The 2021 Melbourne Business Analytics Conference kicked off today. This is a four-day online conference with talks running from 10am-2pm, Monday to Thursday.
Screenshot of a web browser window showing a virtual conference layout, with boxes for speaker video, slides, Q&A, presenter information, and event resources.
42% female speakers
I’ve attended all four #MBSAnalytics conferences since they launched in 2017 [1] and have been constantly impressed with the gender diversity that Melbourne Business School have achieved with their speakers and panellists. This year, for example, 42% of speakers and panellists are women.
Screenshot of a column chart titled ‘% female speakers at #MBSAnalytics conference’. There are four columns on the chart, one each for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021. The percentage of female speakers and panellists shows above these columns is: 31%, 39%, 51%, and 42% respectively.
Not a manel in sight
Not just that, but at all four conferences there has never been a single manel (ie all-male panel of speakers and experts) – which I think is hugely impressive.
Screenshot of a webpage showing a grid of head shots. These are some of the speakers at the 2021 Melbourne Business Analytics conference. Half the speakers on the screen are female and two of the eight speakers shown are people of colour.
This is big deal
Tracking and reporting on the proportion of female speakers and panellists is important because (a) that’s not often tracked and (b) a high proportion is rarely achieved at conferences in this field. In fact, none of the business or analytics conferences I’ve attended in the last decade (?) have had more than a third of speakers who aren’t male.
The highest I’ve seen elsewhere was at MeasureCamp Melbourne in 2018 where 31% of the speakers were women. That took a bit of effort too, since the year before that number had been zero!
Photo of two hand drawn graphs on lined paper under the heading ‘Measure Camp Melbourne 24 Feb 2018’. The first chart shows 34% of attendees are women, the second shows 31% of speakers are women. That attendee percentage is an “estimate based on welcome session attendance”.
And it compares well with the industry
This high proportion of female speakers and panellists is particularly great because:
~29% of full time computer science graduates are women and
~35% of 2020 Melbourne Business School graduates were women.
Also, a couple of years ago I did a Professional Certificate in Business Analytics from Melbourne Business School. As part of that I took two subjects that had 17% and 30% female students respectively.
I know these numbers aren’t definitive, but it’s awesome that the proportion of female speakers at the #MBSAnalytics conference is at least higher than the proportion of women typically graduating into this field of work and study.
So kudos to the folks from Melbourne Business School who make this happen every year. This is already my favourite conference and seeing those stats makes it even better.
—
Footnote
[1] Your maths isn’t wrong. They’ve had four conferences in five years because they had to cancel their 2020 event because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
FYI
I’ve tweeted about these numbers each year I’ve attended this conference: 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.