Welcome everyone to this sixth day of our 16 day virtual ABS conference. We hope you've been enjoying the conference and that you've had a chance to participate in the small group workshops on participation in this courses, which have been running this week. This afternoon, we have the pleasure of hearing a presentation by Dr. Glenn cotton titled authentic dialogue, moral empowerment and civilization building. In our session, Dr. Cotton will discuss the nature and characteristics of authentic dialogue in light of the high writings, and also in connection with the work of Dr. Sonia Farid Arbab, William Hatcher, Elena Mostakova post art, Martin Buber, David bone and Paolo Freire. Some epistemological and pedagogical implications of this concept will be explored with special attention to the value of such dialogue and education that aims for what Dr. Farid Arbab terms moral empowerment. We will also consider how authentic dialogue is applicable to the high community building activities and efforts to address social polarization and America's most vital and challenging issue. So let me first just briefly introduce our presenter Dr cotton. He received his PhD in education from UNC Chapel Hill, his dissertations findings reveal how authentic communication and dialogue, especially across social divides stimulates moral and community development. He lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife ishik and had the bounty of serving at the Baha'i World Center for three years. His career as an educator has included teaching English for academic purposes and training future teachers at universities in Turkey and China. And he currently teaches English as a second language at the Community College in North Carolina. He has presented at the ABS conference before on the topic of truth, beauty and goodness, three interconnected aims of true education. Without further ado, I now turn it over to Dr cotton. Thank you very much, Julia. And welcome everyone to my presentation on authentic dialogue, moral empowerment and civilization building. This presentation is about a way of communicating I call authentic dialogue. It's also about the central role I believe this way of communicating and relating to the play in promoting moral empowerment and building the new civilization envisioned by Bahá'u'lláh. Finally, I will consider the relevance of these ideas to addressing what she'll give any calls America's most vital and challenging issue. In other words, the work of eradicating racial prejudice from American society. In my dissertation, I studied a behind inspired educational project at a US public high school, which was designed in the founders words to bring together the uptown kids and the downtown kids. That is students from wealthier, usually white families together with students from low income families who are predominantly students of color. And I have great authentic dialogue and community among them. Judging from the transformations, many of these students who participated said they had experienced. It's fair to say the project was successful. The key ingredients my study found accounted for this success was the kind of communication the found the project founder and facilitator was able to foster between the participants in his workshops. One of the students I interviewed eloquently described the kind of communication I'm talking about in these words. They were sharing what they felt, and I was certainly listening to their words. But to me, they were kind of washing over me. And I think that's what made me cry harder. I hadn't realized there was more under the words. I felt like I was swimming and heading to a place that I couldn't even imagine. I just felt like I was really hearing that person. Not the words, but hearing the person. She went on to just to characterize this experience as quote, a state of mind or state of heart with other people where you feel like there is no me or you. There is us. It's just this higher state of being. It's not connecting, and it's not coming together. It's like letting your outer shell go. So you can see the connection that was already there. In my study I termed this kind of communication, authentic communication. And my findings showed how experiencing it has a powerful morally transformative effect. By promoting what psychologist Elena Mostakova Passart calls critical moral consciousness, which I'll talk more about later. So what is authentic communication, what is authentic dialogue. In my study I defined authentic communication as communication that aims for truth, beauty and goodness. Let me explain. How does authentic communication aim for truth. Well, authentic communication is inherently truthful stemming from a strong desire to understand to know and be known by the other. It begins when one's defensive, judgmental, self concerned, sometimes even deceptive stance towards the other is replaced by a stronger desire to listen to and understand the other. Engaging in such communication requires humility, openness and courage to speak one's truth and change one's views. When such communication explicitly aims to discover truth. In other words to gain a deeper, fuller understanding of any aspect of reality with others. Then it becomes what I call authentic dialogue. How does such communication aim at beauty. Authentic communication and dialogue seek beauty in the sense that this kind of communication recognizes and honors the unique value or beauty of each participant. Also, when communicating authentically we aim to co create a beautiful conversation. In the same way that jazz musicians carefully listen to each other. As they improvise and seek to contribute just the right notes from their from their instruments at just the right time in just the right amount to create a sublime musical moment. And how does it aim at goodness, engaging in authentic communication and dialogue is an inherently moral act. And I see more goodness and morality as being synonymous in this case. So, yes, it is an inherent more is an inherently moral act that fosters restorative justice, love and unity in human relationships. We can also see how these characteristics are similar to the qualities of the Bahá says are the prime requisites for consultation. In other words, purity of motive, radiance of spirit, detachment, attraction to the divine fragrances, humility and lowliness, patience and long suffering and servitude. Authentic dialogue is based on and at the same time promotes authentic relationships. Indeed, they're practically the same thing. Only distinguishable in that each term emphasizes a different facet of the same phenomenon. So what are authentic relationships. In my study, I defined it using the same terms I use to define authentic communication and dialogue. For me, a relationship is authentic. When it is motivated by one's concerns for truth, beauty and goodness. By defining authentic communication, dialogue and relationships in this way. I'm hearkening back to Plato's observation of human nature. That it is our concerns with truth, beauty and goodness that distinguish us from other creatures. For Plato, truth, beauty and goodness are what the human soul as distinct from our lower animal nature thirsts for. Another similar understanding of what makes relationships authentic is found in William Hatcher's book, Love, Power and Justice, The Dynamics of Authentic Morality. In this book, Hatcher argues that our relationship to any aspect of reality is authentic to the degree that it is based on an accurate perception of the structure of reality. And that because the supreme intrinsic value of that humans possess. And that because of the supreme intrinsic value humans possess quote the mark of authenticity in interhuman relationships is the presence of self sacrificing love and altruism. The philosopher Martin Boober also perceptively pointed out the difference between authentic and inauthentic relationships, though he didn't use those terms. By observing that there are essentially two ways of relating to others. He called I it and the other I thou in an I it relationship the ego sees itself and others as separate objects in the world, competing for survival, comfort, advantage, status, etc. When the other is viewed as it. He or she is a thing among things. Evaluated in terms of how it either benefits or harms I. Thus, I relates to it as a means towards his or her ends. In an I thou relationship. The other is not a means towards my ends, but an end in herself or himself. She or he is no thing among things that I can presume to understand and categorize. But rather is uniquely other and quote fills the firmament. In other words to use religious terms. When I see the other as thou, I see him or her as a unique reflection of God. When comparing these three views on what constitutes authentic human relationships. We see a common pattern. In all three views, that is my own hatchers and boobers views. Relationships and communication become authentic to the degree that those relating and communicating are able to detach themselves from their self centered concerns and fears from prejudice and imitation. In other words from all the attachments our sacred writings tell us to detach from and relate and communicate authentically with others is to free ourselves from the prison of self and come to see in everyone who may cross our path. The image of God reflected by striving to communicate and relate to others authentically. We grow morally and spiritually. And especially boobers idea connects with something I observed in my in my research. Boopers idea that in an I vow relationship one recognizes the precious otherness of the other relates to what I what I called the otherness oneness paradox in my research. This paradox was this. Although the program I studied explicitly aims to help participants quote experience their oneness. And indeed was quite successful in doing so as the words I shared with you at the beginning from one of the high school students I interviewed a test a test. Nevertheless, experience oneness participants first needed to give up their assumptions that they already understood the other. And instead approach them without pre judgment as unique and different from themselves. Only in this way could deep listening and connection occur. I want to bring them to discover their true humanity and experience their oneness. I want to move on and discuss how the ability to engage in authentic dialogue is related to psychological moral and spiritual development and maturity. I have suggested that an outstanding characteristic of mature human consciousness is its capacity for and commitment to dialogue. To such theorists who have significantly influenced my own thinking are Paulo Freire, Freire, and Elena Mastakova facade. I really understood the aim of education to be to help learners develop critical consciousness, which is awareness, the awareness