Summary

  • Maria Matejka told RIPE 93 that a consortium conversation had happened in a hallway roughly ten minutes before her talk. Remote participants could hear the meeting-room microphones, not that exchange.
  • RIPE 93 offered no organised childcare, citing low recent demand. Matejka described the practical cost of reaching those off-agenda conversations while caring for children.

A routing project can cross continents in a meeting room, then take shape beside the coffee. At RIPE 93, Maria Matejka’s DEI talk put a stopwatch on that difference. She said she had asked someone about forming a consortium in the hallway about ten minutes earlier. The answer came immediately. That conversation did not wait for a microphone slot.

Matejka leads development of the BIRD routing daemon, according to her official speaker page. She described why she still makes the trip: colleagues can draw a design together, move between conversations and overhear an idea worth joining. From home, she said, she hears what reaches the room microphone. A webcast carries the agenda; the corridor carries the invitation.

The barrier was painfully ordinary. Matejka described travelling with school-age children and trying a short city scavenger hunt during a previous conference. It held their attention for part of a day, while a RIPE meeting lasts five days. Lunches and evening socials also host work; caring for children there splits attention again.

RIPE 93’s childcare page says organised care was unavailable because demand and participation had been consistently low. Families were pointed to private arrangements. The Chair Team’s 4 November report notes Matejka’s age-gap question; it announces no new service. A conference can count remote seats and still miss the negotiations outside the camera frame.