RIPE 90
15 May 2025.
Main Room
6pm.
Diversity in tech
DENESH BHABUTA: Good afternoon everyone. My name is Denesh and I would like to welcome you all to for me the best session during the RIPE week.
We have 28 participants online, welcome to the online participants. There's clapping going on, please!
(APPLAUSE.)
So just some quick housekeeping. There's going to be two talks and the second talk is going to lead into a discussion where we want feedback from the audience and participation from the audience.
And if you have any questions after each of the talks, after the first talk for example, those in the room, microphones are on either side of me here, so come up to the microphone, mention your name and affiliation and then ask your question.
And if you are online, you need to go to Meetecho and in Meetecho you can either ask the question by typing it and the chat monitor will read it out for you, yes, over here. And if you would like, you could ask the question via audio or video.
So but yeah, I mean like you are seeing properly here, I am not Vesna because you would expect Vesna to be here, but unfortunately she wasn't able to be here and I am extremely honoured to be asked to stand in for her. So on with the show.
Taking some notes here, running events is a constant learning exercise, I have been running events for 20 years and the way I used to do it completely different to how I run them now, even Covid happened in between and Covid let us learn, forced us to learn different ways of engaging with the communities, with our audience, with the participants.
And all of that learning has meant that we have, over time, become more and more inclusive, more and more accessible to everyone's needs, or most people's needs, we are not quite there yet. But that's a point. The point is that the focus should be on constant evolution of running these events, logisticically, for the community, for the benefit and the growth of the future of the community.
It needs to be accessible and welcoming. Because where else would we find the future leaders of this community if not here.
But anyway, enough of me here, I'd like to introduce you to the first speaker, Maria. And please welcome Maria from CZ‑NIC on stage, she leads the BIRD project, developer who cares deeply about inclusion, finally shaped by her own experience as a celiac and who avoids alcohol and noisy spaces. Lately she's been raising important questions about accessibility at RIPE meetings. If you follow the mailing list, not to complain but to spark real change, and that's why she's here today, Maria.
MARIA MATEJKA: OK, thank you Vesna by proxy or Denesh for your introduction. Well, some of you probably remember an almost identical talk by me and Annie three RIPEs ago. Hello, Annie. But now I am trying to not burn the RIPE meeting, just returning to that same topic. Yeah.
This one. Well, this is the expected, this is what come on organisers of events expect from people with accessibility needs, please just come and ask and we will handle it somehow.
What can possibly go wrong?
So let's return back several RIPEs, at RIPE 87, the Rome meeting was kind of horrible considering accessibility. So there were actually two talks about accessibility. One by Sasha, thank you, Sasha, for that, and one by me and Annie about psychological barriers. And Sasha was about physical accessibility and then things went better, so I just wrote a summary email to the diversity mailing list and I got just one reply, wow!
And then there was RIPE 89 in Prague. And well, I wrote another summary email and things went a little bit worse, some parts of the things which went worst you can see on me physically, but there's another story. I got several replies missed but I thought more, well, it's going up and down and up and down and well, but, there were board games!
So yeah, there were some different hurdles. There were problems with physical movement and transportation. Remembering the RIPE 87 there were some visual problems, auditory problems like the ominous music in the background, some smells, some were and there eating and drinking has some weird consequences like somebody can get killed by eating something or drinking something, or have really weird health issues. There was a minority stress, especially at RIPE 87, but also at RIPE 88, there were concerns with Poland and LGBT and there were other problems like how much air, whether something is too hot or too cold. There is this gender difference between women and men on some conferences, it's the AC is set to so low temperatures that women who are expected to have more like bigger shoulders are freezing while the men in the suits are just comfortable and so on and so forth.
Well, what I found out that roasting is too late.
And it's not a good idea to just say this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong.
We should do some things to prevent problems and I love being informed in advance and cooperating rather than saying what went wrong or having to cope.
So it's better to say that you can't guarantee that my ‑‑ that the food at the event is going to be gluten free, please tell me that there will be none of that. I will cope with that, but I need to know it in advance. Otherwise I am going to come in hungry.
