08-14, 13:00–13:35 (US/Eastern), Terrace Lounge (capacity 48)
This talk dives deep into the fascinating topic of written and spoken English as a factor in open source communities. We'll explore the experiences of both native and non-native English speakers, sparking a conversation about:
* The impact of language fluency on participation, contribution, and barriers to entry.
* Potential biases within the open source community based on English proficiency.
* Strategies for fostering inclusivity and creating welcoming spaces.
Join Karen and Eric for an open discussion about our experiences and ideas for a more diverse and thriving open source future.
Karen Noel is a Sr. Director, Software Engineering in Linux Engineering at Red Hat. She has been working on operating system kernels since 1990 and on Virtualization technologies since 2005. She was formerly with Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard and joined Red Hat in 2011. Her engineering teams live and work around the globe and work on technologies such as Networking, Virtualization, Storage, Filesystems, and High Availability.
Eric is a Software Engineering Manager at Red Hat responsible for integrating OpenShift on OpenStack. Aside from learning about new technologies, Eric's passions as a people manager include career development, mentoring, creative ways to leverage agile methodology for real world productivity, and continuous learning in DEIB topics.
Prior to Red Hat, Eric was a Software Engineering Manager and/or Software Engineer at Bose, EMC, and Quantum. Eric enjoys spending time outdoors, at museums, and saying hello to friendly cats.