Empowering a Diverse Community at Women Who Code

At Women Who Code, we believe that gender diversity and inclusion of women in the tech industry are keys to the innovation and success of companies. But diversity goes beyond gender.

As a Mexican woman working in a USA-based organization and acting as the Community Director for  70+ local and virtual communities worldwide, I know first-hand what it is like to work with a diversity of cultures and to find ways of making all of our diverse members feel included in the tech industry and Women Who Code’s mission.

In 2016, I started as a volunteer for my local WWCode Network in Monterrey, Mexico. Although, at the beginning, it was very difficult for me to communicate in English with the WWCode Global Team (Spanish being my native language), everyone was always friendly and welcoming. I learned so much from our WWCode global leaders Alaina Percival, co-founder and CEO, Joey Rosenberg, President of Product and Communications, and Shanna Gregory, Chief Program Officer, about creating a better community with many different cultures involved. When we attended an event in Mérida, Mexico, in 2019, Joey gave a talk in Spanish for the first time. They also hired live interpreters so the Mexican volunteers could understand and get the most out of the English talks.

When I joined the Global Team as a full-time member in 2021, I made it one of my goals to ensure everyone felt included and to promote a safe environment for people from any culture. Now, as a Director of Community, I always try to celebrate diversity and be aware of how we are all different in this community while being united by technology.

I want to share five ways we promote and celebrate cultural diversity at Women Who Code:

Promoting culturally sensitive communication.
Our members are located in 147 countries around the world, and even though many of our activities are in English, our diversity of languages is huge. We have WWCode communities entirely in Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, and Chinese, among many others.

We understand that many technologists have English as their second or third language. As a Latina, one of my goals is to include more Latin American people in our events and connect with them in our native language, Spanish. We have organized events, conferences, and volunteer meetings in Spanish to ensure everyone feels welcomed and can share their knowledge in a safe space.

Also, our digital Technical Tracks invite first-time speakers worldwide to deliver talks in English, empowering them to take this challenge and ensuring they have all the resources they need.

A recent event in Spanish hosted by the WWCode Frontend community.

Celebrating diverse holidays.
Our communities are an exciting mix of cultures, religions, and languages. We are always aware of other cultures’ celebrations and holidays and join them by sharing publicly whenever possible. Our volunteers share all the upcoming celebrations from their countries of origin, so we always give them time to be with their families and friends.

Our WWCode Python community wishes everyone who celebrates a happy lunar new year.

Prioritizing mental health.
We understand that we all live different realities and might have different needs, and we recognize that we all need time to recover after moments of stress. Our volunteers are valued in our community, and they know they can always take time from their volunteer roles to prioritize their own well-being. We also promote mental health topics in our events by inviting speakers to deliver talks on balancing our lives better. It’s not always all tech related!

Our team at global headquarters leads by example. Our People team prioritizes team members’ mental health, and we have always been reminded of the importance of taking care of ourselves.

A recent event from WWCode Mobile related to mental health.

Protecting all community members from discrimination.
Being such a large community, we know there are some possible issues that we are not exempt from. Unfortunately, we have experienced some negative situations while organizing virtual or in-person events. To prevent that from happening again, we created our Code of Conduct (available also in Spanish). Everyone who joins our events and activities should accept and abide WWCode’s Code of Conduct. That way, we know everyone is aware of the behavior we expect from our members, which actions are considered harassment or discrimination, and how to report those.

We always share our Code of Conduct at the beginning of all events and meetings.

Embracing our differences.
We pride ourselves on our diverse community. We always encourage our volunteers and members to share more about their culture and keep learning from each other.

I personally love learning from my colleague and friend Sapphire Duffy, Senior Community Manager, more about her home country, Northern Ireland; from Bhavya Batra and Mansi Aggarwal, Leadership Fellows, about the Indian culture; and sharing with them more about my country, Mexico.

Our amazing and diverse team at Women Who Code Head Quarters.

We are united by our love of technology, but we are all human beings and different. We should speak more about those differences and share more about ourselves and our cultures with everyone in this community.

I invite you to join, volunteer, and donate to experience the diversity of our community of technologists. We grow every time a new member joins and shares their unique experiences.

We’d love to hear from you and learn more about your culture and tech journey. Find here more ways to collaborate with WWCode by speaking at an event, becoming a volunteer, or joining any of our 70+ local communities or seven Technical Tracks.