# Welcome
Our goal is to create an inclusive and respectful conference environment that invites participation from people of all ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, and sexual orientations. This wiki space is a place to find resources on why diversity matters, to find out how you can help make NIME a more welcoming place, and suggest ways for us to make NIME more inclusive too.
For the full official diversity statement see:
We welcome additional ideas for discussion and action. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, or would like to volunteer please contact one of the diversity team members.
## News
The 2023 Mentorship Program is open for 2023 applications for mentors and mentees! See [Official 2023 Mentorship Call for Applications](/current-activites/mentorship-call-2023) for full details.
## Contact
* [Isabela Corintha Almeida](mailto:isabelaalmeida29@gmail.com) (WiNIME)
# Mentorship Call for Applications
The objective of the NIME mentorship program is to increase the inclusiveness of our community by helping NIME newcomers, especially underrepresented groups and non-English speakers, to be onboarded in the NIME discourse. A mentor is expected to help a newcomer (mentee) positioning her/his work within the NIME discourse and the mentorship would result in a co-authored NIME submission.
**Se precisar de ajuda para traduzir este formulário em Português, contacte:** [**tragtenberg@gmail.com**](mailto:tragtenberg@gmail.com)
**Se avete bisogno di aiuto con l'inglese contattate** [**raul@raulmasu.org**](mailto:raul@raulmasu.org)
##
# LATAM NIME Network
Design by Patricia Cadavid
A Latin American NIME Network has been created!
The Latin American NIME Research Network aims to provide a space to share resources, tutorials, and repositories from members of the community, as well as to showcase their works. We also look forward to organising meet ups and events which we will share in this webpage and our communication platforms (please contact the administrators to gain access to these platforms).With this network we also aim to take the first steps towards a LATAM NIME Community and the future of this community within and beyond NIME, opening to other communities in LATAM, and stirring policy changes to support the development of our local communities.
The network has its own NIME domain [here](https://latam.nime.org/) and it's also available in Spanish and Portuguese.
If you have a question or suggestion don't hesitate in contacting one of our founding members:
[Juan Martinez Avila](mailto:psxjpma@nott.ac.uk), [João Tragtenberg](mailto:tragtenberg@gmail.com), [Filipe Calegario](mailto:fcac@cin.ufpe.br), [Isabela Corintha](mailto:isabelaalmeida29@gmail.com), [Martin Matus Lerner](mailto:mmatus@unq.edu.ar), [Juan Ramos](mailto:juan.ramos@unq.edu.ar), [Teodoro Dannemann](mailto:t.dannemann@qmul.ac.uk), [Javier Jaimovich](mailto:javier@jaimovich.cl), [Ximena Alarcón](mailto:info@ximenaalarcon.net), [Patricia Cadavid](mailto:lpcadavid@gmail.com), [Adnan Marquez-Borbon](mailto:adnan.marquez@uabc.edu.mx), [Miguel Ortiz](mailto:m.ortiz@qub.ac.uk) and [Hugo Solis](mailto:h.solis@correo.ler.uam.mx).
# ESL Editorial Assistance for NIME 2022
The English-As-A-Second-Language Editorial Assistance shepherding scheme is designed to help level the field for authors who are non-native English speakers accepted to publish at NIME. According to the NIME 2020 General Survey, 48% of NIME attendees reported being from native English speaking countries, compared with native English speakers making up roughly 5% of the global population. Many of us have probably read (or will read) papers with good ideas, but where the author’s current level of English impairs the communication of these ideas. Whether you have unintentionally benefited from the privilege of writing publications in your first language, or have struggled with and now mastered writing outside your first language, we’re hoping you might be interested in helping those still at a disadvantage.
The ESL shepherding scheme is the result of suggestions and discussions from the NIME Diversity Survey and 2021 Diversity Workshops and was initiated as a means to help improve diversity and inclusion within NIME. Last year (2021) we had our first ever pilot English/NIME-As-A-Second Language editorial assistance scheme. We had 16 volunteer editors and 7 papers that received E/NSL help, and ended up providing QA for papers needing shortening. With the addition of the inaugural Mentorship program, for 2022 we are just focusing on ESL for post-review editorial assistance.