that society and culture are human creations, rather than facts of nature. And therefore that a mature human being is one who takes responsibility to actively intervene in the world to improve it, rather than accepting it as it is. And according to Freire, people develop critical consciousness, as they increase their capacity to enter into dialogue, not only with other men, but with their world. Similarly, the Baha'i psychologist Elena Mastakova-Possart, whose theory of critical moral consciousness provides an expanded psychological explanation of the stages of critical consciousness development, Freire suggested. Also describes people developing critical moral consciousness as ones who quote, enter into ongoing dialogue with life. Spurred by a quest for truth and justice. What I'm calling a spirit of or what I do call a spirit of dialogue is prescribed by Baha'u'llah as well in many places in his writings. Here, here are three examples. The idea that a capacity for and commitment to engage in authentic dialogue is a characteristic of maturity is confirmed by Baha'u'llah in this statement. For everything there is and will continue to be a stage a station of perfection and maturity. The maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation. And so on, you may have noticed that what I'm calling authentic dialogue seems very similar to what our sacred writings call consultation. And indeed, in many, perhaps most cases, both terms can be used to refer to the same thing. The reasons I'm talking and theorizing about authentic dialogue rather than consultation are that I want to relate what Baha'u'llah's call consultation to the extensive body of thought and discourse that exists on the topic of dialogue, going all the way back to Plato. Baha'u'llah's have tended to limit their understanding of consultation to what can be seen as a subset of what I'm calling authentic dialogue. Namely, dialogue whose purpose is to reach a decision in a collective course of action or on a collective course of action. However, one of the things I'm trying to get at in my account of authentic dialogue is that the spirit of dialogue is not limited to collective decision making, but also denotes a way of living. So I'll go on now to share the other two quotes. The dialogical approach to life, a mature person takes is also alluded to by Baha'u'llah in his description of the true seeker. I wrote from the seven valleys, specifically the Valley of Search, where Baha'u'llah says, in this journey, or on this journey, the traveler abideth in every land and dwelleth in every region. In every face, he seeketh the beauty of the friend. He joineth every company and seeketh fellowship with every soul. Again, we find a profound description of what I'm calling a spirit of dialogue in that wonderful hidden word in which Baha'u'llah admonishes us never to exalt ourselves over others, but rather to be even as one soul to walk with the same feet, with the same mouth, and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Not only is the maturity of the individual characterized by an inclination to engage in dialogue, but the collective maturity of humanity, I argue, is similarly characterized by the spirit and practice of dialogue. Indeed, the age of humanity's maturity we are entering must necessarily also be an age of dialogue. Abdu'l-Baha'u'llah calls this time in history the time for the in-gathering of the scattered peoples of the world beneath the shadow of the almighty tent of unity. The scattered groups of people that make up our human family, each have distinct collective stories, have acquired unique wisdom and produced unique cultural innovations from which the whole of humanity can benefit. Furthermore, in the age of humanity's immaturity, the value and voice of only a small portion of humanity has been honored, while the value and voices of many others have been denied and suppressed. Yet, God tells us in the Koran that he made us into nations and tribes that we might know each other. The practice of authentic dialogue, in other words, true consultation, is essential, I propose, to establishing true restorative social justice. Indeed, authentic relationship and dialogue embody the justice and love and promote the mutual understanding, respect, and healing upon which true unity is built. The practice of authentic dialogue also has some important epistemological implications. The epistemology being the branch of philosophy concerned with knowing. In other words, what standards we use to justify saying we know something. One such implication is pointed out by the physicist David Bohm, who argued that one of the profound benefits of dialogue is that it helps us to recognize our own usually subconscious assumptions. Through encountering people whose assumptions are different than our own dialogue, he said, is a space where we may see the assumptions that lie beneath the surface of our thoughts.  Furthermore, the greater the number and diversity of perspectives we take into consideration, the more complete our understanding becomes as the famous story of the blind man and the elephant demonstrates. Another epistemological implication is that we gain a fuller, more holistic view of reality when our search for truth emerges with our concerns for beauty and goodness. This merging of the pursuits of truth, beauty and goodness occurs in authentic dialogue, as I've explained earlier. The central finding of my dissertation was that experiencing authentic communication and dialogue across social divides appeared to powerfully stimulate the moral growth, specifically the development of critical moral consciousness of the high school students I interviewed. With regard to the discourse on the high inspired education, this finding leads me to the question of what implications might this finding have for how education can foster what Fundayak and Sona Farid Arbab refer to as moral empowerment. In her book, Moral Empowerment, Farid Arbab suggests that moral empowerment can be understood to refer to both the aim and the process of the high inspired education. Specifically, moral empowerment refers to the process by which one develops capacity to develop one's two fold moral purpose to transform oneself and contribute to the transformation of society. This idea, so since authentic dialogue both requires and promotes moral growth, and since one of the essential qualities of a morally empowered person would seem to be the ability and inclination to engage in authentic dialogue, I propose that the practice of authentic dialogue should be a central feature of education for moral empowerment. This idea also has relevance for Baha'i community building activities. Indeed, dialogue is central to the method of education employed by our Ruhi study circles and junior youth empowerment programs. And we can surmise that the more authentic the dialogue that occurs in these contexts is the more effective these activities become. Furthermore, our capacity to successfully engage in the meaningful, elevated, intimate conversations the House of Justice calls on us to engage in with growing numbers of people depends on our capacity to relate and communicate authentically with others. Finally, I want to consider the relevance of the idea and practice of authentic dialogue to America's most vital and challenging issue. In reflecting on the section of the advent of divine justice in which Shoghi Effendi identifies racial prejudice as our most vital and challenging issue. And especially on this part where he describes the differing responsibilities of white and black Baha'is in relation to this issue. It occurs to me that Shoghi Effendi has perfectly described here what authentic relationships and dialogue look like between people occupying different positions within an oppressive, unequal social system. I'm trusting that most of us have read the passage, as I have been rereading it quite a bit, especially recently. So I won't take time to read it now. But we can return to it if you wish to examine its precise wording more closely during our Q&A session. What we want to do is offer these implications I see of Shoghi Effendi's words, or how authentic dialogue and relationship can develop between members of socially advantaged and socially disadvantaged groups in an unjust society. Shoghi Effendi seems to suggest that the members of the advantaged group must continually examine themselves and recognize and abandon any sense of superiority and or patronizing attitude. They find they may have towards the other group. They must take the initiative to reach out to and foster authentic, intimate, genuine friendships with individuals from the disadvantaged group. They must take the initiative to educate themselves in order to better understand and sympathetically respond to the grievous and slow healing wounds the other group has experienced and continues to experience. He also suggests that the members of the disadvantaged group must respond with warmth and willingness to let go of their suspicions and grievances. And then he lists some qualities and actions required of both groups. Neither can think that anything short of genuine love, extreme patience, true humility, consummate tact, sound initiative, mature wisdom, and deliberate persistent and prayerful effort can succeed in blotting out the stain of racism from our country. All of these qualities of course contribute to authentic relationships and dialogue. In other words, positionality, the way one's position in a social system influence one's perceptions and beliefs matters in authentic dialogue. Of course, we can and should derive strength from understanding that we are all ultimately spiritual beings inextricably connected with each other. But we must take responsibility for the position we are born into within a sick oppressive society. Some of our responsibilities will therefore differ depending on our positionality. For example, Shoghi Effendi seems to give the primary responsibility to initiate authentic relationships in this context to members of the white group. In other words, the group occupying a relatively privileged social position in American society. He also emphasizes the grievous wounds of one group, not the other. That may be because as he explicitly states elsewhere, it is the attitude and prejudice of one group that has wounded the other group and not vice versa. Still, he gives both groups the shared responsibility to develop the quote genuine love, extreme patience, true humility, consummate tact, etc, needed to resolve this issue. So I'm going to end here and my presentation here. Thank you for your kind attention. I'm looking forward to engaging with your questions and comments in a spirit of dialogue. Thank you so much Glenn for your presentation. For all the thought provoking ideas you've put before us. So I encourage all the friends who are joining us and there are