This is a really interesting development @zmorda , thank you for taking the time to put this together.
It strikes me that perhaps it is useful to think about building networks around specific topics - and then link them together through people who are interested in different things.
The approach that has been intrumental to building Edgeryders into a diverse community is to start by asking people about their first hand experience around a specific topic. Because everyone will have experience of dealing with healthcare for example. And then that person it turns out is really interested in something completely different, and can offer unexpected support to someone else’s project.
Our approach has been to do a series of “campaigns” - calls for people interested in (add the topic for that call here). Give some examples from the edgeryders platform of work others are doing related to it and then ask others who have experience of the topic to join the call. That is how many participants came to find this community - the perfect example being the work we did with OpenCare.
You will find a complete list of topics, and if you look further below you will find that Anu has tagged every peice of content on the platform with one or more tags corresponding to the topic list; What We Care About