 Live from Houston, Texas. Extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE. Covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Now your host, Jeff Brick. Hey, welcome back everybody. We are live in Houston, Texas for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2015. We're so excited at theCUBE here this year. We came down to do the quick drive by last year, but we've got the full production. Three days of wall to wall coverage. Finding the smartest people we can find in the room. The people you want to hear from and really bringing them inside theCUBE to get the information. So we're really excited this next segment. A company you may have heard of, an organization, Women, or excuse me, Girls Who Code. So we have the founder and CEO, Risha Sanjani, welcome. And from AT&T, Marissa Shorenstein, from New York State AT&T. Welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. So everywhere we go, we always ask people, what organizations do you work with that are really out front of this topic, really helping change the dynamic around women and girls and computer science. And the name that comes up over and over and over is Girls Who Code. So congratulations on all that you guys are doing. So for the people that aren't familiar with the organization, give us a little update, background, how long you've been around, kind of the mission. So we're a national nonprofit. We like to say we're a movement. We started in 2012. And our goal is to close the gender gap in computer science and tech. So basically in the 1980s, about 37% of all computer science graduates were women. And today that number is less than 18%, which is insane, given how reliant we are. It's going the wrong way. It's going the absolute the wrong way. And so in 2012, we decided to do something about it. And so we taught 20 girls how to computer program. And our model is two-fold. We build classrooms and tech companies. So we'll take 20 girls and we'll teach them how to code for seven weeks, rising juniors and seniors in high school at companies like Facebook and Google and Twitter, AT&T is one of our biggest sponsors. And then we launched after-school programs in about 40 states. So we have girls right now coding in Indian reservations in homeless shelters, in the best private schools in America. Thousands and thousands of girls have kind of raised their hand and said, teach me how to code. Now, less than four years later, we have taught over 10,000 girls how to computer program in 40 states. Wow. So the ages when you say girls, it's rising juniors and seniors, right? So we start in middle school for- For clubs and our summer immersion program is rising juniors and seniors in high school. And then in terms of the code that you teach them, there's a lot of conversation. How do you get them interested in code? What types of projects do you give them that's going to grab them and say, hey, this is kind of cool? Yeah, so it's really project-based learning. So 74% of girls say that they want to pick a career that's about changing the world. So when we teach algorithms or mobile app development or website development, it's really about what do you want to create? So maybe a girl has a mother who's obese and she wants to build an app to fight bullying or maybe she herself has been bullied. So they're constantly thinking about the problems that they're facing and that they're seeing and how they can use technology to solve them. Okay, and then you mentioned reservations all over the place. For people that don't necessarily have a computer or internet access or might be challenged financially, you support them that way as well. Do you give them infrastructure, laptops? How do you do that? Absolutely, and AT&T, for example, we had a great program in LA at Emboil Heights where we use community centers and bring together girls that are in the community that might not have access to wifi, might not own a computer and actually teach them on-site and community centers that can provide some of the hardware and fill that gap that many communities are facing. And so it's really important, our partners like AT&T who are so committed to solving, I mean, just serving underserved communities and making sure that no one is left behind in this tech gap that we have, there are huge reasons why we're able to do the work that we're doing. So begs the question, Marissa, how did you get involved with Girls Who Code? Well, Reshma came to me at its inception and said, I think this is a program that's really going to interest AT&T. At the time, the program was just starting in New York only. And so we partnered with Reshma her first year and since then we've been huge supporters of the organization because we believe that it takes public-private partnerships to ensure that we're teaching our young women the skills that they need to compete for jobs in the 21st century and companies like AT&T, which employ 300,000 people around the globe, constantly are looking for a diverse talent pool that really doesn't exist right now. Young women, young men who understand computer science and software engineering and can come into a company like AT&T or another technology company that requires skills that these young people are not being exposed to. So what Reshma and Girls Who Code is doing is just phenomenal for these girls, but also for companies like ours because we're going to have an expanded talent pool over the next several years that will make our jobs a lot easier in terms of