It is essential that the people who shape that technology represent that world.

My friend Sumana Harihareswara gave an interview about Women in Open Source in Portland last month, and one part of the transcript particularly jumped out at me.

"...It is because I know how much potential technology has to shape our world that I know it is essential that the people who shape that technology represent that world, represent the best that world has to offer... I have experienced what it is to have the possibility of my experience not forethought, to have when I show up then I must be shoehorned in... And I’m speaking on two levels now. I’m speaking about code itself. I’m speaking about technologies, technologies that assume a variety and diversity of people who might interact with it and who might therefore benefit from that. And I’m also speaking of the layer of people who create that technology. When I’ve been in communities that by default were open and accepting and enthusiastic about receiving diverse perspectives, the end product was more alive, was more likely to be able to be used in many ways and many purposes. And I enjoyed working on it more, and people enjoyed interacting with it more... it is in our union and our communion that great things can be made. And there is a human joy in sharing in that and hospitality... I don’t want the technological communities that I'm a part of to lack half the awesomeness that they could have."