A Heart for Diversity

To open with a whopper of an understatement, tech is not a very diverse place. It's an onslaught of vanilla (white-cis-het-men). And that's too bad, because we would all be better off if we could benefit from the talent and insight of people from all kinds of backgrounds. Unfortunately the people from groups who are the least represented are also the ones with the fewest opportunities, and the most systemic hurdles in their way.

Doing something about this, however small, has been dear to our hearts for many years. In fact, most of the organizing team know each other from coaching or participating in Rails Girls Berlin (now Code Curious), and being the organizers of ClojureBridge Berlin, both initiatives that offer free coding workshops to women.

That's why we have a Opportunity Grant program at Heart of Clojure, so people from underrepresented groups can get a little bit of extra support. Giving a free ticket is relatively easy, but we try to also offer financial support for travel and hotel. After all these are often the most expensive parts of visiting a conference.

People can pitch in for this fund through our ticketing platform. You can give any amount, there's no minimum donation. We match every euro donated, so for every euro you give, 2 euros go directly to bringing someone to Heart of Clojure. So far our attendees have donated €290, which after matching is €580. That pays for a single person, we really hope we can do better!

If you belong to an underrepresented group and would like to apply for an Opportunity Grant, then you can do so until Sunday, June 30, end of day.

Heart of Clojure is made possible thanks to help of these Gold level sponsors: Clojurists Together, and Nubank.