Furkan Karayel is a software engineer, founder and CEO of Diversein.com, a global diversity and inclusion platform, and a professional tech speaker. Among the many accolades Furkan has received are the ‘Diversity and Inclusion Role Model in Business’ award by the International Diversity Leadership Awards, and the ‘Trailblazer’ award by the Women in Tech Dublin Awards.

In this episode, Furkan tells Richard how her interest in public speaking started as a child with her love of poetry in her home town in Turkey. Her first adult public speaking gig took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University. She discusses the disastrous conference she had to organize at the last minute in winter in New York city and the important lessons she learned from that.

Furkan describes the difficulty she faces in finding diverse speakers and why they should be an integral part of all conferences. She also gives five encouraging points for budding speakers who speak English as a second language.

Learn more about Furkan at her website.