Also is it treatable? Hopefully. It's better to say no than comply formally, accessible toilets. And I am remembering some of those stories said by Sasha, accessible toilets are not to be used as a storage. They are to be used as accessible toilets, for example.
So what I propose and this proposal may be controversial. I have gotten some negative reactions on this, some positive, and which led me to add a slide actually, so I propose that we should have a team, let's say, a team or a group of several people who would, on one hand, consult accessibility with the meeting organisers, yes, the meeting organisers are able to do lots of things, but maybe they don't know everything. On the other hand, they could be the go‑to group for the participants with an accessibility need. And they could also produce accessibility information on their ‑‑ on the event website.
But it's quite some work and it means that these people become tokens and maybe you don't want to be so visible. And I got another question, and that's basically whether it's OK to do this work as a part of the community or whether it should be the responsibility of the organisers.
So basically my question is: What do you think about this? Is it a good idea to have a team built from us? Should we push RIPE NCC to have dedicated contacts for accessibility issues? Should we do anything else? That's a question for you. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE.)
DENESH BHABUTA: So we are actually looking for feedback for this question. Anyone in the audience want to come up to the microphone?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi, I'm Leo Vegoda. I think the fundamental concept of co‑operation is really good and I strongly support that. I think the fundamental challenge isn't a lack of willingness on the part of the RIPE NCC to do the right thing. I think it's the community has asked the RIPE NCC to travel around the continent and every meeting is a new venue, which means every venue is a new set of problems. And we have given the RIPE NCC an incredibly difficult set of problems to solve, fresh problems every single time and we always need to make trade offs and we have said that we want to optimise for locational diversity and to compromise that ‑‑ the compromise that we have chosen to make is people who have accessibility needs are going to struggle and so I think the set of questions that you have asked are absolutely excellent questions and I would ask in return, have we made the right balance between the demands we make at the RIPE NCC and the outcomes we expect at a venue versus the geographical diversity?
MARIA MATEJKA: Thank you, Leo, that's a good question. I personally don't know anything, whether it's good to or bad, but that's a good question added to all the set I proposed. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I am Rob Lister. Thanks for that. I think it's a good idea potentially. I am quite happy to be visible, not worried about that, but I think do we do it forever? I don't know. I think there is a learning experience for RIPE maybe to hear from people who need this accessibility at events and unless we have this contact with people, we don't necessarily know this is a problem because the ‑‑ to quote Donald Rumfeld, we don't know what we don't know until somebody points it out, oh yes, I had no idea it was an issue because it doesn't affect them. Maybe we should do it, but I don't know whether it should carry on indefinitely but I think maybe outcome, the outcome of it is like an a checklist or some document that comes out of that that says you know, this is what we should be doing as a standard, I do agree it's difficult at different venues and you go around and be it presents a totally different set up for every meeting.and I think the way to do that is to try to get engagement at an early stage when you are sort of considering venues and working out what's workable and what's not workable. I think my experience of it has been, oh, well, it's too late now, we have chosen the hotel months ago, there's not a lot we can do. But I think maybe we get involved in a bit of earlier stage, when the sort of selection of venues is being considered maybe? I don't know how possible that is.
MARIA MATEJKA: Yeah, thank you. Leo, that's also the ‑‑ mainly the checklist idea is something worth considering. I want to sneak in another question.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hisham RIPE NCC Chief Community Officer. Thank you for the talk. Thank you for the presentation. I was discussing this with Mirjam not two weeks ago saying that I think the diversity session is one of my favourite sessions at RIPE meetings. Not to say that I don't like the others, but out of this session, we get the most amount of actionable items at least from the community side of things, of what we can improve and how we can do things better.
You point out a few of them, thank you for doing so. I won't go through the history of them, but we have went through a period where we had to organise RIPE meeting in six months, which is impossible, thank you for the people that tried but we did what we could.
And now we are planning into the future, which is what we want to be doing so spoilers, you are going to hear me saying this in the services, we are already looking all the way to RIPE 100 where we are going to be doing. So if we want to do something like this, it needs to be done fast because we are scouting locations as we do this. If there's going to be a checklist or any community effort, we need to think about this fast before you find the next five years of meetings already booked. Having said that, one thing that I experienced also is we always try to be as inclusive as possible by attempts to do you cannot help but exclude somebody, for whatever reason.
