The world’s largest tech conference begins in Las Vegas next week and its speaker lineup will feature more diversity than it has in years past.
Organizers of the annual Consumer Electronics Show caught major flak from activists in late 2017 when it unveiled an all-male lineup of keynote speakers for the second year in a row.
This year, the entire featured speaker list is 45 percent women – 60 percent of them women of color.
It’s a big change for CES, which, like most tech conferences remains disproportionately male, just like the industry it serves.
Gender Avengers, an activist group that criticized the show last year, this year sent the show a congratulatory letter on their efforts to feature more women in its lineup.
More than 180,000 people are expected to attend the show this year, and some 4,500 companies will be on the convention floor. CES starts on Tuesday, January 8 and runs through Friday January 11.