Things i try to increase diversity

Diversity in startups is challenging, but still, these are few things that I try at Dispertech in order to foster diversity (not to much success, though):

• I try to trigger the discussion around gender unbalance periodically, especially with people who come from a very male-dominated environment. One of the arguments I encounter periodically is "I don't care about gender, but about skills." (see: skills-gender hidden bias).
• Try to be mindful about extra-work activities. They don't happen outside of working hours, which means that if someone is the primary care-giver of someone else (see: unpaid work done by women).
• When reviewing CV's for a position, I only spend time giving feedback to women. Men receive a generic (but polite) rejection, unless, of course, they were invited for an interview.
• I try to create a learning environment, for example by giving people the opportunity to present what they have learnt in the past few months. And perhaps, learning environments foster diversity.
• Always try to wait until I have a number of CV's that allows me to invite the same amount of women and men for job interviews.