about 200 I understand who are joining us today to please share your questions and to do so. So please scroll down and click on add comment, and you can simply ask your question that way and they will be shared with us so our first question. How do you see the model of progressive cycles of development recommended since at least Rizvon 2015 by the House of Justice, supporting the practice of authentic dialogue. Yes, I see that they absolutely support it. Whenever I mean I've mentioned already that the, the emphasis that they put on the quality of the conversations we have for example, meaningful conversations elevated conversations in the most recent message. The 2020 July message to the American by community they say intimate conversations. These things are references to what I studied, I think and and so I'm just hoping that that these ideas that I shared today just can give us a hopefully a fuller or clearer sense of what that might what those words might mean. But I certainly interpret them to mean to be very much about authentic dialogue, a call to a call to engage in authentic dialogue. But also actually I'll also say that are the idea that we to participate, we are to participate in the discourses of society. We are to engage in social action and we are to do this with like minded people who are not calling themselves behind and who have different perspectives and and to do that effectively. It begins with authentic relationships and and get an authentic dialogue. And then what are some of the challenges that you've encountered in the education process, for example with teacher education for authentic dialogue. Okay. The biggest challenge, perhaps is that people aren't used to it. So as I've as I've already said that that it is it is. If this is something that is an aspect of mature human consciousness and mature human society. It is something that is still rare. Now and difficult, because it goes it goes against the ways the ways that we've been taught to engage with each other. There's a boy in in in the Academy, for example, especially you you see the emphasis is on argument and debate, and not and not on dialogue in my in my experience, though originally the Academy go we go back to play to it was all about dialogue. And so moving to the arena of institutions, how have you seen authentic dialogue nurtured within institutions, whether they be regional or international, and I'm not sure here if the question is referring specifically to behind institutions but I suppose you could address whichever category you you wish to address. Okay. I'm taking it to refer to to Baha'i institutions but I'll try to think about both. So for Baha'i institutions that it really becomes down to the study of what it means to consult. And of course we have some wonderful guidance on that and we have book 10.2 in the rookie books that's all about consultations a beautiful, beautifully done book. So, I think that's we just we need to be, we need to realize that it's not an automatic and easy thing we need to realize that it's something we need to continue continually be working at, because it's something for it's like I said equality of mature humanity that that we are. We're standing at the threshold of maturity but we're, you know we haven't we're striving to get there. We're at the embryonic stages of that. But we need to but at the same time that I'm not saying there's an excuse we need to be urgently working on it to be effective in the world. And so for for non for for Baha'i for institutions outside of the Baha'i community, I think it's the same thing it's just it's just maybe even a little little bit more work that would need to be put into it since since even the you know consultation is not as we understand it as Baha'i is not is not so familiar outside though there are exceptions to that there are some institutions that are doing it. And so with regards to the Baha'i community and where we are at today. Where do you, what do you think are some of the steps that we could take to evolve further with respect to authentic dialogue maybe there are specific areas of endeavor that you could comment on where you feel either we've really moved or these are areas where a lot of development is needed with respect to authentic dialogue. I think we have to realize the profoundly spiritual and transformative nature of engagement. I'm what I'm suggesting is that if we're if we're really doing authentic dialogue authentic relationship consultation. We are transforming ourselves in the process. And if we don't feel that happening. We need to go deeper. And that that includes you know the self examination that that, for example, that that that Shoghi Effendi alluded to in Advent of divine justice. The the the genuine desire actually this was expressed rather nicely and succinctly in by Stephen Covey and his seven habits of highly effective people. Or he said one of those habits as I recall was something like I'm going to paraphrase but something like seek first to understand, rather than be understood by the other. And if we if we do that if it's it's basically a shift it's it is a coming out of our ego. We're not this defense that we're not so concerned about, oh, he I have to make them understand me, you know, stepping back and saying okay I really really want to understand where she is coming from, or where he is coming. Now, given the dialogue is often messy and difficult and now we're raising the bar and we want it to be authentic we want it to seek love beauty and goodness. Should we expect that it's not necessarily going to feel good, and if it doesn't feel good. And if it's messy. Could we take that as a sign that you know it's it's it's good trouble or that it's, or that we're growing so can you speak to that feeling of the complicated side of it and how people inside of this dialogue with good intentions but maybe getting it wrong. What are those feelings that we might expect to feel. I love that question. First let me say that beautiful. And the simple the quick answer is yes. You know we we should expect that there will be all the human emotions involved. There there will be in a way it in some way it will be similar to the the experience of repentance in some ways, you know, not that we I mean we're I'm not saying we confess, you know, but but but the sense of really really having the humility to see to to recognize when when I'm what I'm saying is hurting somebody else. What should concern me is is the hurt that I'm causing, you know, and and and to and to remedy that or to just to step back and we need to engage with it in it with actually Martin Boober said this and when he when he described the I and now relationship. This is coming from his famous book by the way I and now you know. And he was he said that one of the things he said about the I thou relationship is that it requires the engagement of your whole being. And I think is absolutely a beautiful beautiful way to say it. And that's what authentic relationship is also, you know, there's a question that's coming in also on this theme of race amity, asking about, is there documentation of the race amity conferences in the early 20th century that we can look at them from the perspective of authentic dialogue and whether you know what what results came out and could we say that what was taking place was authentic dialogue is that is it possible to look at them in that light. It's a wonderful question that I have not researched. So I don't have an answer to that but I boy that's a that's a great that's a great research topic. I encourage somebody to take that up. Yeah. Well someone is asking, maybe you could share a little bit more about the nature of the dialogue that the high school students participated in it sounded like in your presentation you were excerpting from those dialogues can you tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, so, so it was the, the founder of this project, who was a Baha'i is a Baha'i. He, he was in a, he worked within the school system, and he took it upon himself. This that the purpose of the project was was to address the achievement gap. And, and so it really the workshops that he developed were the heart of the project. He also out of that workshop he had this kind of peer tutoring system that he that he he created where he would put maybe the he would pair a more disadvantaged student with with a disadvantaged student and and and and but but on the basis of a profound friendship that they would have formed within in the context of the the workshops. So what else can I say about the workshops I thought that that quotation was so eloquent that was from a, the one that I shared at the beginning was from a junior high school female white student was just really experienced a total change in her life. As a result of as a result of this one workshop experience. And there were also that I mean there, there, there were others that that were from, you know, various backgrounds that also including African American that and Hispanic that also in their interviews said the same thing basically that the how the how they experienced it. One particular student really described the kind of communication so eloquently I used her words to describe this this experience of, I mean, the founder called it the experience of oneness. He arranged the workshop in such a way that well first he introduced the idea that it was possible to experience oneness he had some quotations that he shared and some stories that he told that attracted the students to to the ability of experiencing this together. He helped to presence, use the word to presence a lot he helped to presence there, the suffering really caused by their estrangement from each other. You know, of these clicks, these clicks in the high school. And, and then. And then he had what he called the sharing portion of the workshop, which was kind of a climax, where he opened it up with a little clip from this wonderful documentary of the color of fear that you, some of you may be familiar with. of us of another similar workshop, a few decades earlier of between men from from racially diverse groups. And, and then that that that that so that was that that that played the role of really kind of what it was very very had a name for this thing. I'm not remembering it right now but but when you use something that kind of to frame the whole discussion and and and to to to bring up to to to work to really get people to examine themselves. And then and then the sharing happens and and there are a lot of tears. This is a kind of an ethic of care that is that is reinforced by simple acts like you know, passing the tissue box to a student that's crying and, and so this this ethos of care of caring for each other is developed. Yeah. Well, this is actually a nice segue into a series of questions actually that are asking about, you know what conditions need to exist in