At Fastly, we are committed to inclusion and diversity (I&D). We believe that the diversity of the global communities we serve should be reflected in everything we do if we want to make impactful differences for those communities, especially those that are disadvantaged or marginalized. The communities we serve have different perspectives and lived experiences that we can learn from. Understanding those perspectives will allow us to change how we think.
We invite you to join the Fastly Documentation team in our annual goal to educate ourselves and share what we learn via links to people, holidays, and other significant dates that are important to the culture of our fellow Fastlyans and the communities they serve. Specifically, we want to:
educate people on interesting aspects of the culture of fellow Fastlyans, especially during awareness months;
highlight additional information about a holiday, day of recognition, or period of awareness that's important to us; and
increase awareness around non-dominant and cultural holidays.
Follow your curious spirit and click on these links when you notice them. Through education and increased awareness, we hope to create community-building opportunities that go beyond Fastly.
International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime is a United Nations observance meant to remember the victims of genocide and commit ourselves to preventing atrocities like this from happening.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on December 25, 2021. It was designed to study a wide range of phenomena, such as the formation of stars and planets, the atmospheres of exoplanets, and the nature of the early universe. It is now managed by an interdisciplinary team, many of whom are women!
Tara Houska Zhaabowekwe (she/her) is a member of the Couchiching First nation, a tribal attorney, and a climate activist. She founded the Giniw Collective, a group of indigenous peoples dedicated to fighting against the construction of oil pipelines through tribal nations' lands.
Xiye Bastida (she/her) is a climate activist based in New York City. She co-founded the Re-Earth Initiative. She is a member of the Otomi-Toltec Indigenous nation in Mexico, where she was born.
Trans Day of Remembrance memorializes those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia and draws attention to the continued violence endured by transgender people.
International Non-binary People's Day is observed on July 14th each year because it is the exact midpoint between international men's day and international women's day. It is aimed at raising awareness around issues faced by non-binary people around the world.
Pride month honors the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall rebellion and raises awareness of works that seek to achieve equal justice and opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning Americans.
Wendy Carlos (she/her) is a transgender American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Within the tech community she is well known for composing the 1982 soundtrack to the original Tron movie.
Jemma Redmond (she/her) was a nano-bioscience engineer who pioneered the use of living cells as 3D printing materials as well as the robotic tooling required to ensure that the organic materials remained alive during the printing process. Up to her untimely death, she frequently spoke publicly about being intersex and about her desire to eventually be able to print a functioning uterus. Her discoveries form the foundation of current research in using bioprinted body parts in life-saving surgeries.
Lynn Conway (she/her) was a computer scientist, engineer, and transgender activist. Her pioneering research in the supercomputer industry formed the basis for creating modern, high-performance microprocessors. Without her work, the computer technology revolution of the 1980s would likely have been delayed by decades.
Audrey Táng Fèng (all pronouns) is a non-binary, free software programmer, former entrepreneur, and Taiwan's inaugural Digital Minister of Digital Affairs. She is also Taiwan's first transgender minister and the youngest minister in the country's history. She is considered a pioneer in Perl programming and currently advocates the use of digital social innovation to empower democracy.
Wong Yee Ching (she/her) was a Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist who discovered the link between HIV and AIDS and whose research provided the foundation for investigating treatments for emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19.
Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day and International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period.
Sana Amanat (she/her) is an American comic book editor and an executive of production and development at Marvel Studios. She is known for co-creating Kamala Khan, the alter-ego of the super hero known as Ms. Marvel and the first Muslim-American superhero with a solo Marvel Comics series.
Dr. Isabella Kauakea Yau Yung Aiona Abbott (she/her) was the first Native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in science. Known as the “First Lady of Limu” (“limu” being the native Hawaiian word for “seaweed”), Abbott discovered more than 200 species of algae and is regarded as the world’s leading expert on algae in the Pacific Ocean basin.
Aileen Judan-Jiao (she/her) is the President and Country General Manager of IBM Philippines and the first homegrown Filipina leader of IBM Philippines. Through IBM’s SkillsBuild program, she is pushing to to upskill the Philippine workforce in artificial intelligence and other technologies through free online courses.
Nate Marshall (he/him) is an African-American writer, editor, educator, and MC. His poetry is inspired by the places that shaped him, especially the southside of Chicago where he grew up.
Elizabeth Acevedo (she/her) is a Dominican-American poet and author of several young adult novels in verse. Her poetry and books are influenced by Dominican and New York culture.
