Growing Diversity in Open Hardware: It’s a Task for All of Us!

### Overview This presentation introduces the Open Hardware Diversity Alliance, a collaborative initiative newly launched by Western Digital, CHIPS Alliance, and the OpenPOWER Foundation. Originating from discussions led by co-chair Marjan and supported by community members like Calista, the alliance was established to investigate and address why there are so few women and underrepresented individuals in open-source hardware. Its core objective is to create welcoming environments, foster career progression, increase visibility for emerging talent, and offer community-driven resources to support hardware engineering careers.

### Key Topics - **Organizational Model**: To maintain momentum and avoid the paralysis of excessive initial bureaucracy, the alliance launched with a small core team consisting of two co-chairs and five advisory team members. The operational work is divided into targeted focus areas termed "streams." - **Streams Framework**: - *Organizational Streams*: Focus on alliances/partnerships, operational metrics, marketing, and communications. - *Program Streams*: Community-facing initiatives designed to deliver concrete aid, including "Learn" (educational resources such as navigating workgroups or work-life balance), "Speak" (public speaking preparation and CFP submission support), "Mentor" (mentorship, allyship, and internal corporate sponsorship), "Talk" (inclusive language and outreach), "Recognize" (elevating technical accomplishments), and "Empower" (confidence-building and professional empowerment). - **Target Demographics**: The alliance explicitly targets organizations, individual contributors, aspiring leaders, and students. - **Outreach & Roadmap**: Following its launch, the initiative is recruiting volunteer stream leads, engaging partner organizations, and rolling out an educational webinar series starting in January 2022. Upcoming presence was scheduled for the OpenPOWER Summit, the Linux Foundation Member Summit, and the RISC-V Summit.

### Technical Details & Implementation - **Hands-on Student Programs**: Discussion highlighted initiatives to introduce younger students to open hardware, such as a proposed hands-on Zoom workshop leveraging a Doctor Who HiFive board to let children build a core and make LEDs blink. - **Academic & EDA Partnerships**: Collaborations were discussed involving student programs led by Danny, academic outreach around RISC-V architectures, and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) programs brought up by Dennis from Siemens/IEEE. The alliance aims to connect university students and faculty directly with open-source tooling, hands-on hardware, and internship pipelines. - **One-on-One Engagement**: Audience discussions underscored the importance of individual-level engagement rather than relying solely on high-level, mass-scale programs, noting that individualized technical eminence is vital when supporting underserved regional areas like parts of Asia, India, and China.

### Takeaways - Diversity in open hardware requires intentional structures, starting from early education through academic pipelines and professional sponsorship. - The alliance actively solicits participation from allies (led by Rob Mains from CHIPS Alliance) to develop practical allyship frameworks and tools. - Interested participants and organizations can register via `diversityhardware.org` or contact `info@diversityhardware.org` to join working streams and email lists.