 Live from San Francisco, it's The Cube. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. Hi, Jeff Frick here with The Cube. We're on the ground at Pier 48 in San Francisco at the Top Coder Open 2014. The event that's been going on for about 14 years where they get a bunch of smart people together, they try to solve hard problems, kind of like a hackathon. It's a cool event, but we came up for another reason. This year, for the first time ever, they put together basically a program to help high school girls focus on STEM. They got together a panel of women in the technology industry that come from lots of different walks of life, set them down in front of 200 high school girls from San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, the East Bay, the peninsula to really talk about their journey in technology and really help these girls visualize them getting involved in this path. So, we're really excited. We've got the whole panel on. Jeff Frina, Packing Nathan, thanks for stopping by. I'm glad I'm happy to be here. So, your day job, you work at a pierrot? I do. But you're also still a student? I'm very much a student. I've got homework due today. You've got homework due today. But I thought what you brought to the panel that was very different than anyone else was really kind of the human factors. And I thought your example of House, the TV show, to really show these girls how they can bring lots of different disciplines together to solve problems is really great. Right. And I always think about what makes House a good doctor. And he really, he looks at the patient and he doesn't just look at the results of a blood test. He might, you know, break into their house and see what they're eating or see if they're cheating on their way. And it's using information about the patient outside of their medical history that makes him a good doctor. And I was thinking what makes me a good computer scientist? And it's having information from sociology and psychology and anthropology, philosophy, all these other fields and learning about how humans work and how we think and how we behave. That makes me a better developer and a better designer. And I have to say I think there's not enough of that in most design. I think, you know, people talk about the technology a lot. They don't focus enough on the people. They don't focus enough on the process. The other thing I think that was really important for that is to really make it real for these girls to understand that you watch a regular TV show that they can relate to and it ties back to potentially this great career in tech and really kind of humanizes this whole thing. Right. And it's very important for me to show the girls that, you know, if you want to get into technology, it's not just about, you know, taking a computer science class and learning how to program. You can take a Photoshop class and a graphic design class and implement it in mobile development. Or you can take a physics class and use it in gaming development. It's getting experience from all these other fields, but ultimately that scientific and the programming and technical core is what will essentially help you in the future. Now, the other thing you brought up that was kind of a cute story was your dad, you know, looking to your little brother instead of you to help around the house on some of the technical issues. And you just said, I'm not taking that anymore. So talk a little bit about that part of your personalities. That's something that you carry forward. Have you used that in classes? You know, talk about, you know, basically having kind of a, I'm going to get this done. I'm going to learn. I'm going to figure it out. Yeah. And a lot of people underestimate girls and think that we're not good enough or, yeah, if I'm a girl, I don't know how to fix a computer. Or I don't know how this TV works. And that, you know, pissed me off. And I was always like, you know what, I can fix this too. I can build stuff and I can program and I can code just as good as any of the guys in my classroom. And that's what I did. I took my first programming class in 10th grade and I took Java and C++ and I took web development classes. I took my A-plus exam in my senior year in high school and got that certification. My dream job was to work at Geek Squad when I was in high school. I know. And I really wanted to prove that, you know what, I can do the things that all the other guys in my class could. I'm just as equal as they are. So when did it morph from, I've got to prove my dad wrong so I can fix the stuff around the house and I can get to learn programming as a sophomore in high school to, wow, I really like this. I've got a passion. I've got a skill. This is something I'd like to do in my career. I think that really happened once I got to college. In high school, it was still like I'm learning everything. But once I could do some of those research projects in college and actually have my code be implemented somewhere and some of my internships where you can see physically how you're affecting other people, that's when it really clicked. And you get that, the human interaction. And you can talk to the clients and get your requirements and see that if I built a website in my class, in college is where that website went live and other people were using that website. And you could get that feedback. That's when it became real for me. Which is interesting because that's consistent with what Maria Clive from Harvey Mudd said, is that the stuff kind of up until college is building a foundation, but really where girls have an opportunity to get the passion, to really get the bug and to really go forward in this is in college. Yeah, for sure. It's those internship opportunities. And my mom always said, if you're going to get a job, don't get a job doing retail or serving ice cream or something. Always get a job that you know you can get some experience to put on your resume. And that's what I did. I interned at Goodwill in their technical department and that was what I did for the summer. I interned doing an iPhone app at Prometric. And it's those kind of real world experience. I'm not building iPhone apps today, but it's getting that technical experience that's helped me get to where I am today. So talk about mentorship in the girls today and what this type of a program means. I actually went to a program like this when I was 16 years old. Where? At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, they have an event very similar to this hosted by the Center for Women in Information Technology. And the event was called Bits and Bites. And it was a programming competition for high school girls. And I was one of the 16 that got selected and I went and I won. So was that before or after you took your first CS class as a sophomore? It was right around the same time. I was 16. I think I took my first class when I was 15. But it was really like we got to do a contest and play with, you know, video game design kind of. I wanted to build like a 3D virtual world like Sims. And I was just in high school and being able to see what other girls in college were doing and that it was really a great experience for me. And that's what I wanted to do when I grew up. Awesome. So what do you think of the girls here? I'm very glad. A lot of them, they're so smart. Some of the questions they ask, you're like, really? I wasn't that smart when I was that young. But they're really interested, especially the seniors and the juniors are thinking about what they want to major in in college. I even had one girl ask me how to balance school life and work life together, which is definitely difficult. But I can see that she's thinking about that. She wants to go to work and go to school at the same time. Right, right. That's right because you're still in school, so they picked up on that. So it's really a great indicator that they're paying attention. They're listening. They're taking this very seriously and they're asking real questions. Exactly. Awesome. So I'll give you the last word. Since you were the beneficiary of a program like this, now you're giving back. What other organizations is there one or two that you'd like to highlight that you participate in or you think is especially great that people should get involved with? Sure. There's the Center for Women in Information Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In the larger Maryland area, there's MDWIT, which is Maryland Women in Technology. And they're both offering good programs for high school girls to just get out there and not be afraid and underestimate yourselves and think that only the guys can do this. We're just as good. And if I want to build stuff, I'm going to learn how to build stuff. Love it. Well, Jeffrey, and thanks for stopping by. Thanks for having me. Thanks for giving back and really thanks for being kind of a poster child for someone who was fortunate enough to get some of this early on and really take advantage is now giving back coming full circle. So super. I'm happy to be here. Thank you.