There are meetings that weren't so popular, however the numbers came back saying the most amount of female speakers were at that meeting, for example, or the most accessible meeting was that one, stuff like that.
Finding that balance is something that we always try to achieve but we always know that we cannot attain.
However, that doesn't keep us from trying. That doesn't keep us from trying to put more information on the website, especially when it comes to safety. You cannot have a community without safety.
So and accessibility. And inclusion by getting more people in so I feel I have already given the lightning talk, I'm sorry for that but it's a balancing act and the more involvement from the community, so thank you for the efforts you have been doing on the mailing list and at these meetings and everybody else that presented, Sasha, Anna and Leo, we now have bigger fonts on the name cards from last year so really thank you for all the feedback you have been giving. I will stop here, thank you.
Thank you. Just very quickly, we are closing the line, the questions line after Ghana.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Maybe I think like since I am sure that RIPE NCC is counting multiple occasions at the same time getting an accessibility team for each of them or have a point, would it be a lot but at the same time I think that a checklist could be made maybe even, maybe I think this accessibility team is a bit over cull because those lists can be just co‑operatively made on the fly at this meeting or the next meeting and so on and I think the main reason so not the RIPE NCC wouldn't look at those things but maybe doesn't think like it happened in Rome, nobody thought there was no elevator to the basement because it was expected to be there. But having just a list of those things could help a lot the NCC in their scouting.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Anna Wilson, Hennet, I when he I see a question like should we have an accessible team, I think in terms of accountability: Who is responsible for running the meeting? It's the RIPE NCC. It's an organisation with staff who have funding, who make decisions and who make the kind of compromises that we just heard about. It's always a balancing act running events, always is, anyone here who has ever run an event knows that.
I think an accessibility team could be an excellent idea and can work very well if there's a way for it to work well in some sort of, let's say, advisory position or something like that, with the NCC who we then have to accept will need to make decisions and when someone turns around to the NCC and asks them to make decisions, that's always really tough because we tend to start in this community by starting asking questions under what policy did you make that decision and I don't want to think what about a policy for this would look like.
I think a team is a good idea but I think the ‑‑ since the decisions must be made by the NCC, because they bear the ultimate accountability for it, I think it has to be run by the NCC and volunteers can provide input to that and then there's some sort of shape can be painted around that. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi, Ger Ghana. I have a comment and I want to read a comment from the Q&A, my personal comment. I just want to mention that the events team at RIPE NCC already has a checklist to the comment of the gentleman earlier, we do check that at the early stages of the scouting, two years before the RIPE meeting when we go, we do ask these questions, keep in mind in some cities there's only one option. In Lisbon thos was the only hotel that could fit the RIPE meeting. So we are facing the question of do we go to Lisbon or not. And if we do go to Lisbon, this is the only option. I know the events team is looking at least in one other country where we have never been before, where there's only one option available, this is also something to keep in mind. The reason I am telling is not because we don't negotiate with the hotels, there's still things we can do after we come and see and you know, there's two years time so we could negotiate for them to make changes and we do that. But also I want to encourage all of you like the more people go to reception, for example, and say hey, by the way, this could be improved, that could be improved, it could make a difference, I think, to hotels, they would eventually, you know, or maybe a feedback form that you are filling out after your stay, yeah, I would like to encourage you to help us to do that.
And then I want to read a comment from Sasha. He says I think when it comes to the accessibility team that you are proposing, it's awkward for me to reach the mic, I will type through here, I like this concept but I'm not looking for more unpaid work, so I am not leaning to volunteer myself. The risk with efforts like this to me is putting more work on already marginalised people. That's the comment. Thank you.
MARIA MATEJKA: Thank you. Thank you all for the comments. The conclusion I am taking from this is that probably we should cooperate with RIPE NCC on updating the checklist or checking whether the checklist is actually checking all the boxes and the team is an overkill. Thank you for the opportunity to open this topic and I think we can move this to the mailing list and move to the ‑‑ move to to the next one. Thank you.
