Flock 2018 - Imposter Syndrome Workshop and Unconscious Bias Training [Part 1]
Channel: Fedora Project
Date: 2018-09-03

Thursday, August 9, 2018 
9:00am - 10:00am 
@Meissen + Radebeul

Talk: Imposter Syndrome Workshop and Unconscious Bias Training
Presenters: Jona Azizaj, Justin W. Flory, Bee Padalkar, Amita Sharma

Description: This session will involve a one hour Imposter Syndrome workshop followed by an hour long Unconscious Bias training.

What is Imposter Syndrome and why we need to discuss it?
Impostor Syndrome is the feeling that you aren’t actually qualified for the work you are doing and will be discovered as a fraud. It is prevalent amongst a lot of members of open tech/culture, especially people from underrepresented backgrounds, many of whom have been socialised to value other’s opinion of their work above their own, and to do things “by the book.”

What to expect from attending the Imposter Syndrome workshop?
The workshop will enable attendees to understand, identify and talk about impostor syndrome and provide some guidelines on managing it during our day-to-day life.

What to expect from Unconscious Bias training and why is it relevant?
People make, and sometimes act on, snap judgments based on the other person’s race, without any conscious intention. The training will begin with demonstrations of how the mind operates in such ways that are outside of conscious awareness or control. We will then move on to enable attendees to understand and identify such interactions in their daily life and will provide suggestions on how to be more inclusive in such collaborative environments. I feel that in a diverse and collaborative community like Fedora, it is important for us to be able to learn to identify our implicit biases in order to have effective and inclusive communication.

Further notes:

The Imposter Syndrome Workshop and Unconscious Bias Training will be adapted from training resources and guidelines from Ada Initiative and Google from Fedora community and my prior experience in this area. I am welcome to suggestions about more resources.

This session is a part of Diversity and Inclusion Team activities and we feel that conducting this workshop and training at FLOCK will allow us to have a wider and better impact on Fedora community in these directions.

Attendees are welcome to attend either of the sessions individually i.e. You can join/leave at the one hour mark when the second session begins. The first session will be Imposter Syndrome workshop. The second session will be Unconscious Bias training.