Strange Loop

Ally Skills Workshop

Want to learn simple everyday ways to support people in your workplace and community? The Ally Skills Workshop teaches simple everyday ways for people with societal advantages to support people who are targets of systemic oppression, including women of all races, people who are ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ folks, and primary parents (especially mothers). This is a fun, thought-provoking, and highly interactive workshop that will give you food for thought and a desire to learn more.

This workshop is focused on techniques that work well in technology-related organizations and online communities, including software companies, free and open source software communities, Wikipedia-related projects, coworking spaces, and hacker and maker spaces.

The workshop works best when people with a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds attend. Everyone is welcome to attend if you have an interest in ally skills. You may want to learn ally skills to practice them yourself, or you may want to learn how to teach ally skills to others. If you are a member of a marginalized group, you are especially welcome. This workshop gives you a space to share your knowledge and experience in a respectful and supportive environment.

Valerie Aurora

Frame Shift Consulting

Valerie Aurora is the founder and principal consultant of Frame Shift Consulting, specializing in cutting edge diversity and inclusion programs for technology organizations. She is the co-founder and former executive director of the Ada Initiative, a non-profit supporting women in open technology and culture. She is the lead author of the most popular conference code of conduct for tech conferences. She worked for over ten years as a Linux kernel and file systems developer for companies including Red Hat, IBM, and Intel.