Innovation Works is committed to inclusion at all our programs, events, and conferences and in our employment practices, investments and partnerships. Innovation Works believes that the ethnicity and diversity of our society and of the tech industry must be reflected in our speakers, audience and panel discussions where staff is asked to participate. To ensure action we are committing to the following guidelines for all future events. These guidelines pertain to Innovation Works Staff and those who are directly representing Innovation Works at conventions, conferences and panel discussions.

At Innovation events, we will:

• Ensure the best and brightest participate as speakers and panelists in our programs and represent the total community in terms of gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, veteran status, physical ability, religion, age or any of its activities or operations.
• Not hold any event with an all-male panel during any part of the program agenda.
• Ensure better gender balance, ethnicity, and diversity for our event steering committees to increase the probability of greater diversity and inclusion among speakers and attendees.
• Encourage all invited speakers who cannot participate to suggest other potential participants with an eye toward ensuring women and diversity among event speakers.
• Strive for balance on all Innovation Works event planning committees and consider the inclusion of new members to correct any imbalance.
• Share these guidelines with our leadership team and all member companies.
• Publish a link and a summary statement of these guidelines on appropriate Innovation Works event webpages.

When Innovation Works representatives are invited to participate in external events, we will:

• Not participate as a panelist or moderator if the event panel is not representative of the wider community.
• Strongly encourage the program’s organizers to consider their event’s need for inclusivity and share our events’ guidelines with them as a reference tool.

When organizations request Innovation Works to partner or co-sponsor their event, we will require the organization to:

• Adhere to the guidelines outlined above. If the organization cannot do so, we would then require written explanation for why they cannot do this, including their plan to meet diversity goals in future years, before Innovation Works will agree to partner or co-sponsor the event.