Welcome to the course

Welcome! Thank you for choosing to join us on the final course in this Expert Track. Now you’ve delved into anti-racism and gender inclusion in technology, we’re looking forward to exploring how to create and amplify diverse innovation with you over the next three weeks.

In this video, you’ll meet Lead Educator Mark Martin, founder of UK Black Tech, and hear about the different tools and techniques you’ll learn.

In this course, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) are about embracing difference to promote fairness, equity and better participation. Diversity and inclusion touch on a wide range of elements including race, gender, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or age. It can also include people’s political views, social background, life experiences or education. In this course, we’ll be focusing on race specifically and looking at innovation through the cultural lens of a Black-led organisation.

“This course comes from a Black British perspective and offers unique insights from a group who represent less than 5% of the tech industry. We’ve created it in the context of historical concerns about racial equality and following growing attention on Black perspectives in the UK. This doesn’t negate the experiences of other ethnic minorities but highlights concerns that apply to all groups” – Mark Martin

We want to ensure D&I is not another tick box exercise, but an opportunity to become more aware of new possibilities. It isn’t a silver bullet but is about exploring what works (and what doesn’t work) in relation to innovation. It shouldn’t be seen as a destination but a journey where we all need to unlearn, learn and relearn.

The course is a co-learning space and you’ll be engaging with each other as well as hearing the perspectives of some incredible people along the way.

In week 1, we will explore what we mean by diverse innovation, the benefits it can offer and the risks of not having it. By the end of this week you will be able to:

• Discuss the limitations of traditional D&I initiatives
• Explore the benefits of diverse innovation in your own context
• Assess the risks of not having diverse innovation
• Analyse different approaches to diverse innovation

In week 2, you will learn about how identity and context plays a role in diverse innovation, as well as looking at examples of good practice. In week 3, we will look at how you can become more transparent and accountable around diverse innovation, how you can amplify the voices of innovators, and how you can put what you’ve learned into practice.

We encourage you to be genuinely self-reflective as you move through the course, be open, and share your thoughts with other learners. You may be an innovator yourself, or keen to support innovation in your workplace, organisation, or sector. Whatever your situation, we invite you to reflect on the course content in your own context.

As with the other courses in this track, we ask that you respect FutureLearn’s Code of Conduct, with specific reference to the following:

“You are respectful of others, and do not use words or share content that is offensive or inflammatory. This includes, but is not limited to, language, names or content that is sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, sexually explicit, abusive, contains swearing or is otherwise likely to cause offence.”

The process of creating diverse innovation is a collective one and we are happy you’re here to do that with us.

Please say hello in the comments below, and share one thing you’re hoping to gain or share by taking this course. This is a chance to get to know your fellow learners too. Why not ‘follow’ others by clicking on their profile names? You can even ‘filter’ comments to only see those from people you follow.