DrupalCon - Reminding us to all stay humble
I spent the last five days in Portland alongside four awesome colleagues at DrupalCon 2022. It was an awesome experience to be back in-person with such a diverse crowd of passionate people.
Of all the things I learned this week, my overall takeaway is: stay humble ****🤔
Open-source is at the frontline of innovation in the DEI space ❤️
While there were multiple keynotes centered around the idea of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the workplace - the one that really hit home is embedded below. In it, three unique individuals present three different perspectives on global systems of oppression in the tech industry.
Each of them presented difficult, yet concrete ideas around combatting global oppression. Overall, I walked away with the idea that this is just the beginning of a long road to restructure our processes.
I especially enjoyed the what was presented by Daelyn Moyer. I highly recommend you watch the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-j4wBrRyjA
Everyone should address the elephant in the room 🏚️
I can’t come away from Portland without thinking about the issue of homelessness. I boarded the plane from RDU to PDX thinking: “Wow, I haven’t seen the west coast since February of 2020.” While I haven’t seen the rest of the country since the pandemic,I can’t help but assume they are facing similar issues.
I won’t even pretend like I have an answer for the problem. All I can say is, it is something I’ll continue to be thinking about for the foreseeable future. It was a humbling experience to consider how close to the edge of losing everything some of us might be.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
What a beautiful experience it is to be apart of a community of diverse yet like-minded individuals. Community is something I’ve always found myself gravitating towards. As a teenager involved with web development, I sought after forums, clans, and communities of people whom were (generally) seeking to improve a technology. I strayed away from communities in the first half of my twenties, but the past year I’ve been finding myself more involved in various development communities and it’s something I foresee lasting.
Drupal has an astounding community devoted to its development. I find it especially interesting that a percentage of its funding (and development) comes from corporate entities (and the like). I think this model can and should be maintained moving forward. During the higher education Summit,
The open-source community is extremely powerful
- Ukraine is the 6th largest origin for contributions on Drupal
- Consider the per-capita contribution when comparing this to the rest