## As an Editorial Volunteer:
### What to expect:
Paper eligibility for ESL will be determined as part of the existing review process- only accepted papers are eligible. We are expecting acceptance notifications sometimes around March 14th-19th 2022. At that point you will be assigned a paper based on the number of papers eligible, your relevant expertise and whether or not you have requested to provide assistance for a paper you reviewed. Feedback as an editor will not be anonymous, though whether you reviewed the paper will remain anonymous. You will be responsible for coordinating with the assigned author and confirming improvements to any provisionally accepted papers. The date for completing editing assistance will be announced once registration deadlines and camera ready deadlines are announced.
### What kind of feedback is allowed:
Feedback should be limited where communication issues could be due to language. For example, helping with sentence phrasing is okay; helping with professional language is okay; so is help with syntax, grammar, and word choice. Examples of what is not okay would be helping with structural changes, references, idea formation, or rewriting of research. If a paper has had feedback on such topics from a reviewer you have leeway to decide whether to assist or not. If authors are struggling to understand feedback from a review, helping to clarify it as you understand it is encouraged. A reminder, papers have already been through the review process. The idea isn’t to give people a potentially unfair advantage for acceptance to NIME, but to help accepted authors at a language disadvantage ensure a good publication. If you find yourself questioning whether something is appropriate, please ask.
### How to give feedback:
As with last year, we are going to leave feedback styles up to you and the authors you are assigned to assist. You can try PubPub, Overleaf, or sending PDFs-back-and-forth. This includes that if you feel like the fastest approach is to have a virtual face-to-face feedback session, for instance due to a paper with small but regular errors, please do. If you are able to help authors understand why you are recommending changes, that would be brilliant.
If you have any questions about the ESL scheme please contact the diversity team.
# Mentorship Programme Call for NIME 2022
## Objective
The objective of the NIME mentorship program is to increase the inclusiveness of our community by helping NIME newcomers, especially underrepresented groups and non-native speakers, to be onboarded in the NIME discourse. A mentor is expected to help a newcomer (mentee) positioning her/his work within the NIME discourse and the mentorship would result in a co-authored NIME submission.
## Who can be a mentee?
There are two main categories for mentees:
* Master students or early-stage PhD Students without a supervisor who is part of the NIME/music technology debate.
* Anyone who has not published at NIME before and is without a supervisor who is part of the NIME/music technology debate.
Being the first edition of the program, we understand that some people may not be included in these categories. Therefore, if you feel you need a mentor and do not fit into these categories please send us an email, we are happy to discuss your application. People from underrepresented groups will have priority.
### **How to apply for a mentor**
To apply for the mentorship program, it is required to submit 1) a short paragraph (abstract) with a research topic/idea (up to 300 words) and 2) a motivation letter (up to 300 words). In the motivation letter, the applicant should ask what type of mentor they want (language, gender, or any other type of preference) and why they would like to have a mentor. Please apply [here](https://vault.oddworlds.org/apps/forms/9jQNeaet4FnJD49c).
## Who can be a mentor?
Everyone with past experience at NIME can volunteer to be a mentor. Everyone who applies to be a mentor has to guarantee at least two hours of supervision time every two weeks from October to January. Each mentor needs to familiarize themselves with the [NIME code of conduct, ethical guidelines and statements](https://www.nime.org/statements/).
### **Duties of the mentor**
The mentor and the mentee will develop the idea/topic proposed by the mentee in the application together. The mentor is expected to suggest relevant literature, and help the mentee to position her/his idea/topic within the current music technology debate. This type of support should go beyond the direct objective of writing the paper but help the mentee for future research. Each mentor must dedicate at least two hours every two weeks to work with/supervise the mentee (e.g., a two-hour meeting every two weeks, or a one-hour meeting every week).
### **How to apply to become a mentor**
Each mentor candidate needs to submit a fill the form with the information about why she/he is capable of being a mentor and where she/he fits, in terms of expertise and in terms of whom she/he would like to mentor as well as a google scholar link or CV. Please apply [here](https://vault.oddworlds.org/apps/forms/w88DdRxJomykJ3WM).