DENESH BHABUTA: Thank you. Joining us now is Laura, a consult at RIPE NCC, please welcome her on stage.
(APPLAUSE.)
Laura has been working on rethinking and redesigning the RIPE fellowship programme, an initiative that was born out of the diversity task force to help bring fresh voices into the RIPE community and today she's here to open a conversation with all of you both in person and online about the future of the mentorship programme, which I prefer to call the mentee programme.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: That's right, that's a good point.
Good afternoon everybody. Those who are here, thank you. This is the last talk so I guess you are tired, but particularly those that are online, thank you for being there. Let me also do a particular welcome to the newcomers and to the mentees and to the mentors. Of course.
So about the mentoring programme, this is going to be a discussion so I am not going to talk much, but I need to read some context and data to spark the conversation. So a bit of history, the RIPE mentoring programme started as a pilot in 2018 at RIPE 77 and the goal was to help the newcomers to understand the community, to feel welcome and to see what is their position here, how can they contribute.
And this is one of the goals that also ensures somehow to bring more voices, more diversity and there's some other programmes the RIPE community has, as the RACI programme, and the RIPE fellowship programme, that brings people from different regions that otherwise they couldn't attend because they couldn't afford it. So new voices.
Yes? The process is very simple, very lighthearted, if you will. The mentoring programme is open for online and both on site as you know. You will share your willingness to be assigned to a mentor in the registration form and there is something they would like to hear your opinion of the mentees to what extent were you aware what it means when registering for the RIPE meeting and then pretty you are matched pretty much according to your language with your mentor. Like I said, very light touch.
On numbers, there is something that is stunning, so when we are trying to improve things, it's also important to see what we have achieved so far and I think there's something remarkable here is that we don't see in other communities in mentors, and mentees, the ratio almost has been one‑one and that's impressive, it means that so many people in the community is putting some time into help newcomers to feel welcomed and other communities I have seen, that ratio doesn't exist, the ratio is more than three times, it's something that's commendable and you should celebrate.
We are not doing so well when it comes to diversity. In the middle you have the gender distribution of the RIPE 90 on site, attendees. And on the left and the right, the mentees and mentors, distribution.
If we go a bit deeper, a more granular perspective, we see the evolution of the distribution with mentors, and you can see here there was a spike RIPE 78 started and then things kind of got to the point today we don't have any women mentors, and a bit of that spike happened because in RIPE 73, the diversity conversation started, and many others as well. And I think it's why so many women ‑‑ so many women ‑‑ many women came on in this programme but right now, not so many.
So enough about numbers, let's talk the talk.
By the way, I'm a newcomer as well. So I really encourage you, the mentees, and newcomers, to come here because as Denesh was saying, the Mentoring programming is for the newcomers and the mentees, I would love to hear the experience of the mentees, why did you apply, did you realise you were applying for, was it clear, what was the purpose, how has been your experience so far and I welcome mentees from this year and also former mentees, to the mic.
Don't be shy.
DENESH BHABUTA: Also if there are any mentees here who are a bit shy coming up to the microphone, you can actually type in Meetecho and your question will be read out or your comment will be read out. Even for the mentors, actually. So. Anyone?
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: No, no. Someone is coming? Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi everybody my name is Constanze, I am working for the federal agency for public safety, digital radio so a government network operator. It's my first time at a RIPE meeting and somebody recommended this mentoring programme to me.
So on the register form, I didn't recognise it at the first sight and maybe that's a point to highlight this set of where you can mark it for the next ‑‑ on the next register form.
