In 2022 I was awarded a #dedoc° voices scholarship. At the time I posted three sentences about it and moved on with my life. Turns out it deserved more than three sentences.
What is #dedoc° voices?
#dedoc° is an international community by and for people with diabetes, founded in 2012 by Bastian Hauck, who lived with type 1 himself. It's built on two ideas: #PayItForward and #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs.
Their voices scholarship programme sends people living with diabetes to the big scientific conferences — EASD, ATTD, ADA, ISPAD — the ones normally full of endocrinologists, researchers and industry, and normally missing the one group the whole thing is supposedly about. Since 2020 they've awarded over 600 scholarships to advocates from 70 countries.
The deal is simple. You attend the sessions, you connect, and then you report back to your community. That's the #PayItForward part. Not a freebie — a responsibility. A good one.
Abu Dhabi, 2022: my first diabetes conference ever
ISPAD 2022 was the first diabetes conference I ever attended. Twenty-five years living with type 1 diabetes, and I'd never once been in a room full of other people managing the same condition.
That room changed something. Advocates from all over the world — different countries, different realities, wildly different access to insulin and tech — and yet no one needed anything explained. You mention a 3am hypo and people nod. You don't translate. You don't justify. The shared lived experience does all the talking before you open your mouth.
It sounds like a small thing. It isn't. After decades of managing diabetes mostly on your own, being understood without explanation is genuinely powerful. It opened my eyes to how big, how diverse, and how generous this community actually is.
EASD, ATTD Berlin, and then Hamburg
The scholarship kept going. I joined EASD 2022 virtually, then attended ATTD 2023 in Berlin in person — I wrote up my tech highlights from that one.
Then EASD Hamburg 2023, where I moved from the audience to the stage: I presented at the #dedoc° symposium, connecting art and diabetes to address stigma. The full talk is here:
I've written more about that whole approach — using image-making to shift the diabetes narrative away from fear and medical aesthetics — here.
Should you apply? Yes.
If you live with diabetes and you're active in your community — online, locally, whatever shape that takes — apply. The application asks three questions: who you are and why, which sessions you'd attend, and how you'll pay it forward. That's it. No follower count requirements. No CV. Lived experience is the qualification.
More info at dedoc.org/scholarship.