At a time when the tech sector is pushing for diversity, equity, and inclusion, we continually see examples which suggest anything but in practice.
I'm currently at London Tech Week. On Monday, entrepreneur Davina Schonle was refused entry to the flagship event at Olympia because she was attending with her eight-month-old child.
The result? Three hours of wasted time travelling each way and cancelled meetings with potential suppliers.
Schonle is the founder and CEO of Humanvantage AI, a startup that is developing a conversational role-play training platform for corporate enterprises using AI technology.
Schonle asserts:
“This moment was more than inconvenient. It was a clear reminder that as a tech industry, we still have work to do when it comes to inclusion beyond buzzwords.
Parents are part of this ecosystem. Caregivers are innovators, founders, investors, and leaders. If major events like London Tech Week can’t make space for, what message does that send about who belongs in tech? I don’t necessarily mean make it a kid-inclusive event in general, or do I? Doesn't our future belong to the kids?”
The experience is not new to women in tech. Last year, Elena Brandt, the founder of a behavioural research startup called Besample, was asked by Surbhi Sarna, a partner at Y Combinator, to step out of a female founders’ conference.
The result was not only humiliating for Brandt, but also highlights the broader challenges mothers face in the male-dominated tech sector, including a lack of affordable childcare and equal access to opportunities.
Active inclusion is crucial
I’d like to add that the responsibility of promoting diverse inclusion falls on conference organisers, which includes the choice of venue, conference structure, how the conference is marketed, and who and how people are chosen as speakers. Remember the DevTernity tech conference, which used AI-generated images, fake names and titles to create women speaker profiles to boost their diversity cred? So far from responsible inclusion.
Conferences can develop active ways to make events more inclusive, from speakers to services. Offering childcare is a great way to increase participation.
Further, conference organisers can encourage first-time speakers to apply rather than asking the same people back every year. Let’s face it, if conferences become a cocoon of male regulars self-congratulating themselves, it’s hardly offering disruption or next-generation tech.
Furthermore, individuals from diverse backgrounds should be offered support in preparing their call for proposals (CFP), the primary gateway to conference speaking.
Another barrier to investment in female founders
According to Debbie Wosskow, co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, if a founder is turned away from a space where she was due to meet suppliers for her own business, what does that say about the potential for female founders to secure investment?
“It’s a tired old scenario and a tired old system, and doesn’t do anything to dispel the ‘tech bros’ persona.”
Wosskow asserts that the figures speak for themselves:
“The biggest success story last year was AI, which more than doubled its investment from £1.72 billion in 2023 to £3.55 billion.
Women’s share of this? It was shameful. The average deal for male teams in AI was £5.3 million compared with just £0.8 million for female ones.
Tech can’t pretend to be a forward-thinking community if this is still allowed to happen.”
According to Wosskow, we need to remove the barriers to access for women and actively bring them into the game – this is everyone’s responsibility.
“And let’s drop the ‘diversity’ badge: investing in female founders is a commercial opportunity, plain and simple.”
In response, a spokesperson for London Tech Week said:
“We’re aware that one of our attendees wasn’t allowed to enter with their child. As a business event, the environment hasn’t been designed to incorporate the particular needs, facilities and safeguards that under-16s require.
We’ve reached out directly to the person involved to discuss what happened and to inform how we approach this at LTW in the future.”
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