Travel funding for TAG IEs towards enabling bigger participant pool

[rhiaro]

We have a lot of discussions about increasinging the diversity of backgrounds and experiences among TAG members. One obstacle to participation which narrows the potential pool of candidates is the time and financial cost which may not be supported by an employer.

It's not a complete solution, but a step towards supporting a more diverse pool would be to provide funding to cover costs associated with travel to face-to-face meetings for TAG IEs.

(This is in bold because discussion of IE particpation in the AB, Board or WGs, or funding towards anything other than f2f participation is out of scope for this issue. We don't need to solve all the things to solve one of the things.)

During my four years of TAG participation, we have reduced the cost of face-to-face meetings by:

• Having a hybrid/remote option to attend all f2f meetings.
• Having two out of our four f2f meetings fully remote.
• Prioritising f2f locations based on geography of participants and where / how far we're able/willing to travel for any reason.
• Experimenting with linked f2f "hubs" on each side of the Atlantic.
• Getting sponsorship for as many group meals as possible from member companies of participants.
• Sharing accommodation like apartments.

Continuing these measures means its likely such a fund would not need to be huge to make a big difference to IEs particpation. Even if some costs can be covered this would still help.

I've drafted a proposal for how we could operate this kind of funding here. I'd love to hear how feasible it would be to take this, or something like it, forward, as soon as possible for the next TAG term.

[fantasai]

Past discussion on this, fwiw: https://github.com/w3c/AB-memberonly/issues/1

[fantasai]

Specific comments on the proposal:

• "Priority will be given to participants who have least recently attended a face-to-face meeting in-person." -- That discourages people who are just starting, or who are levelling up their involvement. I think it would make more sense to prioritize participants by how engaged they are in contributing to the work of the group.
• The entire "Expenses" section could probably just be a reference to the existing Team travel reimbursement policy, whatever that is. If there are issues with that, then it might benefit the Team also to fix them. ;)

[cheapwebmonkey]

Comment on proposal:

"Priority will be given to participants who have least recently attended a face-to-face meeting in-person."

• This approach favors folks who are easily able to travel for reasons of access. Be it access to funds, access to coverage for caregiving, access to time that it takes to travel, or travel is more readily physically accessible to them. Perhaps even a combination of the aforementioned.
• I agree that participation would be a more equitable criteria to measure against versus recent attendance in a physical space.