New: Chaosmentors are going Digitally Distributed!

As an experimental run, we will see what we can set up for Push To Talk. We are inviting you to join us as BETAmentors or BETAmentees, coming up with new creative ways of mentoring together. Additionally, we welcome input from everyone, if you have suggestions how we can make new visitors more welcome at a digital event :)

Who are the Chaosmentors?

Are you a member of an underrepresented group in the hacker community and unsure if you will feel comfortable at DiVOC? Do you have specific needs that make it more difficult for you to participate? Are you interested in topics such as privacy, security, hardware hacking, or network policies, but have so far had little-to-no connection to the community? Perhaps, you’re curious to try out a DiVOC, but you have the impression that you are not one of these “hackers”, feel you don’t quite fit in, or are not sure how to get involved beyond the video streams?

Then we will try our best to make you feel welcome at DiVOC (as mentioned, we are in experimental mode…).

How does it work?

At localized events we assigned chaosmentors to small groups of mentees, however for this short notice, experimental event we cannot implement this. As a start, we will be there for you before and during the event, for your questions, concerns, needs, or wishes.

You can get in touch with us before the event via email. During the event, we will also offer a “Virtual Assembly” to hang out and get to know some other mentees and mentors in the form of a BigBlueButton meeting room that is open for you (we will make every effort to make this room available with an experienced ChaosMentor around the clock…).

You can find the most up-to-date information about what we are offering in the wiki. We will also tell you about our newest features in the Rocket Chat and the BigBlueButton room!

Why are we doing this?

We ourselves have had a great time at CCC events for 1, 2, 10, or 30 years. But we know from our own experience how difficult the first step can be – many Chaosmentors were Chaosmentees at their first event. Thoughts like “A big hacker conference, do I even belong here?” are not foreign to us. But do not worry – once the first step is done, great people and the opportunity to learn a lot about yourself await. But the exchange is not a one-way street: the community can learn a lot from you as well and thrives from the diversity of the participants. That’s why we want to encourage those who would otherwise hesitate to get in touch with the Chaospatinnen. We focus on people who are not part of the mainly represented group cis, male, and white. Of course, we will not exclude anyone.

For Chaosmentors

Of course, we are again looking for the enthusiastic support from friendly, experienced, and reliable mentors, and for this event especially for mentors who are creative for finding new ways of welcoming mentees to a fully digital event. It would be great if you already have DiVOC experience, but that is not a requirement. If you feel like answering questions, helping find answers to questions, and helping out in the Rocket Chat or the BigBlueButton video chat, please join us there.

Your Safety

Even as we switch to the digital realm, we are committed to always providing a safe haven. So from the get-go, if you need any help beyond what we offer, or feel unsafe at any point during the event or with the chaosmentors, we want to make you aware that there is also help.ccc.de; please do not hesitate to use the safety nets offered there!

Feedback and Suggestions

Since we are running in Beta, we are explicitly asking this time for your input. We are sure that many of you will have great suggestions. We think the best way to collect these ideas is a pad, where you can see if someone already suggested something similar, and maybe add your own notes to existing ideas.