How OpenStack Aims to be More Inclusive without being Exclusive

Key Takeaways

[Music] Gad is our sponsor for our coverage from open sack and Barcelona our theme for the conference diversity and inclusion in the open sack ecosystem learn more about godaddy's diversity efforts at godaddy.com [Music] in this interview from ens saac Barcelona we had the chance to sit down with Sham shanian CEO of cloud Don well-known analyst in the community and we discussed s's view on being someone from India and how it is to fit into the tech culture encompassing topics such as diversity and inclusion [Music] hey it's Alex Williams with the new stack at open stack Barcelona and here with an old colleague and friend in this world of open stack and and everything else sh superbon how are you sir I'm good thank you Alex thank you for having me excited to be here oh yeah it's always it's always nice to to chat with you we were actually talking over breakfast a little bit and because we were talking about this whole topic of diversity and inclusion you know that we're looking at you know about open saes overall and one of the questions that you know that I had asked Judy about I said I was thinking about who we would interview and we talked about well would you know would it be interested to interview you because you know we're we're interested you know in just kind of like diversity overall and you were talking to having some interesting kind of insights into like the you know the the role that the your perspectives on on diversity and coming from your perspective as someone who's from India but you know you're also in Tech there's a lot of U men from India in the community and how does that kind of correlate to the open stack and kind of what we're seeing happening right now in the world absolutely thank you and first of all thanks thanks a lot for talking this talking about this right um it's an it's a very important topic I would say no more than interesting it's a very important topic and uh unless we all consciously talk about this we won't be improving on diversity wherever we go so thank you so much for bringing this up and doing the podcast here so um yeah like you know interesting things right so let me like how how we all describe ourselves in a different way and then people tend to see you in a different way right typically like when simp people look at me Indian male working in tech industry right so uh the first question is like you know do you feel like uh safe in the conferences do you feel like a minority or are you being do you feel any any kind of um diversity issues right so I I'll kind of break that into two parts right so where I come from uh um from India right I I'm I'm a male of I I you can call that as an equalent of a white privileged male equalent of that in India right so I come from a class which which is traditionally all privileged uh not financially well but no classwise uh privilege right so um I didn't lot of things like I wouldn't have noticed because of the way that like I was there but once I come here right it's even though like we're in high-tech financially like well to-do kind of segment but we are minority right so um so that that that's always there and particularly in Tech conferences right like I I kind of feel like I don't I'm not like u i don't belong to the majority of white male uh uh class but however I don't feel I'm not I don't see the problems or I don't see the issues that uh under represented minorities face like women or or blacks or know or people like right so it kind of fall somewhere in between so uh my my my hope is eventually like no we have more more people more participation from under represented minorities whether it is however you call that and how they defined I think I think that is the one that I want to get to there right yeah the definition yeah definition right so it's it's very um I mean we all go by various kind of definitions you know these things could could keep keep expanding I think my my point of view is I think how are they feel like how are they how are a person relate themselves to be that's how we can Define it right they it and do they feel feel included do they feel uh uh somebody out there to support them that's more important so the example that I can bring up here is like you know uh we had open stack day Seattle uh we've been having for two day two years consecutively and uh we had diversity scholarships to encourage more that's how we started we wanted to encourage more women to participate in the conference then it kind of evolved into like why just women right like you know we have people of color being under represented like can you improve them right so then we had it open and then we tried to popularize that we tried to get help from our uh female tech tech people to kind of popularize that uh people of color right so um we didn't Define this is who we can apply like you have to be a uh certain classified person to be applied that we just let it to be like open so whoever feels like they are they belong to a under represented uh classification by themselves we let them apply so interestingly like we had applications from women in the US uh applying for the scholarship we had uh one application from India one appliation from China right and they both are uh Chinese male and Indian male so what it tells is that like you know the Indian male or Chinese male might feel like a minority here even though like you know the men or not minority here in conferences right so that's kind of an interesting perspective that that it show up like no that's that's how I think I would proceed with that yeah yeah interesting so so what did so so kind of in that kind in that context then what are the like the barriers that are facing the male Indian who's in the tech world that we may not kind of see in the surface you know every day cuz you know because we do see so many you know you know men in the community who are from India that's right um you know um as I said like it's not like it it is not a big of a barrier that like women typically would face or you but but there certain barriers is like you know uh we may not be good at language for instance we might have accent problems right and we may not even feel confident to like you know talk to or present to uh in presenting ourselves to like white male right so uh that's and then uh the other thing that I see is like you know at least the way that most of us grew up like the communicating with women we are not very good at that so like you know what how do we know how are you be uh correct in like you know uh is that