finding great talent. So has the early girls graduated from college? I'd love to have you hired any former, any former, they must be getting close, right? They're getting close, getting close. But that's why we're here today to announce this alumni network that AT&T is funding along with others because we want to ensure that these young women, once they go through the program, have the support that they need in college so that they stick with computer science and software engineering, come out the other end, having the support that they need and exposure to internships, to job talent pools and other ways to ensure that they get what they need so that they don't drop off and that they come to companies like ours once they get through college. Yeah, because it came up in the keynote today, right? There's two parts of the problem. There's the pipeline problem and then there's the retention problem and they're both slightly different animals. And Rush, your comment that the numbers have basically had the computer science also brought up something that was interesting in the keynote that it's not a STEM problem, it's specifically a computer science problem. It's a T and the E problem. I mean, 71% of all STEM jobs are in computer science, right? So the fact that you don't have half our labor force, half of those in college, in these jobs is a huge problem. I always say that this is the most important domestic issue facing our country right now as the lack of women in technical fields. Right, so let's expand on the announcement today. So in kind of the core program, how many years did the girls participate? Yeah, so the summer program is a seven week program. The clubs program can be as many as every year from middle school on up. I mean, Marissa's also on our board and she's, I would say, almost like a hands-on partner and what she and I would both see is when the girls graduate our program, they would come to us and say, what's next? I want to learn more coding. What's another language? Can you help me find an internship? Will you help me move my resume? How do I fill out my college app? And so how do I do a technical interview? So there are all these skills that girls needed and to stay in, not only to get into now the pipeline but to stay into the pipeline and be prepared to go work at a company like AT&T. And so we really came together and said we need to build an alumni network. One of the biggest opportunities that girls go and AT&T see is that if you look actually at the college numbers, the dropout rate for women and men is the same. It's about 40%. And when you talk to young women about why they're dropping out of computer science, it's a lack of community. They don't get called out in a class. They're the only girl in the program. So one of the things that, one of the major things that we're doing in Girls Who Code and our alumni network is building community amongst women. And it's so important. And one of the things that happens when they spend these summers together is that they build that community and so we want to ensure that when they go to college they still find that close knit community through one another even if they're in different places. So that's been really important to us as an aspect of this alumni network to keep these girls in touch with one another and in touch with the companies that sponsored them. Right, and right now you don't really have a giant diversity in ages because you've been at it for three or four years. But at some point I would imagine that mentorship in the alumni now becomes really important as the early birds start making their way through the career. So now you get more kind of a mentorship opportunity. I mean, go by our booth. It's swarmed with women who are now either majoring in computer science in college or maybe they're a professional woman who's here and they're saying, how can I help? Like this idea of a sisterhood in computer science is huge because many of these women, they were bullied, they were the only ones in the classroom. They know what it's like to not have a sense other women supporting you and so they all want to pay it forward and pay it back. That's exactly what's happening. Our alumni, graduating our program, they're starting college and they're signing back up to be a TA to go teach at a club or in one of our summer programs. Yeah, and I love how you highlight that it's like many things, like it's writing software, commercial service, not just the code, right? There's all the tangential things around it which somewhat argue are actually the harder part, you know, pricing and packaging and marketing and go to market and all those things. So it's not just learning how to code. As you said, it's learning how to interview. It's how to prepare a resume. It's how do I make contacts? How do I break in because the front door generally doesn't work? So that's a phenomenal thing to do to help them with all those tangential things that'll help them be successful as code. I had this young woman tell me a story last week that I loved and she basically went to her father and she said, dad, I'm going to be a computer scientist but I'm going to tell you that I'm not, my grade point average is going to go down. And he said, all right, Jada, let me call you right back. So he went and looked at all the top male entrepreneurs, what their grade point average was and he came back to her and he said, all right, if you get above a 2.8, we're good. And he basically gave her