And yeah, my mentor, he is a participant, he participate over years, he has a lot of experience and we keep in touch like after every session, he is asking me so what are your experiences, what did you hear and he is introducing me to important people and so it's easier to get in touch for me with others. And so I can only recommend this kind of programme, and I am thankful that this programme is there for first time, yeah, attendees, like me.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hello, my name is Sandra, I come from Telecom in Bosnia. I'm a fellow for this RIPE90, this is my first RIPE meeting. I was also a fellow in Sofia C13, that's where we met, and after our conversation afterwards, you told me about this mentorship programme and I applied since I thought it would be nice to have someone with experience to like tell you important stuff and to get the most of RIPE meeting. So my mentor is Eric and he is a great guy and he is really nice to talk to and to meet me with new people and I am really glad I applied.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you, glad to hear that. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: So well I am here, this is my sixth RIPE, it went quickly. My mentor was Livio in Rotterdam and I think that the first thing about a mentor I think is how to connect with the community, it's not directly a thing about which talks or when and so on. But maybe I would like to speak about how can, like we have already, it has already been said a few times to not really, it's not like you are not part of the community but like to really get a hang of the whole community and everything, it takes around three RIPE meetings. The question is I think it's the way things are here, huge community and everything, but I would really ask how to, when it comes to the fellowship, how to enable people to come back because some cannot come back ever with the funds that are needed, how to maybe persist that over more than one RIPE meeting so you can stay in the loop and so on.
So on the other hand the person that I have been stayed in touch is from Slovenia and that's who I ask when things are happening in the other meetings and also on the first one but Livio did a great job, I would ask how to persist that for more than one RIPE meeting to really integrate people into the community.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: I will ‑‑ maybe we can take that answer afterwards. I just move, I will come to you. Thank you. Thank you for your feed back. Is there any more mentees on Meetecho? No, I will move to the next question.
And for that, this is something that's also important to commend, it's impressive how many times the RIPE community has volunteered to be a mentor. And we have representation here of many genders which is also beautiful to see. So that brings the question: What makes you volunteer again, and again, and again?
And what would be your piece of advice for a mentor that is doing it for the first time? So please mentors, come to the mic.
Or the Meetecho. Particularly women and other genders as well please, this is the time, thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: How I was attended to the mentor programme kind of alludes me at the moment, but anyway, I checked the box because I have been to quite a few RIPE meetings and in the past I thought it's a tightly knit group, it might feel like on old boys/old girls network and if you are a newcomer it might be daunting for you to see and, yeah, have to fit in, if that is the right word, yeah. Is it more like a process which could take several meetings and especially go to the associations, yeah, before you would, before you might reach the same level, the level if you look at this RIPE meeting and you see the long‑time attendees coming to the meeting and they help each other and greet each other very warmly, I thought there's a thing, yeah, you also want to have the newcomers to eventually get that experience.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: What drove you to become a mentor to help them?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Exactly, also to tell the stories because of my, yeah, my long‑time attendeeship, so to say, yeah, I know, I want to tell them, so I ask the mentee about yeah, but what are your interests and then I know, yeah, I can go to that person and have a little talk with him and try to introduce him to these other long‑time attendees.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Right, any piece of advice for first time mentors, based on your experience?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Be curious about your mentee, ask them about their interests and what brings them to the meeting and have an open mind.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Good, thank you. Thank you Robin. How do we do this? I don't know how.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi, hello, I am...
I think I have been a mentor because I want to, well, be part of the community and help the community and one way to make you feel part of the community, and it's not that difficult being a mentor, it's just having a little bit of time for someone who is there for the first time, you know it can be intimidating the first time you come to a RIPE meeting and especially if you are a student or a young person, it can be like 600, seven hundred people around you that you don't know, it can be a little bit difficult.
So, yeah. It's just, it makes you feel good. So I recommend it to everybody because it's a way to help. I would recommend it for first time mentors, also to be curious about your mentee and ask about interests and see how you can steer this person in the right direction of course. On the other hand, for the RIPE NCC, I would like to ask for making it easier to volunteer, somehow. It's in the registration form, but I don't feel it like very easy thing to do, and make it attractive too, it's not attractive right now. You can be there, of course, but it's not something like, wow, I am going to be a mentor. Make it more attractive.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: OK, thank you.
DENESH BHABUTA: Next one is microphone to my left.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: My name is Wolfgang. I was dragged along by a friend to the RIPE meeting some ten years ago or so, he introduced me to all interesting people and to the way the community works long before the mentor programme actually existed, so I thought it's a really good thing and I profited from pre‑not‑yet‑organised mentor programme actually, I now wanted to give back. I found it quite fun to meet new people every time and learn about different viewpoints and new people on the community.