order to protect the less privileged or the less advantaged populations because we can, you know, people feel different in that setting and so I want to combine that question along with the question about, you know, to what extent can we say that the process of dialogue is even more important than the outcome so so centering ourselves on the the the manner in which people are feeling in that space and how do we even know what are the conditions, because people may be coming from different sensibilities different readings of the situation so how do you create a space in which you can reasonably expect that that person will be capable of feeling that there are part of an authentic dialogue. Very, very good question. So the, well one of the conditions that is and I'm not the only person to notice this I mean it's a very it's a it's a recognized by practitioners of this kind of, you know, doing this kind of work. You know, group work group therapy, you know, etc. diversity work. Racial justice work is is that there has to be safety. And but then you know what how, how do you, how do you do. I think one of the ways is that really you the the whoever's facilitating the process has to model it. So so and in fact that's exactly what happened in the workshops I was studying that that the facilitator was quite what he was the one that initiated the authentic relationships. It was his authentic relationship with the students there. The first authentic relationships that inspired other students to start to relate to each other authentically, you know. So, so the facilitator needs to model it. It's also helpful to have some rules and actually it's very, I think it's a rather crucial actually to have some some some ground rules. And there's, I mean, there's, I have some collected some different ground rules that that. In fact, right now there's, I'm in this will met Institute course on anti black racism. And there's a really nice set of ground rules I wish I printed it out I wish I thought of that. I don't have it handy but it's a really it's a really very very nice and eloquent set of ground rules. I've been in other groups where actually recently I was in a group where where the facilitator asked us to us to come up with the ground rules, saying what will it take for you to feel safe. And everybody and we end up coming up with a very, very, I thought very, very nice and complete list of rules that we set for ourselves. Yeah, so that that's that's important that you have that kind of structure. And I suppose somewhere in the midst of that dialogue would be interesting to check in to see, you know, has your experience been one of authentic dialogue maybe the person you're speaking with is not feeling that way so. Yeah, absolutely. I guess there's this kind of iterative process where you're kind of checking in constantly checking what you're experiencing. And constantly checking in there's also the kind of what is the takeaway, you know there's that that ending with an opportunity for everybody to, to share. I think the way the way we allow people to share is also very important recognizing who hasn't shared. Right. And that's again, a skill of facilitation skill. And, and I think also specifically with regard to when there is an advantaged and disadvantaged group or a group that's oppressed, and a group that's really in the position of the members of the group that had historically been the oppressors. That we need to. There needs to be a space needs to be intentionally made for the, for the voices that have been that have been suppressed to have the space to be heard. And for perhaps even actually not even perhaps I think, especially for the majority of the time of, especially at the beginning of the process. I think that to that group to to to share their experience. And you so moving from dialogue to action because the two are intimately related there's a question about what then is the role of action and authentic dialogue. Okay. Very good question. And they are connected, especially I did I did define authentic dialogue as as communication that aims for truth, beauty and goodness. And of those three the goodness one, especially relates to action. You can't separate it from action because goodness what does it mean to be a good person, you know, this is, of course, this is the it comes. I'm taking this like I said from Plato, you know goes back to Plato. He said these are the three dimensions of human existence the desire for truth the desire for beauty the desire for goodness. So goodness is about morality and morality is about action.  Moving now back to from action to dialogue. There's a question about noting that the ABS reading group on race and and an African he has been studying this issue of treating others as possibly damaged or needing protection and the question whether the intention attitude then reproduced as unity because it creates this expectation of greater and lesser capacity that there's a population that we're now going to extend a special protection to in this conversation. And so, is this something that that happens, or they're starting that something that happens despite best intentions and so how would you comment on that good intention, but perhaps having these undesirable results. This is getting into the complexity of it of course. Good, that's good. Yeah, which is good, which is good. And God. So can you repeat the beginning of the question. So it's coming from the ABS reading group on race and African it is asking whether treating others as damaged or needing protection, whether that then creates or reproduces disunity based on the expectation of greater and lesser capacity and differential capacity and that they acknowledge that this can happen despite the best of intention, but that it may result in some groups feeling marginalized or less than community. Yeah, so so I'm just going to go back to the standards of that are given to us in the writings, you know, anything that causes us to in any way exalt ourselves. I feel exalted, or over the other is is something we need to undo something we need to dismantle, you know. And so, so so and and that part of that would be seeing the other as damaged, you know, now now one way to, and yet and yet one way. We are damaged right you know and and and we're not and and the but but if we frame it in such a way that that the oppressed group is the more damaged one, then we are falling into, we're in the wrong paradigm there. Okay, I think what we have to realize is no we're all, we all have things we to overcome.  And so how can we help each other. And so in that in that situation, we acknowledge damage but it's not my looking at your damage or, you know, it's, you know, it's a it's a more of a together it's a communal communal sense and and and not dwelling on the damage too much. I think that we can make a mistake there too if we if we if and and I think also it's not for me to definitely definitely it's not for any one person to comment on what they see as the damage of another person. That that would be a grave, grave error. But then the problem again is like Alba Bahá'u'lláh said, you know, the, the imperfect eye sees imperfection. So we have to look at our own eye in the in such a case and not and not the other. Thank you for tackling that question and I think we ended on a question that really took us into some of the complexity to complexities and maybe messiness of this but I think you're leaving us with a lot of food for thought and just appreciation of the difficulties involved but certainly worse. By the way, can I just say that that you know I did have the the bounty of looking at watching the Africana group Africana studies Africana studies group you know what is the what is knowledge. And it was, I felt it was profoundly connected with with I was I was it was it was so heartwarming for me, because they were saying exactly that you know that the kind of approach to knowledge that that is the Afrocentric approach to knowledge is exactly what I've been trying to, in my work, trying to highlight with reference to different Western, you know, Western theorists but I'm going to, I think it's be more useful maybe to directly. Yeah, to to to to bring in more of the Afrocentric thinking thinkers, you know, into that. Thank you for bringing that up that actually that presentation from Saturday has come up in several other sessions I've been in so I also want to give a shout out, if you have not seen it yet to please to please tune in so we're a little bit over time so I just want to give a big thank you to Glenn for your presentation and also for everyone who tuned in and for your excellent, excellent question which questions, which made for such a rich discussion. Thank you to everyone and wishing you a good evening. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening.


Well, thank you and welcome you to the White House. I can think of no one that I would rather visit here with. This white mansion and the gleaming marble monuments we have of those who went before. Seeing you today and knowing of the energy and dedication you bring to the American volunteer spirit, I know our nation will only become struggle times. But you may not be aware that volunteering is an old American, a strong cooperative community spirit is the heart and soul of our democracy, that American spirit. I sat here at dinner one night, a program bill, and this person said, well, yes, you can here in America. And I was kind of curious. And then what she was frankly admitting was that not in very many places in the world, but this one, even greater and more dramatic results. My challenge to you young people here today, if we can start those fairs in cities and towns across America the moment, now I hope that praise and recognition for all our young volunteers will be a byproduct of this meeting today. And they're pretty easily identified. I would many of you young people have written letters to me about your volunteer experiences, our exceeds the amount of my weekly paycheck from my job at Super Duper Markets. The satisfaction that I receive as a volunteer is just rewarding experience. And I feel that if I have any help to them, which I feel I am, I will have served to help my country and the world. You know, I have to tell you just a little and tell you TV stations from the community were down there getting this. And it was 2 o'clock in the morning. I was still watching TV because they were getting this. And you were seeing damage that was being done. But you were seeing the volunteers working throughout the night. Thank you for coming here today for lifting my spirits. And I'm sure my spirits will be lifted even more after I read the additional letters from the volume in which I understand that the volunteers, which I understand you have for me today. I thank you for that. These volunteers, we're presenting you with letters and thoughts on the importance of volunteering. Thank you very much. I guarantee you, and people in my staff know this is true, I'll read them. Everyone, I thank you very much for this. And now, if we do for a few minutes, I have a little time and someone wants to ask a question.  