## Important dates and submission
The following timeline assumes the usual NIME deadline (end of January)
* 3rd October - deadline for the open call to request a mentor and to volunteer to be a mentor
* 6th October - notification to mentors and mentees about the selection and the coupling
* 7th October - Kickstart meeting of the program
Submissions should be made via the following forms:
[Form for mentees ](https://vault.oddworlds.org/apps/forms/9jQNeaet4FnJD49c)\
[Form for mentors ](https://vault.oddworlds.org/apps/forms/w88DdRxJomykJ3WM)
## Contacts
If you have any questions, doubts, or suggestions feel free to contact us at:
# Workshop on Diversity and Inclusion at NIME 2021
## Actions We can Take to Improve Diversity and Inclusivity at NIME
NIME has a diversity problem, and it remains largely white, male, American-European, able-bodied and English-speaking (1). We believe that groups with important insights and experiences are being underrepresented within NIME as authors (such as non-male people, those who do not speak English as a first language, those with disabilities, and those of other races and ethnicities, just to name a few), and that this underrepresentation means that important ideas and viewpoints that come from a wider range of lived experiences are missing.
Initial efforts to draw attention to diversity within NIME were in response to a lack of gender diversity, such as analyses of NIME’s women authors \[1]\[2], a 2018 workshop on gender diversity in the community (2), the establishment of the WiNIME directory (3) and a 2014 panel discussion that resulted in an article \[3]. The NIME diversity statement (4) and the Pamela Z Award were established in 2018 (5) in an effort to foster a larger conversation around broader diversity in this community. However, far more work still needs to be done: In 2020 strong critique emerged of NIME’s lack of political agenda \[4], as well as NIME’s current epistemological crises \[5], and we acknowledge that our conversation about diversity cannot be centred on a limited number of special interest groups, but must instead extend more widely.
“Diversity” is a complex term. At its simplest diversity describes differences within a group (usually across lines of identity such as race, gender, sexuality, and so on). However, simply acknowledging diversity does not address the structures of power that contribute to a lack of diversity in the first place \[6], and here we acknowledge that simply pointing out differences does not go far enough.
We propose extending this existing community work by viewing a lack of diversity through an intersectional lens. Intersectionality, coined by Crenshaw in 1989 \[7], refers to the interconnectedness of all discrimination and the common roots in structural inequality (and, most importantly, that focusing on a single axis of discrimination undermines anti-discrimination more widely). With this workshop, we aim to be a point of departure for community discussion, not to address diversity within NIME in one strata (such as gender), but instead to examine the wider structures within the community that include some and exclude others, and to develop strategies to address them. In 2021 we have already begun a trial English-as-second-language assistance program and are developing financial scholarships, ideas drawn from the 2020 NIME diversity survey and subsequent discussions in collaboration with the NIME Ethical and Environmental workgroups, but this is just a start. We see this workshop as a an opportunity for “transforming silence into language and action” \[8]; strategy is, as Ahmed states, “not only thought in action but thought sharpened by action.” \[9]
## Organizers
**Dr. Laurel S. Pardue, Ableton AG**
Laurel is a software engineer for Ableton Live and diversity officer for NIME. She has held Postdoctoral Fellowships at Queen’s University Belfast, Aalborg University Copenhagen, and Queen Mary University of London where she also obtained her PhD having previously obtained multiple degrees from the Massachussets Institute of Technology. Dr. Pardue specialises in embedded programming, sensor interactions, and real-time audio programming. With a firm grounding in musical practice, she was the lead engineer on the recently released electronic Tabla Touch with Keda Music and Kuljit Bhamra; Gamelan Elektrika, a gamelan interface that debuted with Kronos Quartet at NY’s Lincoln Center; and a hybrid-electro-accoustic violin that placed 3rd at the 2020 International Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. Dr. Pardue has toured Europe as violinist in multiple projects including appearances on BBC Radios 2-6 as well as serving as a UN Peacekeeper in Liberia.
