Being part of an industry full of small businesses has its perks and its drawbacks. There isn't always a HR representative or coworker to lean on for help. We saw a need for an anonymous forum to ask questions to experts. We are partnering with a prominent employment law firm, Reavis Page Jump Law to gather questions anonymously and answer them in a virtual panel discussion to be hosted this fall. For more information about our panelists, please go head to Equityinlighting.org/events to read the bios of Heidi Reavis, Ethan Krasnoo, Alice Jump, Katie Bigley, and Deena Merlen.

Parsons Lighting design hosted an online interactive conversation to promote advocacy of marginalized groups as part of the lighting designers' role. In addition to connecting like-minded people across the global lighting design community, the program seeded supportive structures to sustain the action required to achieve greater diversity and inclusion in the lighting design industry.

The success and impact of this program relied on participation from the lighting design community members who oppose prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, and antagonism in all forms, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and xenophobia. The program format included interactive conversations that addressed the following questions:

- What can we do now to increase the representation of marginalized groups in the lighting design industry?
- What can we do now to make lighting design processes more inclusive?

Stacks+Joules student interns share with the Lower Eastside Girls Club their retrofit lighting proposal as well as what they learned along the way. As part of the Stacks+Joules program, the class audited all of the lights currently in the LES Girls Club. Then partnering with professionals from RAB Lighting they designed a retrofit proposal focused on saving money, reducing carbon, improving the spatial experience, and establishing an advanced building automation platform for training future young women to work in the burgeoning field of building automation. Stacks+Joules is a 501c3 nonprofit workforce development program that trains NYC high school students in advanced lighting controls, heat pumps, building integration, and professional soft skills all towards family-sustaining careers in the burgeoning building automation industry. This program has been proudly supported by NYSERDA since 2019.

IESNYC teamed up with Equity in Lighting to explore light’s relationship to various skin tones in this panel event. Hear from a diverse range of experts on their experience and insights on lighting a range of skin tones in different settings, including a thesis writer, a color scientist, and a theatrical lighting designer. Together they explore different measures and strategies we can employ to apply lighting in a way that considers everyone.

Join a conversation between Black women in the lighting + design community as WILD NYC hosts a program responding to the current energy from the Black Lives Matter movement. We are committed to identifying the next steps in eliminating systemic racism in the lighting industry and working to discover paths that might rectify the lack of diversity in our community. The event will feature a 45 minute panel discussion, followed by an interactive Q & A with panelists. Panelists: Jessie Frias, Nel Reed, Laetitia Stephanos, and Nichol Murrell

"Equity” is often the “elephant in the room." Last month’s virtual event “Intro to Equity for Lighting Professionals” presented by the IESNYC Illuminating Equity Task Force in collaboration with Equity in Lighting (EIL) brought what is typically a tough, closed-door conversation to the forefront and addressed it head on. The program was the first to be presented by an EIL Partner Organization and was viewed by over 100 people from across the United States and Europe.

A conversation about diversity within the design community. Guest panel includes Patt Carpenter, Everick Brown, Joseph Cephas, and Keia McSwain.