Now, can you carry up? Thank you. Can you carry up to me? Well, I thank you very much for saying that we have it. But I think it is carrying on what you do because dignity is concerned. That goes with what we have the most of of any country in the world. And there's a difference, I mean, maybe this isn't true of all of it. But let me just tell you, one great difference that spells out just what you're talking about and which Goat says to the government, these are the only things you can do. And if they aren't in here, you can't do it. And it's very unique. I was wondering if you could give us just one message for all of us here to bring back to our community that all of us were no volunteers. Just one short simple message. There are so many pages. Well, yes, it is that there is that these volunteer efforts, and they cross the street and talk to a neighbor about it. And the first thing you know of committee is... My name is Milano Vega from Denver, Colorado. I'm the voice of Goats of Denver. We've been talking about volunteers and everything like this, but I want to know exactly what have you done in terms of volunteer work over your life, and I was wondering what exactly has it been personally to you? We're a member of our guild, the Screamenters Guild, for some 25 years, six times its president. And the things that can be done and that don't call for a gigantic bureaucracy program, because those somehow growing up, the things that we heard when we're going to end, and that looked like maybe we could have been in generous deeds. In fact, he said they had to create genes for those deeds. Well, by the... It wasn't as organized as it is today, I'm sorry to say, but there, yes, there were opportunities out of my way of school or church and I was engaged in those and our church, the activities there, kind of Christmas, so people went out to a small town around our town where we knew the shut-ins were and St. Carols and so forth at a time like this, but there were other things of getting food and bus together and big towns for people, just as it is now. Have your children done any volunteer work? Have I? Have your children done any volunteer work? No, they're all grown up now. It's kind of a mystery. But I think, yes, much in the same way of what I did. Yes, I mean, so, in fact, there was a... I do remember one specific thing, there was a great collecting of toys and things for Christmas to be given. I mean, working at hospitals and nursing homes and things like that. Do you mean doing things of that kind? Yeah. I think it's wonderful and I think there's a great opportunity there. You know, we have a program and it does have to do with the government too, but it's on that nature. It's called the foster grandparents program. These are people that have grown but now in our hospitals we have children that are very tired of youngsters who've gotten in trouble.  And it's a wonderful thing but I thought in reverse what the children were doing for them and what the children and senior citizens own as their places of that kind and visits to them. So, because it's nice to be needed. I think there's a big program that should make a great impact. Mr. President, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir.


available to everyone. Okay, thank you. So it's my great pleasure to introduce Lisa Lane who's going to give us an introduction about the course that she helped develop and again as I said it's a future-learn MOOC that was developed by the Creative Computing Institute here at UAL. So what I'm going to do now is and the link to the course is up there as well and we'll put that link into the chat room as well so that everybody can access the details of the course. What I'm going to do now is just change the slides. I'm going to go over to Lisa's slides and you should just come up in a second or two. So okay Lisa, hopefully you can see that. You see that? Okay, really? Okay, I don't know whether I'm pressing the right button. I don't know if anybody else can see. Can they see the slides? Yes, we can see them. You can see them. Okay, cool. I can't see them. Don't worry, right. Don't worry. I have I've got two screens. I will reference my screen if I can get the words out. I'll reference my screen and so I know what I'm actually looking at but yeah cool. Okay, so I've got the slides up here. So Lisa you probably just need to say to me I'll move to the next slide. Yeah, so you can move to the who I am and I'll just give a brief overview of who I am. Just to give you some context, I'm not going to get a lot of detail but just so that people understand my background and why I got involved in doing this course. So I start coding I was 10 and I know I've put still coding. No, I don't really still code although I can. I've got a computer science degree and I've got a master's in business and it takes which is great. I started off as being would have been a program people called every developers now everyone's called engineers for some reason so for engineering and I now moved into what as a people manager that's my focus. I've had opportunities to be involved in I was like social enterprises so I was the founder director of a credit union in the further I live in. I now just volunteered with an organization called Anita be the org and the reason why I'm emphasizing more on my volunteering aspect is that for me as a person that works in tech I went down a traditional path but I will say to people that I mentor and coaches that learning to code is learned behavior and I've just been fortunate and that I was able to do a degree in computer science and I've been able to do a master's but you don't have to do that and all of that can go out the window it's nice it was for me I just didn't want to work that's why I did it and then final touch about myself I love Caribbean carnivals and I've been fortunate to go to different ones around the world so it kind of bridges my importance for me about belonging and having different people having different perspectives and not everybody has to look like me that enjoys carnival right so you can move to the next slide so thank you so in terms of the organization that was part of building this is coded black females and they have been around I think since 2017 I believe yeah six 2017 and I'm one of them their members I don't sit on their board or anything but I'm one of their members and the reason why I decided to be involved with them is that it's great that you've got black women get into tech you might have skipped a slide is it can you see the code in black you don't have to worry about reading this I'm not going to go I'm I am not going to read the mission statement or the aim of just to give you some context of the organization and basically they've done a lot to I would say get women into tech very much from the entry level and for me I'm not entry level I'm not even at that early mid-level because I people manage and so forth yes yes and so for me it's just giving you a bit of understanding of why they got involved with it because a lot of people are getting more into tech but you need to understand about the the concepts of knowing how to create tech that doesn't have biases in it and you do get tech that has embedded into it I would say racist kind of stereotypes which everybody will know about the common one I think if we go back the iPhone you couldn't it it didn't work with certain people's faces so that is something you need to address in regards to it you can go to the next slide so as I said I was one of the the contributors to this and on here you can see some of the the other women and we all we've all got different backgrounds so Charlene is the founder of and the CEO of the coded black females you've got Jean who again is a member of the coded black females but she's involved in another social enterprise as well that focus on women you've got Abaditha who is also quite well known in this area about helping individuals kind of level up but then also she's known for the techish podcast and she's written a book as well and there's also I never get her name right I'm going to be honest with you if you I think I'm sure it's wrong so I really apologize if she watches this because I'm terrible with people's names as well even though people get mine wrong but anyway yeah so we're all different individuals and we all contributed in different aspects and the course will go through a series of learnings in terms of the how the what the why the when scenario and I'm just going to give you a brief overview of the course if you go to the next slide thank you so in in the the course if you're not familiar with it's actually split in over three weeks and the first week gives you an introduction into talking about what is racism and looking at racism in terms of you know the cement in terms of how it can impact your everyday life what are the types of you know issues that you can face with technology how it has been kind of impacted through I would say social nuances and economic those kind of aspects but it's really giving you the opportunity to to delve into that one of the things and the reason why this course was done is that a lot of things that talks that talk about I say anti-racism within technology tend to come out of the US and we've got different issues we've got similar issues but we've got different issues here in the UK and it was more to do with a broader spectrum of identifying yes there's elements that impact what happened in the US but trying to focus in on you know how systemic racism impacts technology here has been the main source and so the way that it goes through you have some articles there's a series of videos with discussions about you know the different aspects and then there's some I would say quick exercises to do and then you get reflection so that's setting you up to get an understanding of why you need to have these conversations the second week looks at you know give me some examples of anti-racist technology and right give me some examples of you know anti-racist technology how you know how are organizations tackling this you know how do how do individuals you know impact the building how do you as an individual think about you know what can I do to make sure that this doesn't happen in the things I'm working on and doing this this series of you know sessions that are within week two there's some examples that give you an overview of things that do work and there's and there is an app in there that we did find and I do know some of the feedback people have said it's not really what it was just to give you an example of ways that you can get a better