One thing that I would like to have from the RIPE NCC or from RIPE is to make the introductions between mentor and mentee a bit earlier. So it's currently ‑‑ it's usually less than a week before the meeting and that's a very short time. Advise to new mentors, something I found helpful to mentees is before the meeting to get to introduce them to stuff like, for example, what do people wear at the meeting, information like that and all mentees that I gave that advice too thought it was really helpful for them. So yeah. I experienced many different kinds of mentees, I think two no‑shows in the time. I had one mentee who basically came to the community to sell something to people. I told him that it would probably not work, but he tried anyway. But most of the others I think were just...
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you.
DENESH BHABUTA: To my right and then we're back to Ondrej.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I have been mentoring since post‑Covid all the meetings I attended because I have been involved with this community for something like almost 25 years in various ways. So trying to introduce more people seemed like the least I could do. I think RIPE is quite inclusive and I wanted to be part of that because over the years I made many friends here. I think the mentoring programme just works fine, yes, being introduced a few days in advance could help but other than that, I can speak for the others ‑‑ I can't speak for the others but it's been working well for me.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Any piece of advice for the first time mentors?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Apply common sense. Always works.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I am actually first time mentor so I hope you don't mind I jump in. So for what made me volunteer was that after Covid, I didn't travel for a while and then I'm seeing a lot of new people who I don't know, so I also do feel like a newcomer to this community because there is a lot of new younger people than I am because I have been doing this for like 20 years, so I found it's like a great opportunity to meet new people who come to RIPE meetings to become a mentor as well.
And what piece of advice I would like to get as a first time mentor, well, the problem, well, it's maybe anecdotal because my mentee didn't come because of a visa problem and I exchanged email from him and his questions are more like policy based, like should I get an AS number or something, and my feeling about this programme is it's more RIPE commentary about the mentor/mentee programme and I will handle this like gracefully, I will like redirect him to right places but it would be easier for me if they actually came here to these meetings but am I right feeling it's more about the community than about policy and procedures? So that's ‑‑ I don't know as a first time mentor, I am like well, it's just... I got the question from my mentee.
DENESH BHABUTA: May I answer that? OK, I am jumping the queue here as well because the thing is that in answering Ondrej's question, when I think of the mentee programme, I think of it as an ‑‑ I volunteer time and time again, you can tell me how many times.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Five or six.
DENESH BHABUTA: Thank you. And I have also run mentee programmes in organisations I have worked in in the past. For me it's about building the community, the thing is we are an ageing community and if we don't find the new entrants into this industry, if you don't find new entrants and the younger generations, there's no one here to replace us and what happens then. So my main thing is yes, you are right Andre, it is go growing the community and as a first time advice to first time mentors, is actually you know think about it in terms of how does it build your network as well. And you are helping someone and it's like being a bit like a teacher where you are teaching someone some skill or teaching something, you are actually learning yourself. So while you are growing somebody else's network, you are also growing your own and that just make the community work better, more diverse and it becomes a sustainable thing.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you.
DENESH BHABUTA: So. Yes. Back to you.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: May I say, Sebastian Becker, ten times mentor.
(APPLAUSE.)
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you. I was lucky my mentor basically as I joined my first RIPE meeting was with me because it was my mentoring at work actually and we joined the RIPE meeting together, he is a very old timer at that point, from the beginning of the first reap meetings there, so I was introduced into that surrounding and that's basically what I also want to give back, I was welcomed, I was introduced to people, so why not do it by myself. I am now attend since RIPE 54 which is awhile and on the other hand, Denesh already mentioned that, you would not imagine how you broaden your own scope, I talk now maybe to people I would not talk to because it's not directly to do with my work or what I do but I get some other insights because of that, so I win as well, so just do it. And maybe I am a bit blind, I don't prepare a lot for being a mentor, I try to be open for the person that has questions, I try to myself if they have, if they want to talk to someone, I try to find this person. That's all. That's not rocket science but you can, I think, give a lot back to the community and that's what I like, that's what I do.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: May I add to that the newcomers are new at the meeting, not necessarily new in the industry. So there is a win‑win here always. Thank you.