**Juan P. Martinez Avila, The University of Nottingham**\
Juan is a Computer Science PhD candidate at the Mixed Reality Laboratory in the University of Nottingham, and a diversity officer for NIME. His work explores ecologically-informed design approaches for new guitar technologies, with a particular interest in performance preparation activities, i.e. learning and rehearsing guitar repertoires. Juan's current design research is grounded on ethnographic studies, participatory design, and soma design, and has received honourable mention awards at CHI 2019 and CHI 2021. As a diversity officer Juan is interested in exploring ways of promoting the work of people from the Global South at NIME, as well as facilitating their access to the conference and collaboration with the global NIME community. He's currently looking for postdoctoral research positions.
**Dr. Anna Xambó, De Montfort University**
Anna Xambó is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Audio Technology at De Montfort University (Leicester, UK), a member of the Music, Technology and Innovation - Institute of Sonic Creativity (MTI2), and WiNIME officer. Her research and practice focus on sound and music computing systems looking at novel approaches to collaborative, participatory, and live coding experiences. Her solo and group performances have been presented internationally in Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA. She is PI of the EPSRC HDI Network Plus funded project "MIRLCAuto: A Virtual Agent for Music Information Retrieval in Live Coding" and has taken leading roles in organisations with a special interest in improving the representation of women in music technology: Women in Music Tech (2016-2017, Georgia Tech); WoNoMute (2018-2019, NTNU/UiO); and WiNIME (2019-present, NIME).
**Isabela Corintha**, **University of Aveiro**
Isabela is a PhD candidate in Multimedia in Education at the Department of Communication and Arts, University of Aveiro. Her research focuses on embodied and enactive music cognition approaches to digital musical instrument design. Isabela’s current interests includes the exploration of machine learning models, interactive musical improvisation and music education within the perspective of enactive approach to mind. Isabela’s work has been published at NIME and in the Springer book: Advances in Design, Music and Arts. Diversity and social inclusion have been embedded and integrated to her work since early 2000s when she began her career in the field of electronic music.
**Doga Buse Cavdir, Stanford University**
Doga Cavdir is a PhD candidate at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. Her research integrates body movement and expression into designing new musical instruments for cross-disciplinary inclusivity, accessibility, and affordability. Doga’s research and artistic practices focus on utilizing embodied interactive system to offer shared performance spaces to people with diverse skill set and abilities. She continues to contribute to inclusion and diversity practices within and outside of Stanford University. She has been participating in the WiMIR mentoring program and she has been most recently organizing the peer mentoring program, Peer Mentoring in Music, and the Physical Interaction Design Group (PIG) at Stanford. Her artistic work has been featured by Bay Area art centers such as Center for New Music and Temescal Arts Center.
**Dr S M Astrid Bin, Ableton AG**
Astrid Bin is an artist, technologist and writer. Currently she is a music technology researcher at Ableton AG in Berlin, where her research investigates the human, cultural and technological aspects of designing environments for musical creation and exploration. She specialises in design, interfaces, cultural trends, and embedded real-time applications. She is also a founding developer of Bela.io.
## Additional Speakers
**Kim Macari** is an Artist-Activist immersed in the world of improvised music. Fundamentally she believes in the arts as a powerful tool of empowerment, creative expression and social change. As an artist, she performs in a number of improvised settings on trumpet and spoken word and creates graphic scores, often using ekphrasis and data sonification.
Macari also occupies a number of key positions within the arts world - Programmer for Vortex Jazz Club (ranked in Top 10 jazz venues in the world 2020), Chair of pan-national support body Jazz Promotion Network and is on the Music Team at Arts Council England. She often appears as a cultural commentator at a range of events and publications on topics including gender politics in the arts, diversity and inclusion, cultural identity and the implications of political decision making on the arts.
## Footnotes
1. Taken from the NIME Diversity Survey. The results of this survey were shared with the NIME community in the trial online diversity workshop hosted on 14 January 2021, see below for further details.
