Better Together Diversity Networking Lunch (sponsored by Walmart Labs)

If youd like to make new professional connections and hear ideas for supporting diversity in the tech community, come to the diversity and inclusion networking lunch on Wednesday.

Sponsored by: If you’d like to connect with fellow attendees and hear ideas for supporting diversity in the tech community, join us for a networking luncheon on Wednesday. In addition to time for conversation with fellow attendees, this lunch will feature a brief presentation: Welcome from Walmart and its Diversity team! [Watch it here.] Cat Lopez is a manager on the Walmart eCommerce Diversity & Inclusion Team. Cat is a passionate leader who strives to connect cultures, community and people. She is a culture champion who has driven inclusion through community outreach, her work with the Walmart Foundation and her leadership of Walmart’s Associate Resource Groups. Through her development of the Uncorked Chronicles speaker series, she has influenced and engaged executives in candid conversations around diversity topics that matter most to associates. Cat continues to propel the Walmart eCommerce D&I program forward by increasing awareness, adoption and activity across the organization. The Will Test [Watch it here.] The Joel Test is a well-known metric for evaluating the quality of a software engineering team. Ever since Joel Spolsky wrote his classic blog post, engineers have been using his methodology as a way to determine if a company is a good place to work. As an engineer from an underrepresented group, there are usually other factors to heavily consider that fall outside the realm of the Joel Test. William Hill has dubbed these concerns the Will Test, a list of nine factors that minority engineers can use to evaluate the culture of a company and companies can use to create a more inclusive environment. William Hill is a software engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has worked as a full stack engineer and a DevOps engineer, writing tools for subject-matter experts in nonproliferation and climate science while at LLNL. He is a proponent of increasing diversity in the computing field by recruiting and mentoring engineers from underrepresented groups. Moderator Suzanne Axtell has worn many hats during her 19 years at O’Reilly Media. She’s currently the project manager for the conference websites, leads diversity and inclusion initiatives, and is on a mission to help bring more diverse speakers and participants to O’Reilly tech events. This event is open to all attendees with a Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Bronze pass—there’s no need to RSVP. We’ll see you there!