Naomi Shihab Nye (she/her) is a Palestinian-American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Her work has been described as, “international in scope and internal in focus.”
Abeer Abu Ghaith (she/her) is a tech entrepreneur and social activist who is often called “Palestine's first female high-tech entrepreneur.” Born in a refugee camp in Jordan, she went on to found MENA Alliances, a business dedicated to connecting global companies with highly skilled, vetted talent from the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.
Dr. Rachel Levine (she/her) is the United State’s Assistant Secretary for Health and a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Along with being one of the few openly transgender U.S. government officials, she is the first openly transgender four-star officer of any of the nation’s uniformed services.
Katherine Johnson (she/her) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of many space flights including the first orbital moon flight and Apollo 11.
Anne-Marie Imafidon (she/her) is the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing (aged 11) and one of the youngest to achieve a Computer Science Masters from Oxford University. A true prodigy, she uses her platform to inspire and promote the next generation of women in STEM.
Lonnie Johnson (he/him) is an American inventor and aerospace engineer who holds more than 250 patents, among them the patent for the Super Soaker toy.
Belle da Costa Greene (she/her) was the private librarian of J. Pierpont Morgan. She was responsible for acquiring countless significant collection items and also advocating for those items to be available to the public.
Matt Mitchell (he/him) is a hacker and leader in the field of digital privacy and anti-surveillance advocacy. He also founded CryptoHarlem, a non-profit organization dedicated to cybersecurity education and advocacy.
Marie van Brittan Brown (she/her) was an American nurse and inventor of the first home security system. As the forerunner for modern home security camera and alarm systems, her invention continues to be cited in most home-security patent applications today.
World Braille Day raises awareness of the importance of Braille, a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols, as a means of communication for blind and partially sighted people.
The National Day of Racial Healing is a time to contemplate our shared values and create the blueprint together for #HowWeHeal from the effects of racism. Launched in 2017, it is an opportunity to bring ALL people together in their common humanity and inspire collective action to create a more just and equitable world.
Kwanzaa was created by American activist and scholar, Maulana Karenga, as a specifically African-American holiday. Based on West and Southeast African harvest festivals and solstice traditions, Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili word phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning "first fruits."
National Novel Writing Month, usually referred to by its shortened name NaNoWriMo, is an annual creating writing challenge that encourages and supports writers to "use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds." Each year during November, participants are encouraged to write the first draft of a 50,000-word manuscript in the space of a single month. Since its inception, a number of notable novels result from the annual event.
Trans Day of Remembrance memorializes those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia and draws attention to the continued violence endured by transgender people.
Piominko (he/him) was a pre-removal Chickasaw leader who signed the first Treaty of Hopewell, formalizing the tribe's alliance with the government of a very young United States that had formally declared their independence from the British Empire only 10 years prior.
The Fiesta de la Ñatitas is a Bolivian holiday mixing Indigenous and Catholic traditions. Bolivians gather at cemeteries carrying skulls and then dance, sing, and pray around the city as a way of celebrating life and fertility and respecting and honoring the forgotten dead.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K'iche' Guatemalan activist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She is notable for her work to promote indigenous rights and ethno-cultural reconciliation.
Dr. Grace Hopper (she/her) was an American computer scientist and mathematician who served in the United States Navy. In the computing industry, she is well known for the discovery of a moth in a computer relay, leading to the terms "bug" and "debugging" becoming popular when describing computer malfunctions. The moth and the log book documenting its discovery are now located in the Smithsonian.
Felicitas Mendez was a Puerto Rican American activist. Together with her husband, they filed a lawsuit in 1945 on behalf of around 5,000 Hispanic-American schoolchildren in the Orange County school system protesting segregation. Their landmark case paved the way for other desegregation cases including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
2023 commemorates the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on August 6th and August 9th, 1945. The observance serves as a reminder of the disastrous effects of war and pays respect to the approximately 226,000 victims who died that day.
Disability Pride Month commemorates the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law on July 26, 1990. This month aims to celebrate people with disabilities, honor and uphold their inherent dignity and inalienable rights, and promote their visibility and contributions.
June 2023
To celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, we will highlight important LGBTQIA+ figures each week.
LGBTQIA+ Pride Month honors the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall rebellion and raises awareness of works that seek to achieve equal justice and opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning Americans.
Dr. Sally Ride (she/her) was the first American woman in space and is now recognized as the first acknowledged gay astronaut. Her sexual orientation was not discovered until after her death in 2012 when her obituary was posted by Sally Ride Science, the educational organization she founded.
