Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As you may know, Workplace Pride has active programs for younger LGBT people and for LGBT women in the workplace. For some time now, we have identified the need to also include technically-oriented LGBT professionals in our outreach. This came at the request of these people themselves. In past conferences we have made some steps in this direction through workshops focusing on engineers and technically-oriented LGBT professionals. We have also been in contact with the Dutch Institute for Engineers (KIVI) about this topic. Finally, there are a number of professional organizations for LGBT engineers and scientists existing in the UK and the USA, but none in continental Europe that we are aware of.
Part of the motivation for the proposed program is to highlight the increasing importance of inter-personal skills among technical professionals and, by default, LGBT technical professionals as well. Our thoughts are to create an LGBT peer-based platform among professionals to foster these skills within the framework of Workplace Pride.
With this background, we would like to suggest a meeting of interested individuals from among technically focused Workplace Pride members*, to determine if there is the appetite to create “Tech@WorkplacePride” program. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, the 22nd of March at 17:00 in the Workplace Pride office on Lijnbaansgracht. There will be drinks and substantial snacks served as well.
We would very much like to have your input on this topic, so if you will be able to join us, please confirm by the 15th of March at the latest to Liz@Workplacepride.org. Cap acity is limited to about 25 people, so it will be first come first serve.