permission to fail. And what she found was that to go work at Square or Twitter or Google, you don't need more than a 2.8. Like it's okay, right? If you're not getting that perfect 4.0 and it's really having that knowledge from other women of what the grade point average really was to get a job there because oftentimes we just don't know. Right, right. Well, and the other thing we just had Ashley Connerdon and she's from biology. She started implementing computer science as part of her biology effort. I mean, really technology and software is everywhere now as evidenced by, you know, Vespai and Target and Walmart and Macy's being here. You know, these are not tech companies. These are big retailers and AT&T. But everybody's really a software company. It just happens to be wrapped around a particular service or whether they stay just purely as coders or use as an extension to whatever field is tremendous value. And one of the things we've seen from the girls is that even if they have an interest in fashion or in medicine, when they go through the program they see how technology can apply to what it is that they want to do. They could be building an app that saves people from, you know, a certain disease and it marries their love of medicine with technology. And so that's been a very powerful tool for us to encourage them to stick with technology even if it wasn't what they originally thought that they wanted to do. There's, I'm forgetting, there was a woman we interviewed who had a rent address business basically but she was a software developer to rent these, you know, super high-end fashion investors. Right, rent-to-run way. What is her name? Do you remember? I could see her face. But again, not what you would think of as a technical computer science job at all but she's a coder, right? It's all about how she manages her inventory, how she manages that business. And it's a great example of, again, software is everywhere. So what's next? Where do you guys go from here? World domination. We literally infiltrate the field and we get every girl access to coding education. That's where we're moving. I mean, our scale is not, Marissa and I don't take credit for it. It's really about the fact that, like, there are girls. I mean, we're over-subscribed and so many girls have said teach me how to code and for us it's about how do we get them access to coding education as quickly as we can because I think we both, we want to go out of business and time is running out. Yeah, yeah. So talk a little bit about Grace Hopper, this event specifically. You know, it's, like I said, we didn't know anything about it until last year. We got tipped off on it. Kelly Grizzie from Intel, thank you very much. And it's really a very unique and special place. What does it mean for the industry? What does it mean for girls who code specifically? I mean, I think it means everything. Again, I think the sense of community is so important just to see these amazing women walking around and they're being recruited. I mean, these companies are literally fighting over them and to have a space where that that happens is enormous. And so it's a huge testament to Anita Borg and the fact that they've been really able to blow up this conversation and to get key stakeholders involved in committing to make a difference on the issue. I think for young women to see all these companies here invested in them makes them understand that this is their future. And as long as they stick with it and feel that they have the support that they need, which is what we're offering them, that the sky is the limit. Right, and from a corporate perspective, I imagine this wasn't too hard of a sale. It's a pretty feel good thing to get involved with. But, you know, do you see kind of a changing kind of attitude inside of AT&T as a proxy for the corporate world? One is it's the right thing to do, which we've talked a number of times earlier on theCUBE. But also, you need more people, right? You can't cut off half of the potential population when bottom line is there just aren't enough great people to hire to support the ongoing growth. Right, and that's why for us, sorry, a little cough. It's all right, have a drink of water. You okay? Yes. It's both about, I'm really tough. You need to need a drink of water, all right. You can dig up the karmish. I think that's why companies like AT&T are here because it's about the workforce pipeline. And, you know, they're in communities where they can't hire fast enough. And again, not having half the population or part of this growth doesn't make any sense. Right, right. So, I'll give you the final word, Reshma, before we sign off. How can people get involved? How do people help with checks, time? Yeah, so speak to the young woman in your life and make sure you tell her to code and encourage her to build something. I mean, too, if you have technical skills, sign up to be a volunteer at our Girls Who Code Club or at our summer immersion program. And if you have money, write a check. Donate on our site, girlswhocode.com. Awesome. Well, thank you again for stopping by. Thank you. Thanks for supporting such a great cause. Again, everywhere we go, we say, what organizations are doing good work in the field and Girls Who Code comes up all the time. So, really glad to finally put a face with the organization. So, I'm Jeff Frick. We are live at the Grace Opera Celebration for Women in Computing. We'll be right back on our next guest. We'll have this short break.