because of the gender the gender gender separation back in India right and then you know um like for instance hugging is a very uh very uh uh shows a good um good wo between two persons here right right but that's not how it is like it's it seems to be a PDA there right so like you know but but when do you feel comfortable when do you comfortable doing that and what is the right like you know it's all personal right but but again like you know I think uh there are certain there are certain things that you know I faced I've overcome that I've I've learned over that but you know uh but so I think those are all the certain things that uh I as an Indian male have faced in conferences again I want to clarify one though like you know there is no way compared to like what um f would face right so I don't want to uh sound like a crying baby but you know this is it's there we won't talk about that it's there right it's a reality and and you know um what we can do about that I'm not very sure but at least it's there and we need to yeah so uh so when you've been pretty involved in the obac community over the years and such and and you know and you know how how have you viewed your participation there and you know what is your what is your role in obac now I know you you organized opens saac Seattle that's right yeah so uh I've been part of the op Community from like very early days and I used to play a different kind of role so i' had been an operator at some point I'd been even a developer at some point a doc writer and all those things right so um from the from the diversity point of few um I I try to encourage more participation by like you know diversity Scholarships in the organization that we do and then being open for mentoring to anybody that that look you know uh available I'm listed as like you know uh available speaker in in in other events so uh I'm also part of the women of open stack group uh having said that you know I think uh one thing one thing which is great about how the foundation or the community is encouraging that uh the women of open stack uh initiative travel support program for women and all those things are really good um but I I want to be very uh cautious though I think um it is not enough to just like you know ask uh women just to go on and just do your uh things on your own I don't think that that's necessarily inclusion that might help in increasing the count like the the number of attendee count but I think like uh there should be more participation together right not just women not just like um people of color it is important for us to increase their uh percentage of participation however it is important that they don't feel excluded all the events need to be like kind of inclusive and it it goes both way right like we had a um we had a I think one of the open stack women of open stack lunch sometime ago I don't remember which Summit was that so I I I was like I was hesitant like can I go there can I not go there the the the the the team members were fascinated like no they were they were fantastic they said like no no don't feel excluded please join us it it is run by woman of open stack but it is no mean exclusive women of open stack right but however there is always like you know uh there's an impression that you might have like oh this women of open stack even so then men are not allowed we had like four or five men attending there and uh uh you know those those things I think we can improve upon right right right so uh what's your impression here of the overide conference so far oh it's been great and it's always been great uh from the from I mean I I I kind of I want to highlight that right like I think it kind of goes with how do you improve or how do you make it better right so so um we had five keynote speakers on stage today five women keynote speakers on stage today which I think it's uh a little bit better than four at Austin right so so it is important that like you know we have uh women talented uh who are who are like you know qualified on their own doesn't matter about their gender like they are their fantastic fantastic people fantastic speakers to be on stage but it's it's hardening to see that we have more women speakers I also would like to see like you know uh we we try to make a conscious of effort to improve like you know whether it's people of different color or you know different orientation or like you know uh whatever like so we we can have more such um people attending there like when you see them on stage you are you are showing an indication that the community is welcoming not just having a separate box events like you know this this is for women of open stack this blacks of open stack this is of Browns of open stack not like that so yeah and uh the other thing I would like to uh kind of kind of uh talk to other we've been having too many so many EV right like we have the open stack Summit here and then about 30 open stack days all over the world I really want the other organizers to kind of Take the Lead and follow up and try to do something to improve on diversity and inclusivity right and other thing is kind of take it upon further right it's not about just the gender or the race uh we should think about people with disabilities for instance right how do we make the experience better like can we provide like you know with headphones for instance or can we provide with captioning for instance or things like that we tried to do that this year but it didn't work work out we were kind of I mean kind of there the lgbtq community yes that's right so um we should do that as much as possible and but most most importantly I think it is important to have them feel welcomed and included not just think about increase the percentage of the participation but I think we should have a participation together that's is more important right well thank you so much for taking some time here I really appreciate it thank you Alex thank you so much and I also uh you know I know that TNS has been very um Progressive very uh inclusive uh the site and I I would also appreciate like you know whatever TNS can do to improve uh diversity in Tech in general not just an open stack that that's a that's a big uh mission of ours and we want to you know focus on that more in 2017 so thank you we'll we'll be looking we'll be uh doing more thank you thank you again thank you have a good day [Music] GoDaddy is our sponsor for our coverage from open sack in Barcelona our theme for the conference diversity and inclusion in the open stack ecosystem learn more about godaddy's diversity efforts at godaddy.com [Music]