understanding of things that could be used for good and like it kind of aligns to tech the good scenarios where people are developing things that are positive for society and then that actually leads into the how how do you actually do this how do you set up your teams how do you understand about diversity it's not the answer to building technology for everyone it's not the answer just to say oh we've got a diverse team no you have a team that has that incorporates inclusion incorporates equity so equity in itself can be loosely banded around I definitely believe and it's about understanding that you need to incorporate in that environment and understanding how data can be used in order to make sure that we've got an even spread of individuals that represent society as a whole understand that the most common I think the most common issues that we've seen in terms of the technology is that how AI can be used incorrectly especially like when they're building AI things that have facial images in there which have been proven and Google was renowned for that that it wasn't recognizing Pacific individuals and grouping them wrongly and what you will follow in week three is an outline of a suggestion of how you can ensure that when you're part of that product development cycle how it should flow best practice because there's always there's never a right way there's never a wrong way but there's guidance on how you should ensure that anything to build represent society that we exist in and it's not just it's not just aimed at one group it should be everybody should use it so that's you know the general overview of the course and I know I've gone through it really quickly but I think it's it's good to kind of have that genuine overview rather than going through in detail exactly what is covered in each area yeah thank you Lisa um right okay so um the rest of the session really is just for a Q&A really so um there's a number of things that have jumped into my mind already um I've already I did the course when it first came out um and it's freely available isn't it I think it's for three weeks which is great um so um anybody can can and we put the uh anybody can join the course and link up and go into it so um that's a nice thing about it again I found it just off the top of my head and I found it what I liked about it was just the amount of practical examples that it gave um of anti-racism activity um in the tech industry so there are lots of good things in there for me um I've got some other questions which I'll maybe wait for a second or two um but I want to turn it over to the audience now so um if you either you can either put your hand up if you want to speak or come into the session which would be really nice or alternatively um you can put a question into the chat room um so I don't think we've got any hands coming up at the moment in time but yeah so one thing I will say is that um I think one of the drivers I don't fully know but I think one of the drivers for developing this course was the fact that um the what happened in the US around you know the Black Lives Matter movement and having the conversations that people don't like to talk about people don't like to talk about race let's be honest as in um I don't really like to say race because we're all part of the human race ethnicity background and in the US it's a completely different makeup and you know as I kind of pointed out you know I do the volunteering the organization um is very American centric and what you tend to find is that um a lot of things are focused on America but it does impact us but we've got we've got similar issues but our issues are are slightly different as well in the US to the you know to the UK it's not the same as if you go to mainland Europe and one of the things that you do find is that when we talk about racism in in in the UK it's seen it's more than likely brushed over and technologies get fixed first in the US and then it gets fixed secondly over here okay yeah right and to to remain do you want to come in you got your hand up yeah I was just waiting to see if there is any question there's a comment from Sarah about how future learn itself being a platform where when you enroll that's when your free weeks start for your free sessions but then I did comment because um not just in terms of race but when you look at people who have caring duties or people who have disabilities and may not be able to take the course immediately that in itself is a bit discriminatory but I've got some questions I'm just going to start maybe while the audience come up with some other questions um obviously we we know that in the tech industry there's like about I think 1.9 people black people in the tech industry and out of these it's only 0.7% I'll put this actually also in the chat so people are very much aware of this and obviously software project management and development is very cyclical and I don't see where this 1.9% would fit at any point in time throughout all the cycles because obviously you've got new requirements I mean I've been a new cycle so your thoughts now how will resolve this exactly and that's the thing is is that and that's why I why made the emphasis that most things get done in America first and it comes here secondly let's be honest right and I shared in the chat right a link to a series of conversations we had and I was the I was the person representing outside of the US and the in the US it's they record ethnicity over here we don't really record ethnicity so I even with those figures I do question the figures anyway number one secondly in terms of like right most um when we talk about a lot of the technology that are used out there right um this will only work and I'll be honest with this flawed right it will only work if you are one of the tech companies let's be honest in that they're what you've got a lot of teams you've got a lot of individuals so because and they've got products that more of the mainstream people will use so they will have to incorporate um building in um solutions and making sure that they there's no biases but even with that it's still questionable because we still have to keep having these conversations every year about if you Google something certain things come up it's not it's not foolproof but I think especially when you have organizations and they talk about in getting people to come into working to environments if the teams right and that's why I hate the term when they talk about being diverse inclusive equity and and so forth when you actually look at the teams they just you might say oh well we're diverse what does it mean you basically got two of the same ethnic backgrounds right and it doesn't it's not necessarily just why it comes in a variety of different ethnic backgrounds where you've got the same individuals but it's a male and a female whereas what about the non-binary people what about you know people that have got you know different disabilities it's it's impacting all of that and having the conversations normally have to start with about the racism that exists and racism doesn't to me doesn't just necessarily mean it's based on your ethnic background it can be based on your gender it can be based on you know you might have some form of disability or whatever and organizations have to address this and it is difficult you there's no there is no as I said there's no there's no there is no right or wrong answer to this but having the conversations and making people aware of you know what you can question this why is there nobody that represents that individual if we're going to roll this out to the general public it's not it's it's it's easier said than done I'm going to be honest with you if you're early on in your career most people are going to are going to just sit there and say nothing and it's like having the organizations that can support you yeah thank you Lisa I've got another question which I think will follow on from Laurie unless Chris do you have something else no it's just going to bring you in on that okay yeah so exactly what you've just said Lisa I mean some of the antiracist measures that we see are usually like using simplistic language and you've hit it when you say about how us bring in solution way faster and how they react to problems whereas the UK we kind of soften and lessen the issues and we tend to use simple language and we also say diversify the team which is again the issue that you've just said um which is actually may not be necessarily the working solution to the problem and there are also I've noticed that there are so many black people who are who are happy with how things yeah are because they don't want to raise issues and they don't want to be the first one exactly to raise issues and it doesn't mean that they are not that they are fully satisfied with how things are that they are not seeing that there is some unfairness but most of the time they don't want to be different by raising issues and there is obviously the fact that most black people also somehow expect to see some form of reaffirmation of their competence which goes a bit onto Laurie's question now how do you think we as leaders can empower the young like I know there are programs about is temple girls there's so many other programs just for girls but for boys as well and young young you know young the kids at school and doing A-level and all how do you think we can empower them to come into this industry when we are actually saying you know there's only like only 0.7% of women who look like you in the industry they will be obviously saying no no I don't want to be there exactly and you know the thing is it's really interesting because the thing I've worked in this industry for over 20 something plus years and I'm a lot older than I look right so just to give you context I'm actually my 50s which most people don't realize I've worked in this industry for a long time and I can say that somebody put what yes I am right right so and a lot of people don't that's why for me it's like I know that I know that it's not an easy it's not an easy task and I took the I took the I made the choice that I need to stand up and say look you know what I've worked in a long time no I know I don't know my age but no believe me I know I am this age group number one secondly it's like making people know that no it wasn't easy but if we don't stick at it right you need to have role models you need to have that and yes I will speak up you know I face racism at work it's been quite subtle you know for me Lane is my married name but Rhyme4 my maiden name is R E I N F O R and like I remember when I was going to school and then I first got my job and it was like but when I first started looking for work people were like is that really your name you get that kind of sideways head glance scenario and it's like it's like you you end up in a situation that is either you you