Asians & Gingers in Tech

Asians and Gingers in Tech: four friends coding together with world landmarks behind them

Hi, my name is Hoi aka Hoiboy!

After 32+ years of extensive research* I’ve concluded that East/South-East Asians and Gingers naturally end up becoming friends.

*Research = my life.

To formalise this groundbreaking discovery, I’ve created a home dedicated to bringing East/South-East Asians and Gingers together.

Welcome to Asians & Gingers in Tech!

Networking? Friendship? World domination? We’ll see.

Come join the weirdest niche community. 🧡🤝

Our community rules

  • Be kind.
  • Be respectful.
  • Jokes are welcome (if they’re funny).
  • Sarcasm is welcome too (if it’s actually funny).
  • Asian jokes? Fine.
  • Ginger jokes? Also fine.
  • Racism? Absolutely not.
  • Being rude? Also not.

Join and follow us

Help build this

This isn’t my first community. I built the largest Brazilian Zouk community online, ran its live events, and it’s still the largest today. Now I’m doing the same here. If you want the story of how, here’s everything I learned.

Right now the meetups are London only, because that’s where I am. It’s not meant to stay that way.

Want to bring this to your own city? Come and say hello. I’m one man, and I can always use the help. If you’re willing to put the time in, because building a community is hard work, I’ll happily bring you into the team, and you’ll run the Real-life meetups where you are (meetup.com/<your-city>-asians-gingers-in-tech). We do this together, city by city.

Already run a community of your own? Let’s team up. I’m always up for collaborative events and for bringing different groups together in the same room.

Sponsorships are always welcome too. If you or your company want to help back what we’re building, get in touch.

Email me at hello@hoiboy.uk.

Why we exist

Let me be honest about why I built this, beyond the joke.

I’m East/South-East Asian mix. I grew up surrounded by ginger mates. And a lot of us shared the same wiring: head down, get the work done, don’t make a fuss. We rarely ask for the pay rise. We rarely chase the promotion. We just quietly do good work and let someone louder take the credit.

I know how that feels, because I live it. I’m ADHD, OCD, and probably dyslexic. School made me feel stupid for 30 years. A lot of us are wired a bit differently, and that same wiring is often exactly what makes us good at what we do. It’s also why we sometimes go quiet and stay out of the spotlight.

I’m not here to speak for anyone or put a label on you. I can only tell you who I am. What I want is a space where you can tell me who you are, on your own terms.

Because here’s the bit nobody says out loud: the quiet ones are holding a lot of it up. The fixes that never got a thank you. The systems that just work, so nobody notices. Real value, real contribution to businesses and the economy, done by people who never asked to be seen.

So this is a home. A place for the heads-down, get-shit-done crowd to be themselves, share their story, and finally get a bit of the light they’ve earned. You don’t have to become someone louder to belong here. Just come as you are.

And if you’re not East/South-East Asian or ginger? You’re welcome here too, genuinely. In fact, we want you here. Because a lot of us only got the promotion, the pay rise, the moment in the light, because someone who wasn’t like us noticed the work and said something out loud. You saw us when we wouldn’t put our own hand up. That mattered more than you know. So come and be part of it, and help us shine a light on the people who never ask for it themselves. That support is the whole point.

That’s why Asians & Gingers in Tech exists. The name makes you smile. The reason underneath is real.

(self-promotion for people who hate self-bragging)

This is a feature series for the quiet, heads-down people doing brilliant work. You’ve got the bragging rights. You just never feel the need to flex them. So let us do the flexing for you. Fill in the form below to share your story and get featured. Prefer to lurk first? Come say hello on any of our channels. Even a wave counts.

Here’s the reason it matters. If you keep your head down and just do the work, you often don’t get the visibility, the acknowledgement, or the recognition you’ve earned. And it only gets harder in a world this noisy. Look at AI right now: the amount of bullshit flying around from people who don’t know the first thing about real engineering. The loud ones get heard. The people actually doing the work get missed. If you’re not seen, you’re not heard.

I want to change that, because I see you, and I see you for who you are. You don’t have to get loud, and you don’t have to fake it till you make it. Just be true to yourself, be you, and let the work speak. This is the community where you get recognised for your effort, and respected for the actual quality of what you do. That is our goal, This is the Way…

Before you fill it in, have a quick read of the Story Guidelines. They cover what to share, how we edit (for clarity, never the facts), and how you get the final say before anything goes public.

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