Lessons from Adobe's Product Equity Team | April 2024 Community Jam
Our April 2024 Community Jam
Are you curious about how equity and inclusion practitioners can drive change within for-profit organizations — or if it is even possible?
Join us for a conversation with Mariah Driver (She/Her) and Akshita Goyal (She/Her), two leaders from Adobe's Product Equity team, who will share insights and experiences leading equity work within a product-led organization.
We'll dive into the inception, development, and continuous evolution of Adobe's Product Equity team, revealing how Mariah and Akshita have embedded equity practices into a large corporate structure.
You'll hear about the challenges they faced, the strategies they employed, and the lessons they learned in making a substantial impact on organizational culture and practices.
About the Symbolic Ticket Price
To honor the labor behind this event, reduce the number of no-shows and create meaningful moments of connection, we are instituting a symbolic ticket price of $1 USD minimum.
This allows you to reserve your seat, honor your commitment to attend and have an opportunity to interact directly with the speakers and other participants.
All funds raised will be housed in our transparent community fund on OpenCollective.
If you aren't able to pay due to financial reasons, currency or another reasonable barrier, please contact us and we'll provide with you direct access. Due to the symbolic nature of the ticket price, tickets are non-refundable.
What to Expect
The session aims to provide practical advice and candid insights into the opportunities and challenges for practitioners working to integrate equity and inclusion into corporate operations.
We’ll close with open Q&A where you’ll have the chance to ask your questions — we encourage you to submit your questions ahead of time in our sign-up form!
About Our Speakers
Mariah Driver (She/Her) is a Senior Product Manager on the Product Equity Team, where she leads efforts to help product, research, and design teams reduce harm and bias during the product development processes. Mariah’s expertise lies at the intersection of technology, organizational psychology, critical race theory, and social justice.
With degrees from Georgetown University in Behavioral & Organizational Psychology, African American Studies, and Literature, Mariah’s journey is marked by a profound commitment to understanding the diversity of human experience and harnessing the transformative power of technology for societal change. Through all her work, Mariah questions, reimagines, and redesigns the systems and practices that surround us to help build a better world, and ensure that all people have equitable opportunities.
Akshita Goyal (She/ Her) is a Product Manager on Adobe’s Product Equity Team where she combines systems design with human-centered approach for equitable product design and development. Akshita leads efforts that center creative access through co-creation for historically underinvested and marginalized communities. She also drives key efforts for scaling product equity practices for stakeholders across Adobe.
Akshita graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Masters in Integrated Design and Management, where she focused on combining business and engineering with design justice. Before MIT, Akshita also ran her design consultancy and a non profit in India, where she created sustainable product + brand design solutions, rooted in reciprocity and community access. Her many intersectional social identities and lived experiences enable her to distill complex human systems into inclusive product experiences. Her goal is to improve autonomy, self advocacy and unlock self expression for those forgotten in a biased oppressive world.
Accessibility & Inclusion Considerations
You can choose to lean in and actively participate or step back and follow along quietly.
You can join via desktop or mobile — we'll adapt our facilitation style and tools based on the needs of those present.
We will provide closed captions, live transcripts and visual descriptions to the best of our ability.
Please send us any other accommodation requests upon signing up and we'll do our best to honor them!
📚 If you can't make it and the group present decides that it is appropriate to share a recording, we will send it out to IDJ community members. Otherwise, we'll share a summary of key takeaways.
Who are we?
We're the Inclusive Design Jam, a community of practice that champions equity in the design of the world. We create a safe space for connection, empowerment, and development around designing for inclusion, equity and justice. Join us on Slack and in monthly community gatherings.
The community and jam sessions are proudly hosted by Sandra Camacho (She/Her), aka Sandra By Design, an independent inclusive design consultant and educator based in Paris, France.
💌 Sign up for email updates upon registering to get informed of future events or keep tabs at our events page. Note that you can unsubscribe at any time!