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This wiki was developed out of conversations at Blogher 2005. Mary Hodder started the wiki, with the generous donation of Socialtext for the space, in order to give conference organizers a place to sort by topic to find "untypical speakrs" for their events, conferences and other situations where speakers are showcased. Particularly in the tech community, we've seen conference organizers continually seeking the same short list of "default" speakers. Both conference organizers we've spoken to, and audiences, are interested in quality that comes with some diverse points of view and experiences that come through a better mix of speakers.

Since the founding of the Speaker's Wiki, hundreds of women and minorities have added themselves to the wiki.

This wiki is meant to be used to sort speakers by topic, so that new speakers can find their way to conferences. Some speakers also use it to list all their speaking engagements and activities, keeping their pages as a speaker bureau might. However, some speakers use the pages differently. Therefore the wiki can function in whatever flexible way makes sense for the needs of conference organizers and speakers, adapting as the speaking/conference environments change.

Additionally, we are working on a set of Guidelines for Conference/Event Organizers to help organizers do a better job of finding variety in their speaker lists. We don't want to shame organizers into feeling bad, we want to help them with practical solutions toward finding more diversity and interesting speakers which benefits everyone.

Supporting events and conferences who consult this wiki and support it's mission