DENESH BHABUTA: Just a time check. We have got about ten minutes remaining, I believe we have to empty the room in about ten minutes, yes. OK. So after Gregan, we'll stop the queue there in case there are other questions.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Online comment from Amber Anna, speaking on behalf of herself, I think one thing I have noticed is there is a big inconsistency of the role the mentor is expected to be; for example, how much initiative they are meant to take? I know as someone fairly new to the community I struggled with getting into conversations with people, but I didn't lose my mentor, thank you. (Check? )
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: My name is Gerard, I am speaking for myself and I just had to two questions and do you have a reading guide or guides about mentoring and what metrics are you keeping or meant to keep?
I am ‑‑ I collaborate with several communities, one of them is the chaos, the Community Health and OpenSource Software and they do keep a lot of metrics about how to measure the scope or the results of each initiative. So for mentoring, it's also important, not only for the person, not only for the mentor that's going to know if it's being effective in its work but also for the mentee to see how well the mentor has performed previously.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Like I said at the beginning, it's been our light touch project that has had huge impact because of the community involvement. There has not been, that I am aware of, metric tracking but since the potential is there and the engagement has been so consistent as you can see on the data that I have shared with you, that is the conversation happening because we wanted to be more. So I am afraid I can't share more data than I already have.
More questions? Mentors. This could be controversial, or not. But do you believe this programme has the potential to become a powerful tool for identifying the future RIPE community leaders?
Comments? And in the context of this programme that has I guess has been light touch, that we are reviewing and maybe become something else, yeah, with more assistance, if you will, how much time would you be willing to commit? Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi, this is Shane Kerr from IBM, I tend to think that potential leaders are self‑identifying like you meet them and they are very enthusiastic, they are interested in a subject you are doing, they fall in love with the community and the openness they have and I don't know that we need an a tool to identify them as much as just through work logs, let people know it's possible and that's also something that we shouldn't rely on the mentors in particular to do, I think it's more all of us in the community and the mentors, are kind of the first step for that but, that's basically it.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you Shane, yes.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi, I think there's probably ‑‑ my name is Leo, still. I think there's a few different kinds of people who come to RIPE meetings, some people come to RIPE meetings for purely functional reasons. They have a problem to solve, they come to the RIPE meeting and hopefully solve their problem and they will never come back. Then there are people who are at the start of their career and they don't know what they are going to do in their career and they come to the RIPE meeting and see if there's a fit and obviously we want to be welcoming to both of those groups. And then there are people who want to be in this part of the technology industry and they are the people who are going to potentially become your future leaders but distinguishing them is quite difficult and you want to be welcoming to all of them anyway.
So why would you use the mentoring programme to go and say this is where we are going to find the future leaders?
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Do you want to answer that question? You know the magic or the beauty of the mentoring programme from my perspective, it puts together somebody that has ‑‑ may have a lot of experience in the industry but no idea of who are the RIPE community and all of a sudden, you have this person who is so well ‑rounded with a huge knowledge in the community and everything in between and because the system that is immersed and this dialogue could have potential impact, very profound impact if we look at it and take care of it in a proper way. I don't want to instrumentalise or put products in place but I think it's an opportunity that is so magical that, I mean, we need more voices, more diverse, what is the better opportunity than there with a person that knows what the community, get to know somebody that is new and we don't miss that opportunity. That's a thing, I think there's a magical moment there that we can leverage that, that's it.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: That makes sense, that's great. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Straight as an answer to your question, no. I will resonate with what's being said before, this mentorship programme is great and I think it's a powerful tool and we all understand its potential, please keep it, please improve it. However, the no comes from you do not want to, this programme is a resource, to cultivate new leaders of the this community, and lure them, if that's the right word, to point them where they can go. However, it's not a special lane for leadership. There are ‑‑ we have mechanisms installed in the RIPE community how to select ‑‑ elect leaders and those are to stay there, whoever and however you happen to feel that you are part of this community. Through the mentorship programme, perfect. You maximise your resources to benefit from. But you may have also come to the community through unofficial mentorship programmes like in Sebastian's case; we are colleagues of the newcomer, the colleague already, they open the introductions for you or you have a business motivation to do because it helps you in your network. So let's not make it a special lane for leadership but something we can use to cultivate that leadership group for the future.
