#fedcon 2017

[oswincoleman]

Jenna Coleman pictures of the day, at Fedcon in Bonn, Germany, June 2017.

[nikomaria]

And right afterwards Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Wilson Cruz joined Shazad Latif during his solo Q&A at FedCon 2019 (Monday). So much love for this cast. <3

[nikomaria]

The Brent and Johnny Morning Show @fedconevents

[cecilyacat]

So I was at FedCon in Germany last weekend and on top of their usual lineup of science fiction actors, they had also invited a bunch of scientists from ESA. Their panels were absolutely wonderful - all of them managed to convey the excitement and the importance of their work to an audience of non-scientists, explaining the missions and how and why they measure certain things and I was just blown away. Man, I love space, but hearing scientists talk about what they are doing in space, it just added another layer of awesomeness and it made me so excited.

Anyway, all of the ESA people that were at the con were also science fiction fans, which led to things like Matt Taylor giving a talk about the Rosetta mission in full Stormtrooper gear (sweating his ass off because it was so damn hot that weekend). So from what I've gathered, they basically asked people who had something to say, were passionate about their topics and also love scifi. Cue a full panel of all invited ESA guests to answer audience questions. Sadly, I arrived a bit late (still had to put my costume on...), so I don't know what happened in the first half of the panel. But eventually, while I looked at the stage, it hit me: 4 of the 7 scientists from ESA were women. The majority of space scientists, sent to represent the European Space Agency at a major scifi convention in Germany, were female. Two of them were even wearing skirts on stage! Damn. There I was, a software developer who's one of only 2 female developers in her company of 30+ developers, seeing a panel on astrophysics dominated by women, with women dressing in a feminine way on top of it! Just seeing this made me so happy.

I later went up to their booth to talk to them and thank them for representing women in science. They stopped a bit and then one of them said "Huh, I didn't even realize that! You're right!". So ESA sent a diverse group of scientists without even trying. Another one of them later told me that ESA tries to keep an equal gender balance when hiring people. Which makes what they did all the easier: If you're staff is already diverse, picking people "at random" and getting a diverse group becomes a lot easier. You're doing it right, ESA. Thank you.