Putting together a good conference program is hard. Ensuring the topics are relevant and attracting talented speakers that people want to hear is only further complicated by the commercial aspects of covering costs and turning a profit for the organizers.

But a couple weeks ago, I happened to be walking out of the same conference talk as Richard Bradshaw, and we ended up having a chat about how we seem to be slipping back into “male only” line ups for not just keynotes but also track talks.

This idea that the “best” talks are what’s represented at conferences (as a lot of us just experienced) is just BS. As a veteran attendee, speaker, and selection committee member at many, many tech conferences, I can assure you that in my experience and opinion, bias and preference plays a great deal in who you see on that stage.

Earlier this year I gave up a speaking slot on a male only AI panel, which is particularly annoying as all the important research and hard work in AI ethics is being done by women. I get that striking the right balance between topics and underrepresented communities can present difficult choices for conference committees, but we can do a whole lot better than that.

I’ve written before about how little of my life experiences has been down to things I can control like effort and hard work, and the rest has just been dumb luck and privilege. So because of that, I am completely comfortable with limiting/rejecting speakers on gender/race and think the good it accomplishes far outweigh the occasional bruised ego.

Personally, I am unabashedly inclined to give preferential treatment to new speakers or underrepresented communities and feel that, although they are commercial ventures, it is the responsibility of conferences to have a social conscience and that we should be giving our money to organizations that recognize those two principles are not at odds.

So, although it might seem like progress has been made, even some of the best diversity programs have failed or just been cancelled outright in this new climate and this needs our endless vigilance.

Unless you see this issue as just politically correct cosmetics and not one of social responsibility or sound business sense, increased diversity in who we see at tech conferences is more than justified.