 From the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, it's the Q. At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, here is your host, Jeff Frick. Hi, welcome. I'm Jeff Frick and we are on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona at the Anita Board Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing event, a huge event that we didn't know about until recently, over 8,000 attendees here, really celebrating women in technology. It's an education event, they've got a job fair, it really kind of covers the gamut. Satya Nadella just finished his keynote upstairs and so we are here, we're going to talk to some folks here, kind of get an update of what's going on and we're really happy to have our first guest, Cheryl Cook, VP of Channel from Dell, welcome. Great, thank you Jeff, happy to be here. So just begs the question, what are you doing here personally as well as representing Dell? Yeah, I'm happy to, this is a fabulous event and I'm just incredibly impressed with the participation here both in quantity, I think they've doubled their audience since the last event, there's over 8,000 people here as you said and just the real cross section of both students and aspiring engineers as well as professionals who are really taking the networking opportunity, job fair and recruiting as you said, it's just a fabulous form. We cover a lot of tech shows as you know we go out and there seems to be usually a woman track now whether that's a networking breakfast, a networking launch, a specific session, so it definitely seems to be gaining traction. So I wonder if you could tell us about, if you have any formal types of programs at Dell that are kind of in support of this type of initiative. Sure, absolutely, I think the agenda is an important one and keeping the discussion and the conversation front and center I think is kind of all of our responsibility and obligation and in Dell, we're certainly very mindful of diversity and inclusion and specifically just trying to create opportunities for up and coming top talent women into more senior roles so we have certainly our outreach program with our Dwen which is Dell Women Entrepreneur Network which is really created to create that community and networking opportunity for entrepreneurs and women who are starting unique businesses and opportunities to really get connected with the broader community. We also are very active with the Catalyst Group both Michael Dell and Karen Quinto sit on that board and we're the first IT company in the industry to really advocate men's roles in creating the opportunity and sponsorship and advocacy for women in roles so we have Mark which is men advocating real change and we have a pilot initiative in Dell where we've solicited some of our top male leaders to really help brainstorm ideas and ways that we can really get people more involved. That was interesting because they actually had a male allies panel here I saw on the agenda so you know being inclusive really it's everyone kind of pulling the rope in the same direction and making some progress so Dell world is coming up shortly so is there anything specific going on at Dell world that people should know about? Sure absolutely we're delighted we have our big customer event which is in November in Austin and we have a couple sessions running that are really aimed at closing the gap on diversity and inclusion in IT where we're really going to have some sessions and really talk about some of the industry research what some of the statistics and data show what are some of the ideas and actions and programs that we have underway and really just network with our customers and CIOs about the role we all play and we can all learn from each other on really kind of advancing the the cause and the agenda. So I want to shift gears a little bit and get a little bit more personal about your specific journey because I think you know obviously a big part of this whole thing is mentorship and having people that the young girls and young women can look up to kind of his role models and emulate and follow their path quite frankly and you said before we came on there you have a computer science background correct but now you're on the business side of the house which often we see it kind of flip the other way so I wonder if you can talk about your experience you know you're at a big tech company with a computer science degree I imagine the the ratio in your classes where'd you go to school yeah I'm a I'm a Florida Gator so I'm a computer science grad from University of Florida and you're right there were very few women in my class in my graduating class when I graduated but you know I always enjoyed the math and the stimulation of the technology the dynamic pace of technology and started on the technology you know support side and pre-sales engineering but quickly moved into sales so the gift of gab and relationship management and problem solving and trying to really bring solutions to customers and have just you know really enjoyed more the business aspect of understanding what the technology is but most importantly how you can apply it to the business problems the other thing we talked to some people on this topic is kind of when you know when girls should kind of know when really the focus and clearly a lot of people play colleges is too late so you know when did you kind of know that you had either an aptitude an enjoyment of love you know whatever that drew you to end up being a computer science uh it's not always a well thought out plan you know but yeah absolutely I always had an affinity for math so I was very uh good at math so that came a little easier to me uh my father was in the space program so he was an engineer so I had a little bit of that influence I think and you know I was motivated to really go into new and at the time that I went into school computer science was really just emerging and coming off the mainframe into client server technologies and that's where I started so yeah so I give you the last I give you the last word before we sign off what tips or advice would you give to um I guess the young women uh who potentially watching this about their career in tech no I absolutely would follow your passion you know if you have a love for math and problem solving there is numerous creative opportunities for you so I would say stay committed stick to your passion and absolutely raise your hand for advice to uh there are many people that want to help so just raise your hand and seek advice and ask ask for support well Cheryl thanks for stopping by again Cheryl got a touch of a cold so we uh we appreciate her you know jumping in on short notice and and sharing some advice with our audience so again Jeff Rick we're here on the ground in Phoenix uh at the Phoenix Convention Center at the Borg Institute Grace Hopper Celebration in Women Computing we'll be right back