stay or you leave and I would never tell somebody it was easy to stay in this profession it hasn't been easy right you know it took me almost 10 years to get to a lead position when I start working in tech right you were lucky there was women there you were lucky if there was a person of color forget you were lucky it was a person that looked like you and you know I I I used to get oh so what department do you work in oh do you work in finance no I work in tech really and it's those kinds of things and it's not easy and that's why it's about being present and I hate saying underrepresented I have to say untapped because we have the potential we're not underrepresented because we are here people choose to ignore that we are here and by having these conversations by making people see different role models and when I say different role models I'm not just talking specifically like somebody looks like me different role models that work in tech seeing different avenues and pathways into tech not everybody has to follow the a traditional path of doing a degree you don't have to do that again to tech not everybody has to code understanding it's about having the opportunities out there and encouraging people to stay there because it's much easier to get people in there but it's much harder to get people to stay in these positions okay um just before um I take your hand uh take you take let you come back to me when they um Laurie's put a question into the chat um sorry Laurie I'm the hundred percent understand your question but let me read it out so I was going to say Chris we've used we're using a company called an organization called Ten Thousand Black Interns next year um to place interns and obviously we're a we're a tech organization I'm just wondering if anybody else has worked with them and if Lisa's worked with them and you know what you know what the experience is like okay I've never worked with them but I do know of them and one of the things I question is because like as I mentioned I'm I'm a I do the London chapter this organization and um everything talks about entry level what about the women that already working in tech right right so essentially most people are working in tech but what what about them what's what's the opportunities for you get all these young people but I can tell you now and that's one of the reasons why I I do turn I do turn up to some of these events especially like the coding black females because if you look at their manifesto it's about entry level okay that's great but what you tend to find and this is general for women regardless of your your ethnic background after five years where are those women that's that's my only issue with there's a lot of these programs they help them do the internships but then what happens to them because if these things were really working we wouldn't be saying oh well there's only 1.7 women working in tech or whatever it is right and it's regardless of being black or you know or brown folks where what what happens to them after they do the internships do they actually stay in the tech roles what we tend to find most of them um to first survive out of those roles and they go sideways into other things because they feel that they hit this um that glass ceiling even at that entry level that that that's my only question with that sorry no that's that's great I I totally agree and in I mean I work for an organization that as most people here will know is primarily white and primarily male and I mean we've now got a female CEO but it's still like that and it's really hard I don't know so I've got graduates working with me now that are primarily black or brown and it's great but I still notice that they don't speak as much as white males I still notice that they perhaps aren't called upon as much as white males and and I struggle to make space and I struggle to um find a way to actually boost confidence and to and to do it but I also struggle to do it in a way that's not condescending or patronizing and I just need support in that yeah and and I think one that I think one of the things that that I've learned with um so you'll get so the percentage what you see that are the confident ones they're the ones that you they shine upon let's be honest but the ones that are reserved and like you know I really want to do it but I'm trying to talk right you don't hear about them they'll start and then they disappear and they're going to do something else because they can't they feel that they're not getting the same opportunity is the ones that will will speak up and the only way that I've um the way that I've seen how it can be kind of tackled and from that aspect is where some of the organizations that deal with the younger people they've tried to do less formal programs to get people to kind of um integrate and come out of the shells rather than being so formal um that that's the only that's one of the approaches but there is no right or wrong way and it's very difficult I do know that I really I do agree with you um a lot of the organizations um are focused on that and because we've got a skills issue with for technology companies and it's great you're getting people to get into these positions but what's going to happen to them after three or four years okay um to to ruminate you've still got your hand up is is that a legacy hand or do you just want to come back on that um no I've just got um some of them more like probing questions really um a bit of very much what you've said already um Lisa I mean do you live in a capitalist society which I don't think is equitable at all and um what do you think we as leaders um and even through um black coding um organization and it's have been things like this that we can do to influence political leaders to pass some laws that will make the tech industry more equitable however I must say um I must admit that uh I don't think that all the laws uh work properly they are not really deterrent to everywhere to for all people you'll still have people who are narcissists or who are racists or who are money-minded that they will still keep doing that you know laws doesn't mean uh do not mean anything for them and now I know we've got on this call lots of learning technologists who obviously are working in an educational background um do you have thoughts on how we can influence um you know sometimes we we kind of think oh the problem is the government the problem of racism the problem of any discrimination is for somebody else to resolve yeah like creating laws or something like that but then do you have ideas how we like I'm sure we've got people probably at different levels here I know we've got academics we've got learning texts of varied number of years of experience do you have any any idea what you think we could be doing obviously translating from your very much industry uh experience it's really interesting sorry to cut you there it's really interesting somebody put in there like she's they wrote I like this is why I like um the networks like the piloties are like do you know what it is about networks and having belonging to different groups but at the same time it's about having communication and making it visible that's really important um I I do believe that we need to capture metrics about what's going on in organizations um it's not so much um it's no I don't think it should be I don't think it should be focused on oh well the I'm going to join this organization let them speak to me no it should be everybody should have the opportunities to speak up if they feel comfortable doing that I when I say comfortable doing that it's a different matter where I'm used to doing public speaking I'm quite happy to talk about this but not everybody is and it's like I know I've got my own biases as well so you know there's elements of where I've got privilege and I accept that but there's elements that other people got privileges above me but it's having these conversations and making it known and I think as leaders and um in the US it's much easier for them to lobby for these things because these those organizations especially the one that I volunteer with it's been around for a long time so they have those legal kind of um tie-ins they know about how legislation because over in the US they have to record ethnicity they cannot they cannot record just the gender they cannot just record um you know the number of women but even with that that's still I think a lot of the biases you find and not just um in terms of racist biases you find in startups and they don't have to record how many people work in their companies in terms of ethnic backgrounds if it's less than 200 people and so it's all those kinds of aspects I think and there's a lot of you know there's a lot of good organizations that are out there that are trying to do that and I don't even know if the tech talent charter have you heard of them I can put it in the chat right so um so yeah so um they they try to get the statistics of what um organizations sign up and they agree to give them data um it's been around for a long time and I would say you should try and connect with her if you want I can I can you know offline I can try I'm connected to her it it is in it is important to have people that are willing to stand up for you as well I think that's really important and definitely through networks I belong to a lot of different networks and you know you are um stronger if you got other people to help support you that's an important point really I mean that's really what this whole thing's about really is connecting people up across different universities I saw somebody wrote something sorry I just just I saw somebody wrote something I just want to just point um touch on it about Black History Month I'll be honest with you I hate Black History Month um I don't when I say hate I don't mean I hate in a horrible way but I'm not I don't actually um do anything for Black History Month because it's like why am I celebrating just one month of the year I'm black all the year round so for me I don't I don't do that um it's nice they highlight um individuals but it what it you know you can't change your ethnicity just for one month and it goes with a lot of other things it's like pride it's about okay we're gonna have this month to celebrate this no you if you know if you fall into that category it's gonna happen throughout the rest of the year and it is about communication and people feeling it's okay but this is the norm this is not something that isn't the norm that you feel that you have to just that's my opinion but some people may not worry sorry um I'm not sure if everybody will agree but I'm not sure if everybody wants to speak about that or not um is I mean we've talked generally about technology but it's again from my own experience of working in universities for the last 30 years also is mainly within the learning technology area and