Fancy LinkedIn Lingo:
With over a decade of experience in equity, diversity and inclusion advocacy, I blend my communications, community engagement, research, and design thinking facilitation skills to create experiences that elicit a sense of belonging – online and offline – and empower teams to be more equitable in their ideation and decision making, creating lasting culture change.
In other words, I’ve learned a few things from a few different schools and awesome jobs across the country on how to create equitable experiences and engage communities – in particular, how to engage diverse communities in an inclusive and equitable way.
In 2022, I was awarded the prestigious Vision in Action award for my work, the highest individual recognition award at TD. It’s a once in a career award, with 1 in 1000 TD employees receiving it.
I am so incredibly fortunate to speak about equity, diversity and inclusion. Some of my speaking engagements include the following:
- Fireside Chat with Google’s Annie Jean-Baptiste on equity in product design: TD; November 2021
- Accessibility as Inclusion in Digital Design: Youth Culture Inc; July 2021
- Inclusive Design Principles: Youth Culture Inc; December 2020
- IDPWD 2021 – Inclusive Design Principles: TD; December 2020
- Ontario Library Association’s 2020 Super Conference, Spotlight Speaker; January 2020
- True North 2019, Netizens Film Screening and Panel; June 2019
- #WomeninPolitics Panel with MPP Laura Mae Lindo; June 2019
- Online Violence: Redefining Trolling; May 2019
- International Women Day: Activism in the Age of Fascism Panel; March 2019
- International Women Day: Emotional Labour Workshop; March 2019
- Fluxible: Poetry & Web Dev as Art; September 2018
- CUTC 2018: INSPIRE; May 2018
- Microsoft Inclusion Talks; July 2017
- #ThePeopleUnited: Cyber Activism, Congress of the Arts and Humanities; May 2012
You can find the whole rundown of what I’ve been up to over the years on LinkedIn or in my most recently updated resume.
Current Spotlight Project:
TD’s Equity Resource Hub
The Equity Resource Hub includes a five-step process that guides teams throughout the development process to not limit potential target audiences because of their own personal and professional experiences. This includes the consideration of aspects of diversity, such as race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability in the creation of Inclusive Personas, which are commonly used in design and development. This process helps create more diverse, inclusive, and equitable personas for product and service design and development – from early ideation to later stage production.
Learn more about the Equity Hub and why I believe tools like the Equity Hub help create equitable experiences.
Samantha Estoesta 