The struggle of @black_in_ai organizers trying to bring a diverse audience to #neurips reminds me of a point @erica_joy made in an interview:
“We aren’t thinking about the lost time spent having to fight those issues.”
These researchers are providing a service to the community which comes at a cost. We need to be better at acknowledging this and providing support.
We definitely need to look into stream lining the visa process for conference attendees. I think some sort of official notification directly from lead organizers to government organizations to expect applications from identified individuals would help greatly.
Posted by
Mel @ #NeurIPS2018
Along this line, what can we do to support people who are facing these struggles? I've been thinking about ways to develop networks and support to try and impact the culture of groups, but that seems impossible in such sparse communities. #NeurIPS
Posted by
Alex Kearney 👩🏼💻🤖