 Hi, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. It's the fourth year they've had the conference. We're really excited to be here. It's our first time to visit, but we wanted to come down and check it out. About 400 people. They'll be back in the Bay Area next year with about 600 people. A three-day show and really doing good work. So we're excited for our next guest, Meg Withcott, the co-founder and CTO of Panifold. Welcome. Thanks. Glad to be here. Absolutely. So you mentioned before we got started, this was your first time at the Catalyst Conference. What are your impressions? Yes, I've heard about it, but I always felt I was too busy, but I spoke and I'm so glad, you know, to attend, to know about it. Next year I'll be in San Francisco. That's right. So my backyard. So your speech was on women on the, see if I get this right, 122nd Meridian West to the 58th Meridian. So first off, where are those Meridians? So that forms a great circle around the globe. It goes through Silicon Valley. First, I was going to talk about women in Silicon Valley, but then someone said, well, why don't you branch out? And I said, well, how they're, you know, how to narrow it down. Right. And so I picked this circle around the world, you know, the world. Right. And then you said you had this project where you went and interviewed people and asked them what advice would you give your younger self? What a fantastic idea. So how did that work out? Where did you go? How many people did you interview? It worked out really well. I talked with around 20 and a dozen or so are there in the tape. I didn't know what would happen, you know, if it would be all over the map, so to speak. Right. But there are seven themes that emerged, you know, how to find joy when you're doing something hard. And the theme that really emerged was being open, being open to opening your heart, being open to life's friction. People went really deep. It was kind of surprising. And on these seven themes, so there was joy, there was being open, or some of the other ones. Challenge, conflict. It wasn't surprising, but kind of sad stereotyping. And openness was the biggest theme, though. People literally used that word open time and again. And I edited all the footage and so it just stuck out. Right. It was interesting. And was it advice to be more open to get the other things like joy and success? I mean, is that kind of a foundational kind of point of view, if you will, or kind of way of looking at the world that enables some of these other things? It was. And to being open to listening to your colleagues and to viewing them not as kind of a finished product and categorizing them, but as someone who's learning. Right. So each person I interviewed had a slightly different perspective on what it means to be open, but they all went there. They all went there. And what was the biggest surprise that came out of that process, besides the obvious one? You know, it was being introduced to amazing people through strangers on LinkedIn. Because I know tons of people in California, but in Iran, Yemen and Madagascar. Madagascar was the big surprise. Getting to be in touch with people from famous music groups there. So I've never been to Madagascar. I want to go now. Did you go? You didn't go do the interview there? No, no. I mean, I should have. No, the footage was really gritty. It was over Skype. But that's how it was. So it's interesting. You've mentioned a couple of times you're from California. You know a lot of people in California. You were thinking about starting on California, but then people said, you know, why don't you take it to a broader sphere? So with that context, we're from the Bay Area. We've got to Boston, Boston too, but we're in the Bay Area. And there's kind of a Silicon Valley centric kind of point of view that people can get wrapped up into. So did you see any big distinguishing differences between kind of what you expect or what you know kind of in California versus some of these international things, or were there really not that much differences after all? Not really. As soon as you peel off the layer, you know, what we talk about regarding technology, it was the same themes emerged all over the world. Interesting. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about academics. So you've been visiting fellow at Stanford. I've got it all written down a whole bunch of things, Harvard, all these great schools, Barnard College. So you've got an academic kind of point of view. I'm curious to get your take on how women's issues and specifically women's issues in technology are changing or being, you know, kind of grabbed onto by some of these academic institutions to try to implement some change. Yeah, that's a really interesting topic. Was it, for instance, the president of Barnard College is looking forward in an interesting way. As I'm sure you know, it's a well-known liberal arts college in New York associated with Columbia University. They don't have a computer science major, but so they're going to work on that. Because some of the faculty, I think, probably thought that why do you need computer science? You know, we're teaching something. Still today. Still today. And so, you know, where we live, we think what? We scratch our heads. And at Stanford, for instance, it's a really popular major. So it was a surprise to me to hear that people thought that way. But at Sweetbriar, Barnard, a lot of these other colleges, they're now starting to see, well, yeah, it is, it is an academic study. It's not like, you know, repairing motors. Right, right. Well, it's even a language, right? Because I would even say in high school, when will CS be right there next to biology, chemistry, and physics on just kind of your standard track? And there's evidence that if you study, I have a linguistics background, as it turns out, if you study multiple languages, you'll do better at learning computer science early on, too. And so we think of it as something, if you're good at math, you'll be good at CS. Well, actually, if you're good at language, you have an advantage as well. Right. Yeah, because it's basically a language, right? It's basically writing. There's lots of ways you can solve the same problem. And it's really creative writing exercise as much as you can. Well, and logic. Right. And language, if you look at it, is logic plus emotion. And then what about at the high school level? Are you seeing anything at the high school level that's being done? It's tough for high school teachers, right? They're in a, especially public school tough. A lot of things being thrown at them. What are they doing? How can they better equip their kids and girls specifically? Yeah, that's a really good question. What I see, I mean, there are some great programs, robotics in particular. It seems like kids gravitate to that. But you know, I'm working more closely with college students. For instance, Cal State Monterey Bay, they started CS department. And so, you know, first generation kids whose families have never been to college are taking computer science. And within three years, they're ready to go in the workforce. And it's a revelation to their parents. It's really inspiring. Yeah, that's great. Because there's certainly a shortage of the skills. So there's huge opportunities. Yeah. All right. So we're running low on time. I want to give you the last word kind of what are you working on for the next six months? Are you going to continue to, to work on your advice project? You got another project in the wings. What are you working on? Panifold is what's near and dear to me. And so, it connects to the talk I gave, though, because it's all about a learning journey. So what the women had in common, along with being open, was they could step back and see their careers as a learning journey. And that gave them a lot of strength. So at Panifold, we're enabling people to share their experience with the web as a learning journey. So mostly it's for people who need to educate their clients. Okay. And so we're giving them tools for that. All right. We'll check that out. That's at panifold.com. Yes. All right. Super. Well, Meg, thanks for taking a few minutes and stopping by. Nice meeting you. Absolutely. So I'm Jeff Frick. We are at the Women, excuse me, Girls in Tech, a Catalyst Conference of Phoenix, Arizona. You're watching theCUBE. Thanks for watching.