Abstract
Session Theme: I Want To Break Free
At RIPE 91, the DEI session focussed on the "D" in the acronym. Diversity. This time, at RIPE 92, we move on to the "E". Equity. And we are continuing with the human stories.
This session brings together three talks that each explore what equity actually looks like in practice, from three very different angles. Toxic workplace dynamics, and the silence that allows them to persist. What genuine employment inclusion looks like when an employer gets it right. And the largely hidden weight of Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, and what it costs the people in our community who live with it every day.
Three talks. One thread. The quieter, harder work of making sure that technical spaces are ones where everyone genuinely belongs.
Abstract for the first talk: You Are Not Alone
Toxic workplaces do not announce themselves. They seep in quietly, through cancelled meetings, ignored ideas, and a slow erosion of confidence that makes you wonder whether you are imagining things. Until one day you realise you are not.
This talk grew out of a short essay written by a close friend, and from conversations with them and with others across this industry, people who recognised themselves in it immediately. It is about patterns that are far more common than most of us admit, and about the silence that allows them to continue. It is about what it feels like to be in it, what you can do if you are, and why speaking up, or simply showing up for someone else, matters more than you might think.
This is not a talk about blame. It is a call to recognition, to solidarity, and to action.
Recording
Video will be added soon.
Speaker
Denesh Bhabuta
Denesh Bhabuta has spent more than 30 years working at the point where people and the Internet meet. Not just technically, but as communities.
He is well known across the Internet infrastructure community through his work at UKNOF, where he spent two decades helping shape it into the central forum for UK network operators, and at DNS-OARC, where he led the global conference programme and community engagement for over a decade. He founded PTNOG, building Portugal's network operators community from scratch, and has contributed as a PC member at LINX and UKNOF, co-chaired the former RIPE LIR Working Group, and served as a Non-Executive Director at Nominet, LONAP and the UK ENUM Consortium.
Away from the Internet industry, he has been a trustee of Usurp, an arts and community charity, for over 20 years.
Across all of it, the thread has always been the same: He believes that the most valuable asset any organisation, community or industry has is its people.
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Rating will open: Monday, 18 May 2026 09:00 (+0100).