2. See [https://sched.co/EBmE ]()
3. See
4. See [https://www.nime.org/diversity/ ]()
5. See [https://nime.gitbook.io/conference-cookbok/officers/winime ]()
## Citations
1. Essl, G. (2003). On Gender in New Music Interface Technology. Organised Sound, 8(1), 19–30.
2. Xambó, A. (2018). Who Are the Women Authors in NIME?–Improving Gender Balance in NIME Research. In T. M. Luke Dahl Douglas Bowman (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (pp. 174–177). Blacksburg, Virginia, USA: Virginia Tech.
3. Born, G., & Devine, K. (2016). Gender, Creativity and Education in Digital Musics and Sound Art. Contemporary Music Review, 35(1), 1–20.
4. Morreale, F., Bin, S. M. A., McPherson, A., Stapleton, P., & Wanderley, M. (2020). A NIME Of The Times: Developing an Outward-Looking Political Agenda For This Community. In R. Michon & F. Schroeder (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (pp. 160–165). Birmingham, UK: Birmingham City University.
5. Hayes, L., & Marquez-Borbon, A. (2020). Nuanced and Interrelated Mediations and Exigencies (NIME): Addressing the Prevailing Political and Epistemological Crises. In R. Michon & F. Schroeder (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (pp. 428–433). Birmingham, UK: Birmingham City University.
6. Puritty, C., Strickland, L. R., Alia, E., Blonder, B., Klein, E., Kohl, M. T., et al. (2017). Without inclusion, diversity initiatives may not be enough. Science, 357(6356), 1101–1102.
7. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. U. Chi. Legal f., 139.
8. Lorde, A. (1977). The transformation of silence into language and action. Identity Politics in the Women’s Movement, 81–84.
9. Ahmed, S. (2016). Living a feminist life (p. 94). Duke University Press.
# Online Diversity Workshop January 2021
Pilot Workshop
We ran a 2-3 hr zoom workshop in early January where we discussed initiatives to improve diversity and inclusivity within NIME over both the long and short term.
### Topics we discussed
* Presenting results from the NIME 2020 diversity survey and discuss comments and suggestions such as:
* Setting up a sibling system to help newcomers to the community navigate NIME language and get the most out of conference attendance
* English-as-first-language editing assistance for those with great research, but not as great English skills and limited funds to hire assistance.
* Developing a mentorship program.
* Financial and geographical impediments to NIME participation.
* Planning a diversity workshop for NIME 2021.
We welcome additional ideas and suggestions for future discussion and hope this workshop had yielded some well-defined actionable items.
# Editorial Assistance Pilot Scheme in NIME 2021
One of the initiatives that came out of last year’s diversity survey is providing assistance for NIME authors for whom English is not their first language. The NIME diversity team held a small workshop in mid-January where we discussed this as well as a number of ideas for improving accessibility, diversity, and inclusivity at NIME. While we’re drafting our notes and proposals on other ideas, one of the more immediately time sensitive is editorial proof-reading of submissions.
Last year’s NIME was predominately attended by native English speakers (\~48% NIME 2020 general survey - though admittedly, being officially held in the UK likely adds to the native English bias) despite world-wide involvement in the conference. Written English assistance would hopefully help counter some of the disadvantages non-native English speakers encounter when competing against native speakers especially for early career academics where access to English-language expertise may be lower or otherwise self-funded. It might also be something suitable for improving involvement of neuro-divergent participants.
For NIME 2021 we have recruited volunteers who will provide feedback and guidance to authors of submissions that have been identified as candidates for this pilot scheme by the meta-reviewers. It must be noted that the feedback provided is intended to improve the quality of papers that have already been provisionally accepted and is assistance is limited to tackling communication issues (e.g. grammar, syntax, and academic style), and is NOT intended to assist in idea formulation or substantial content editing / restructuring that could give authors and unfair advantage over others.
In the long run, we are thinking of setting up a shepherding system that is incorporated into the reviewing process. Reviewers who think a paper may be worth accepting but needs significant editorial work for language reasons can provisionally accept, recommending it for language assistance. Papers successfully improved could then be accepted into the conference.
If you have any questions about this pilot scheme please contact the diversity team.