Celebrating our colorful cast

The arrival of June marks the start of Pride Month. We at Aiven are excited for this opportunity to celebrate the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and raise awareness on issues around equality.

This year, Aiven is proud to announce a partnership with Helsinki Pride and celebrate the freedom of people to be themselves.

“The Pride movement is all about celebrating who we are,” says Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO. “ At Aiven, we value our whole cast exactly for being who they are, and we're committed to making them feel safe and welcome."

It's important for Aiven to support the LGBTQ+ community

With our values top of mind, we openly stand firm in our belief towards creating a visibly inclusive workplace.

We have an active community at Aiven, Proud Crabs, and we want to support them by creating a diverse and inclusive workplace.

“I am proud of Aiven’s commitment to building a culture of belonging and inclusivity, not just during Pride, but in the 11 months that follow,” says Alessandro Barone, Proud Crabs community co-lead.

There is still work to do: extensive research from FRA shows that a considerable amount of the LGBTQ+ community face discrimination at work or cannot be open about their lives or families.

We want to do our part in making tech a more inclusive industry. In our Sustainability and Social Impact program we commit to making Aiven open and accessible to everyone.

Aiven promotes a safe workplace

We are launching our team resource groups and support them on a variety of topics. Proud Crabs is our first community, providing a safe space for Aiven's LGBTQ+ community members and allies to connect, share views, knowledge and interests.

We will provide training for our managers on issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community. They will learn about biases, microaggressions and other negative experiences that make workplaces uncomfortable, and how to prevent them. Aiven empowers and supports all team members in creating a workplace where everyone belongs.

We want to make sure that candidates from underrepresented groups find us, and we find them.

We measure how we are doing in terms of diversity and inclusion. This way we can take meaningful action based on data and improve. Ultimately, we're working towards creating an environment where everyone can be their authentic selves.

All things have a beginning, and these steps mark a humble start to our journey.

(P.S. In case you were wondering - a 'cast' is the name for a group of crabs.)

--

To get the latest news about Aiven and our services, plus a bit of extra around all things open source, subscribe to our monthly newsletter! Daily news about Aiven are available on our LinkedIn and Twitter feeds.