Audrey Lorde (she/her) was (as quoted in Wikipedia) a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." She is best known for the expression of emotions in her poetry that highlighted, confronted, and demanded solutions to rights surrounding racism, sexism, feminism, queer identity, illness, and disability.
World Refugee Day, designated as such by the United Nations, aims to "build empathy and understanding for refugees around the world and recognize their resilience in rebuilding their lives."
Geo Soctomah Neptune (she/they) is an Indigenous artist who works with Passamaquoddy and Wabanaki youths to preserve the culture arts of their ancestors by teaching basket weaving in the state of Maine in the United States. In 2020, they were the first openly two-spirited person to be elected to public office in Maine. They champion social and political issues that impact Indigenous people through their activism.
May 2023
To celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we will highlight an important figure of Asian American or Pacific Islander origin each week.
Alice Wong (she/her) is a disabled activist and writer who founded the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture.
Larry Itliong (he/him) was a Filipino American labor organizer who advocated for farm workers’ rights. One of his most notable and successful campaigns was the Delano Grape Strike, which united thousands of Filipino American farm workers to strike for better wages and basic necessities like clean water and toilets.
Ellison Onizuka (he/him) was the first Asian American and first person of Japanese origin to reach space. Sadly, he and his 6 crew mates lost their lives during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.
Terisa Siagatonu (she/they) is a Samoan queer poet, community leader, and mental health educator born and based in the San Francisco Bay area. Her poetry combines her intersectional experience with political and personal calls to action.
Observe and reflect on the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda that resulted in more than 1 million people dying in the short span of 100 days. April 7th marks the day the genocide started.
World Immunization Week, a campaign by the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to highlight the need and promote the use of vaccines to protect people across the globe from diseases.
March 2023
The theme of 2023's Women's History month is "Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories." To celebrate Women’s History Month this year, we will highlight the stories and contributions of women that history has overlooked. As this is a declared month in the US, UK, and Australia, we've selected four women from around the globe who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of truth.
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsberg (she/her) was an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States until her recent death from cancer in 2020. She was the first Jewish woman and second woman overall to serve on the Court. Even before her career on the Court, her legal briefs and writings were instrumental in advocating for the protection of women and their equality.
Zenzile Miriam Makeba (she/her), noted singer and songwriter of Swazi and Xhosa decent, used her musical talents to oppose the institutionalized segregation and white supremacy of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Her prominence as a political and cultural style icon contributed to the strengthening of Pan-Africanism throughout the world during her lifetime.
لالہ یوسفزئی (Malala Yousafzai, she/her) is the world's youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She came to the world's attention through her activism in Pakistan, which started at the age of 11, where she spoke out on behalf of women and their right to education.
Олена Олегівна Шевченко (Olena Olehivna Shevchenko, she/her), an activist for human rights in Ukraine, is known especially for her tireless work supporting women's rights and LGBTQIA+ rights. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, she was instrumental in organizing safe havens and support for refugees fleeing the conflicts.
Major Taylor (he/him) is known as one of the fastest men ever to race on two wheels, an American who dominated sprint cycling in the late 1800s and early 1900s becoming the 2nd Black athlete to win a world championship in any sport. He did all this while battling bitter racial prejudice and physical violence from those competing against him.
Daisy Gaston Bates (she/her) was a civil rights activist and journalist who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957, when a group of nine African American students enrolled in a previously all-white high school in Arkansas after the US Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Bates believed that her greatest contribution to this seminal moment in American Civil Rights history was ensuring that none of the children participating in the desegregation activities were physically harmed, even during the most turbulent years of her advocacy.
Doctor Charles Richard Drew (he/him) helped develop America’s first large-scale blood banking program in the 1940s, earning him accolades as “the father of the blood bank." In 1942, he resigned from his position as the first director of the American Red Cross due to their policies of segregating African-American blood donations, a practice that continued well into the 1950s.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon (he/him) proclaimed January as national blood donor month in the U.S., both to celebrate those everyday heroes who donate blood and encourage blood donation during the winter months, one of the most difficult times to maintain a sufficient blood supply.
January 10 marks National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Human trafficking is the third largest crime industry in the world despite being condemned as a gross violation of human rights by international conventions. Anyone can join the fight against human trafficking.
International Holocaust Remembrance honors the memory of the six million Jews and millions of other victims killed in the Holocaust by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. This day marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime
International Non-binary People's Day
Wendy Carlos
Lonnie G. Johnson
Kwanzaa
Nelson Mandela Day