Community Empowerment
We want to develop and grow an inclusive and supportive community of diverse voices and minds working, researching, developing, implementing and living with AI. We aim to do this through empowering marginalised voices, encouraging participation and respecting lived experiences.
Our initial communities work focuses on the LGBTQ+ community led by Dawn Hunter. In engaging with the LGBTQ+ community we have the key objective of engaging with the LGBTQ+ community to attract new and diverse LGBTQ+ talent to the AI field while supporting existing LGBTQ+ AI workers through networking and engagement.
Our initial engagement efforts have been focused on students in the LGBTQ+ community. This is for several reasons
to attract LGBTQ+ talent to the AI field;
to support LGBTQ+ students currently engaged in the AI field;
to understand the challenges, experiences and issues LGBTQ+ people in general have when engaging or interacting with AI.
We have kicked off our engagement efforts by reaching out to LGBTQ+ officers from universities across the UK to encourage their students to join our community, participate in our online mixer events, and to consider hosting in person graduate events where we will connect LGBTQ+ students and AI professional networks.
We are also reaching out to professional communities and interest groups focusing on the LGBTQ+ community to encourage participation in our online community and various LGBTQ+ focused professional events we are hosting throughout the year.
Why the LGBTQ+ community?
Well, we are a small team getting using personal networks, tenacity and caffeine to get our community engagement work off the ground! But we also see that our plans for the LGBTQ+ community could act as a framework for other areas of community engagement in the future.
How do I get involved?
Do you have a community that you are plugged into and want to champion in the AI ecosystem? Then why not become a Diverse AI community champion, and work to engage Diverse AI and your community? We are firm believers that community empowerment comes from people with lived experience, so this is you opportunity to get involved and amplify the voice of your community in the AI field.
Or do you want to support our work in engaging the LGBTQ+ community?
Either way, get in touch!