in mind or all of that, but we will put a link obviously to the Diana initiative.
Uh, dot org, uh, URL, any resources you want to share with us, any links to all your social media and all of that, please send it over and we will include it in the notes for everybody listening and everybody that want to get to know what you guys do and, uh, Again, it's a commitment. Volunteer, it's, it's, uh, again, you know, it's, uh, it's not just say I do it.
It's just say I actually do it, which is quite different. Uh, it applies also on, on everything that we, that we do in life. If you are a mentor, you know, you can just say I'm a mentor. I'm actually mentoring someone. So, uh, with this said, I am very glad that, uh, that we had this conversation. I hope it's inspiring somebody to lead the change and especially, you know, become part of either your initiative or any other group out there.
You've been very, very, uh, inclusive in mentioning all of them. Uh, luckily we, we know most of them. We have Talk on a podcast or another with with some of the people you mentioned. So we're all in this together. And I hope that this small contribution of 31 minutes can help to make the difference as well.
And very appreciative of everything you do. And I know there was supposed to be some other people on the on the conversation, but you did an excellent job covering for everybody. So thank you so much
[00:31:18] Nicole Schwartz: work happens. Thank you so much for having
[00:31:20] Marco Ciappelli: especially in this industry. I'm not going to go into detail, but there was an incident and you know, you're on call.
So pretty much. All right. Awesome. So thank you very much, everybody. Stay tuned. Subscribe. There'll be a lot more conversation where, uh, this come from. So take care, everybody. Bye bye. Thank you, Nicole.
[00:31:43] Nicole Schwartz: Thank you.