again it was I'm I never saw a blackface when I was working in in this area 30 years ago it has changed um but I don't know to what extent it has really changed I really don't and I suppose it comes back to your point about there's no really recording of you know sort of the different ethnicities working in within this small little sector that we work in in higher education as far as I know especially within learning technology so I don't know whether there has been any substantial change but superficially I do see a more mixed teams and and certainly you know coming I don't want to say that my current institution is you know an example but you know they are doing seem to be doing more things here than many of the other places I've worked but I don't know it's very hard unless there's sort of you know a conscious decision to record things then it's all anecdotal already um anyway sorry those are my thoughts and yeah sorry no it's true though I do know that because I've spoken to people in academia and academia is has got a lot of issues in terms of not for just for women but for people of color there's hardly any people of color but uh the level of being professor um it's very difficult more than what I've been told to get to that and yeah there's definitely issues with that somebody's put it in there there's academic yeah there is um that it's not in just one area tech is more known because people know tech everyone's got some form of tech that's why and people know about oh oh well I've Apple and they know about Facebook and all of those but then when you look at these organizations most of the when you look at these organizations what are the roles of women doing anyway they they tend to be focused in the in the what people define has been the soft skills areas and and diversity initiatives are mostly driven from the US in the in the UK it's always seen through done through employee resource groups which you don't get paid for and then they actively especially like if you're known to do things right they will come to you and say oh come and join this employee resource group no you need to pay somebody to do that because it's a full-time job so it is an issue in a lot of industries and until we get to that point where we're actually recording what's going on we're never going to really understand or have a real visibility of there actually is a problem not so much at they talk about this pipeline it's not a pipeline of people getting into it as an issue a problem at the mid-level area and all across all industries not just tech in that what happens to women and what happens to people well not I would say for men it's slightly different for women of of any color they drop off right yeah right okay um is anybody else want to come in at this particular moment in time there's a few comments coming into the chat um there's a comment from Chris there is is this where invisible labour and code switching comes in when the system's careers especially in and around academia historically built on full white cis straight non-disabled men have assumed knowledge language not to mention other barriers and bigotry so we either dismantle that system knowledge language and or train others in how to navigate at all levels okay thanks for that comment Chris and everybody else wants to come back on that um I would agree to say that yeah I would agree because I'll be one of you right just to give you some different context about my background I went to catholic convent school and I went to school that predominantly why I'm not gonna lie and because it was a catholic school it was very much about education and I was lucky that we didn't have the stigma of there was boys in the class that we could do tech but you if you speak to a lot of people it's like they still have an issue that they don't do STEM because they think it's not focused on women and and I think one of the things that I was told individuals that if you get a job a role in the tech any form of tech it's one it's the one profession that you will always find a job you might not like the job that you want to do but you can always find a job okay um I'm getting conscious about time now so does anybody else would like to ask the question um another comment in there from south isn't some of the tech used by some hg institutions for enrollment bias as well e.g difficulty with students with non-traditional i.e non-english names if you want to come back on that Lisa um so yes definitely I mean obviously I've got a very um I've got I don't know I've got a very european westernized I won't say european I've got westernized first name and westernized surname and um yeah they definitely yeah I think as well some what you some tech um solutions only have a certain number of characters you can put in for your first name and not everybody's first name is spelled with maybe what six or eight characters you know depending on where you come from in the world it's like it could be quite long but that's that's you know the natural language and then people oh how do you spell that why is it so long can't you shorten it so there are biases and I'm sure yeah you're not I'm sure you've been also I can't really pronounce that can I call you something else right yeah and you know yeah yeah so there's there are biases and and it does come back to the fact that who built that who built that solution who built who built the solution for the students to fill their details in because most educational systems who they're not coming from the big tech companies are they no okay a couple more comments coming into the chat another one from lori assessment processes are biased during the pandemic we saw bay entertainment gap reduce significantly in some areas right okay so I'm just gonna say that I don't like the term bane because it just if you look at it in terms of how it what how it breaks down includes ethnic minorities that's what it says and those can be people that are gypsies they say gypsies I hate using that and Irish travellers and so forth and if somebody saw that person on the road outside on the street they are white so they wouldn't how would you know that so that that so I think it needs to be broken down to black and brown folks in order to understand that firstly but I do agree that I do agree that the assessment is can be biased especially when they have the ATS systems where they put in things that are are weighted against people especially women in these recruitment and the algorithms of the question comes back again to who built that and what you tend to find a lot of these solutions have been built in the US by a certain group and sometimes they're biased not just by they're not just biased by in terms of like it's biased towards black individuals they're biased towards women because it was written by a bunch of men that could be from I would say you know Asian backgrounds right in it based on what they think should it should be so yeah you definitely get that okay um yeah Laurie's followed that but by saying black male students close significantly towards Indian women and Indian women less so um in the attainment gap the fame is really interesting I could see myself with equity but also why yeah because it doesn't make any sense I don't think I think grouping everybody together makes no sense a lot of people I just don't like I don't like that I don't like that term I think it's it it kind of high it high it hides the real statistics in terms of what's going on in regards to somebody's ethnic background and there's different there's different variations in terms of ethnicity and to group a wide set of society under one bubble doesn't it it has no true reflection I believe that's my that's my thinking you might disagree but yeah okay all right um we still got time for just a couple more quick questions if anybody else wants to ask anything before we wrap up there's some interesting comments coming still coming into the chat if anybody wants to look at those as well and I still want to I know it's a related discussion but um does anybody else want to ask anything else can I Chris why in the chat I'll just read out some of the comments that were missed so Laurie mentioned about the unpaid labor that it expected of minority staff is usually problem problematic and then Samantha mentioned something that we still have systems that cannot handle apostrophes in usernames that's a problem all across all institution all organization industry or not um and there's also Sarah who mentioned about uh being under ethnic minority but then being wide um do you want to read the other comments or um you want me to go yeah just yeah yeah yeah I'm just reading them because we're recording and people who've missed them would be able to benefit from that so Laurie mentioned about travel apothecation in higher ed is the smallest of any population in the UK and Samantha mentioned that there are some gratis says in the good immigrant where Chinese population is not even recorded does not even have a category um and Stella commented she doesn't like the term of measurement she likes grouping for solidarity but agrees that BAME hides the true stats when you just disaggregate awarding gap stats you see the real issues exactly Stella um Laurie further commented that incidence of racism toward travelers is really viewed as racism by for example the police um some very good comments there that um I hope we take back to our work um anything else okay um we've just got a couple of slides of some future SIG events that I want to go through before we finish up but um I'll stop recording first Chris is that all right sorry I'll stop the recording now uh well hang on just um I just wondered if Lisa wanted Lisa did you want to sort of come back on anything no no I think it's really good what people are it's I think it's really good to have conversations off the set you know off the back of just thinking about that course but there's other things that I know that it's limited but there's other sources that should now allow people to go and do investigations that it's on their own and I think this is why it was um it's important to know that you can do that course but this is something that is an issue across different industries and you know you can google is can be your best friend I will say in order to go and look for different sources but it's really thank you for inviting me it was really interesting and we'll definitely connect and you know if people want to find out other stuff you know there's a a wealth of information out there and different organizations as well to to to connect with um definitely say so thank you Lisa yeah no thank you very much for you know giving up your time um to do this little talk for us and take all the questions and really really do appreciate it thank you um okay so just to finish up on um just going to stop recording now all right yeah thank you