And for the how much time would you be willing to commit, if this is a question for the mentors, again I am asking, again resonating to the previous comment about having guidelines and specifying the expectation is very important from the beginning, often the mentor and the mentee, they can have their different expectations from out of this interaction. Talking about it in a timely manner before you hit the ground, there's a match between the mentee and mentor as well, those are very important aspects and I think people need some time for that to, for that to ultimately evolve and once it happens I think that commitment comes more naturally as that time but really sharing this is my expectation from you as my mentor or mentee and can we agree on that, is super important, not only for this programme and for this community, it's also the same in other platforms. If you go there into a relationship with different expectations, it can get tricky as we know. So if RIPE NCC can help with that to push mentors, to set out this is how I would like to work, does it work for you, mentee becoming a bit more outward maybe, OK, these are the things I want to get from you as a mentor and sharing that in advance I think it will help to grow better grounding for the programme.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you very much.
DENESH BHABUTA: We have only got three minutes remaining, I will close the line here. Do you want to finish on this question? Or would you like to, sorry about this, we are very short of time.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: I think it's OK, come.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I will be very short, so keep it lightweight because when you put a weight like identifying leaders on the mentors, it will probably kill it for me, keep it very lightweight.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I keep it short. Yes and no, there are often ‑‑ good mentors are good leaders, and good leaders are good mentors, vice versa. But the people who want to get leaders, most of the times are not good mentors and not got leaders so calling these two words in one sentence will attract the wrong people. Yes.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Very briefly, also to the answer is no because I think of the mentorship programme as an equaliser, as a level playing field, that's what is the problem, I remember my debut in the RIPE community, I didn't know the culture, I was at a disadvantage. So the mentorship programme can like even things out and whoever wants to become a leader, then have the same chances as the other. I have been mentoring unofficially and I continue to mentor unofficially for all, I prefer women, who want to grow and come to leadership position. But for you next time, I will officially commit to become a mentor.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you. (APPLAUSE.)
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Thank you very much, I am presenting here, ICANN community I would like very shortly to share with you our successful stories. My answer is yes to this question and I think we should in our community, communities ‑‑ need to be very attentive not only for fellow but to people who tried to be fellow but was refused for some reasons and usually it's very passionate persons, they would love to participate a lot and they are searching mainly other ways to participate in the real works and so we have, you have official mentors, inside of our communities but everyone can be non‑official mentors, you just need to ask questions, just need to participate in real working calls every day. So it was my way and now so I am having a leadership position inside of my community, so it was a good way and a lot of challenges but it is, thank you.
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Thank you.
DENESH BHABUTA: Any closing words?
LAURA LORENZO DE GRACIA: Well I can only share gratitude for your time, I know it's late and you may be hungry. If you want to continue it conversation, I would love it and I appreciate you going to the mic. I put some controversial questions I know, but that is is how we get the people talking and that's what I like the most. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE.)
DENESH BHABUTA: Thank you, Laura.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Can I just say one, I am listening and just kind of to wrap it up, I am hearing from the community and thanks so much for organising this, is we should continue the mentorship and in a lightweight fashion and also learn from other communities how they do it and how they, you know, have been successful, maybe provide some more guidance like a handout for mentors, and go interview long‑term mentors, to see what worked and didn't work and make it a bit for attractive for mentors, and maybe also for mentees to find the tick box on the register to match and provide more visibility to the programme, just kind of if I can summarise what I heard from the community and I hope I didn't miss anything. So thanks.
DENESH BHABUTA: Thank you. OK, well thank you, Laura, and thank you, Maria, as well for your talk earlier. Thank you everyone for being here so late. And now on to the social. See you next time.
