Diversity Scholarships
Introduction
The goal of #include <C++> is to help make the C++ community more inclusive. Our diversity scholarships send people to major conferences and include conference admission (provided for free or at an enormous discount by the conference), accommodation and travel, as well as access to events like speaker dinners.
We will consider any candidate from an under-represented background with regards to the usual C++ conference attendees. For example, under-representation could be:
- gender related (women, trans people, non binary people among others),
- sexuality (LGBQ+),
- heritage (cultural, ethnic and/or racial identity),
- geographical (less represented areas),
- health or body related (attendees with reduced mobility, blind people among others),
- career path related (long time job-seekers, career changers),
- people with specific financial issues.
The applications will be treated as confidential and go to a small selection committee within #include <C++> and they will choose the delegates that will attend.
Travel and lodging expenses can cost between $1,000 and $3,000 USD per attendee, depending on where the candidate is and the accommodations they need.
Past Fundraisers
| Conference | Funds Raised | Scholars Sent |
|---|---|---|
| CppCon 2018 | US $ 4,000 | 4 |
| C++ on Sea 2019 | £ 1,445 | 5 |
| CPPP 2019 | Proceeds of T-shirt sales used | 1 |
| ACCU 2019 | £ 1,644 | 3 |
| CppCon 2019 | US $ 4,694 | 2 |
| ACCU Autumn 2019 | £ 438 | 1 |
| ACCU 2020 | £ 1,635 See below |
- |
| CppEurope 4 2020 | Tickets donated by the conference | 4 |
| TOTAL | 20 |
Unfortunately ACCU 2020 was cancelled. We are working on recovering funds already spent on conference tickets and travel arrangements that will no longer be used or carrying them forward to next year where possible.
Scholar Testimonials
ACCU 2019 Recipient
The first time I heard of #include <C++> was at Meeting C++ 2018. I didn’t buy a T-Shirt then but I joined the Discord Server. First, I just stayed around, reading messages. After a while I started to participate and mostly asking questions about an in-house talk I was about to give. I got a lot of great advice and the talk ended up to be a success.
A while later I read about scholarships for the ACCU 2019 conference in Bristol. I looked up the schedule for ACCU a while ago and it looked very interesting. But since I already went to a conference on my company’s budget in that year, there was no way they could send me to another one. So, I decided to apply for the scholarship (with a little encouragement from the #include people). I was very happy when I got accepted. The scholarship included a full conference ticket, the travel and the hotel. This is really amazing.
I already met some #include people at the airport. And while I have no problem with travelling alone, I felt really nice to already get to know them. I also very much enjoyed the conference and so many people told me that I have I voice and that they want to hear what I have to say, I decided to ask my colleague to do a conference talk with me. He immediately agreed and so we gave our first conference talk at Meeting C++ 2019 and more will follow.
I also got lots of help and really great advice on the #include <C++> discord server, like with the abstract, my speakers bio even with the question what I should wear.
I’m so grateful that I got the opportunity to go to ACCU conference and where it brought me.
ACCU Autumn 2019 Recipient
I don’t remember exactly where I heard of #include but at somepoint I joined the discord server and discussed stuff and got pointed to the scholarship, applied and got selected to go to the autumn conference.
I decided to get there via the train+coach/ferry route (12 hours each way) due to the potential for harassment from airport security (I’m trans/nonbinary and very visibly so, amongst other things that affect my external behaviour to be “atypical”) and lack of gender-congruent ID, and it was all paid-for which I am very happy about and grateful for and the organisers had no trouble helping me using the coach instead of the aeroplanes.
After getting to the airport (since coaches stop there) I met with the two people who did the organising and also could be there, and we had some pretty nice food and a chat - (they were lovely), watched the intro talk, and then I went to my room (also all paid for) - not having to worry about preparing and the potential cost of food was a very nice part of the conference.
The talks were very interesting and I talked with one of the people who helped develop tools for easier use of SFINAE, and the whole conference was extremely useful for meeting people in the community, gaining some friends and/or contacts, and learning tons about how the standards process and improvement of language features goes down - and made at least one suggestion, being able to have even a small amount of input to the community was interesting, and I have always wanted to be able to go to one of these conferences (I listen to a lot of talks on the internet).
This also improved my understanding of the surrounding ecosystem - different libraries and the people who create them and how people learn about them, various branches of development of the ecosystem and what kinds of future research is going to be happening, and, again, just the general process.
And the #include organisers made sure I didn’t get completely intimidated or lost or horribly anxious due to the number of people or anything like that, and were friendly to me and helped me navigate the whole event, and we got some meals in a more quiet environment and talked, which was exceptionally nice.
Thanks to the organisers and to all the lovely people who funded me going to the conference, it was a wonderful experience.