Today is the Last Chance to Add Your Voice to Project Belong

Conferences and events are great ways to expand professional networks and meet like-minded individuals in the field, but sometimes those events may not be accessible to everyone who wants to attend.

Elevate is trying to change this with Project Belong, a “collaborative initiative focused on creating a manifesto that outlines the core principles, tactics, and code of conduct for a more safe, accessible, diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment and experience for those that attend Elevate in 2018.”

Participants have until 9pm EST tonight to completed the five-minute survey that can be found here. The questions ask about Elevate’s diversity when it comes to representation of speakers, support for mental health initiatives, and other topics involving inclusivity.

Project Belong is organized by Elevate Everyone, a committee designed to help make sure the conference champions accessibility and diversity through an intersectional lens. The two chairs of Elevate Everyone are Njeri Rionge, the CEO of UpCountry Africa Fund Assets Corp, and Jodi Kovitz, the founder and CEO of #movethedial, an organization that has fought for diversity in Canada’s tech sector by pointing out imbalances and asking the community to recognize and address challenges women current face in the field.

Once Elevate concludes, the findings from Project Belong “will become an open-source, regularly updated resource for use by other events in the global tech ecosystem.”

The survey is completely anonymous and has a chance to impact how tech events manage their inclusion initiatives, so make sure to take part.

If this kind of initiative is important to you, make sure to check out #movethedial’s first global summit later this year in Toronto.