÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥

Aspiring to speak at conferences and to share knowledge with others seems like a reasonable thing for a professional to do. So, it was quite odd to me to find that there were so few women going out and speaking at conferences from ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ India, as compared to men. Ìý

Is it possible that women were just less keen on speaking? Or was there something else stopping women from speaking?

A group of us decided to find out and hopefully change this outcome. Ìý

First weÌýfacilitated a discussion with women in different roles (technical/ non-technical) within ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥Ìýto talk about why more women aren't speaking at conferences.

We found that lack of confidence, fear of speaking, finding topics to speak about and lack of experience came out as the largest themes that prevented women from taking an initiative on this front.

We decidedÌýthat having a support group,Ìýthat provided a safe platform to practice the skills,Ìýmight be a good way to address this.

Thus "InnerVoice" was created. It is a forum for aspiring female speakers to meet and hone their speaking and presentation skills. We meet as a group for half an hour every other week. InnerVoice has an active volunteer group who reach out to female Thoughtworkers and in many cases convince the ones who are not confident of their abilities to come and speak!

Here are 4 steps you should consider if you wish to set up your own "Inner Voice" program.Ìý

1. Provide a Feedback Slot - ÌýFormalizeÌýopen feedback after each talk so that the speakers gainÌývaluable insights into their presentation skills.
2. Invite Experienced Guest Speakers - Guests areÌýable to guide us on how to improve our presentation skills.
3. Create a List of Topics - CreateÌýa backlog a list of technical topics to choose from so that the lack of topics doesn'tÌýprevent women from speaking. Many aspiring speakers were concerned that what they had to share was somehow not interesting enough.ÌýHaving a list of topics helped them decide on a topic or at least benchmark against what might be topics worth speaking about.
4. Offer Different Formats - ÌýTryÌýdifferent formats - for example, games, fishbowls, extempores to let women find the best format that works for them.

When we saw there was a good potential for so many women to speak, albeit with a little support, we followed up with the marketing team to keep us informed ofÌýspeaking opportunities.ÌýOur core team also reached out to the prominent speakers (men and women) and asked them if they could help aspiring women by pairing with them so they would get first-hand experience in a safe and nurturing way.

InnerVoice has been active for more than eight months nowÌýand 15 women have spoken in that time frame. Some of these women are now speaking at other forums within ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥, and in some cases at external conferences.

Positive action to help women gain confidence has indeed helped us as an organization. We continue to explore other activities and channels to effectively support and groom more women to go out and let their voice be heard.

Write code; advance social justice; love your work.ÌýYou can view our open positions onlineÌýhere.