 Hi everybody, I'm Jennifer Clover. Like Jim said, I think my first slide is an example that I've been here before, right? I've actually been here since the very beginning, like Jim mentioned, but there's a picture of me in New Orleans. I've had a few hurricanes. If anybody's been to New Orleans, they know exactly what I'm talking about. I've had just a few right there in that picture. And then the 20th anniversary of Linux, which happened right here in Vancouver seven years ago. Who remembers that party? That was a party, right? That was a party. So I'm so, so grateful to be back here today on stage, on the keynote stage at the very event that I helped create. So I'm grateful. Thanks to Jim and the rest of the Linux Foundation for having me back. Last year, we actually premiered the Chasing Grays trailer at the first ever Diversity Empowerment Summit. We're back this year to share an update on the project here on the keynote stage. So again, thanks to Jim and the rest of the team for having me. I'm going to start with a story because of the Chasing Grays project. That's what we do. We tell stories. So I recently interviewed a woman who told me about her four-year-old daughter, who was very enthusiastic about soccer. And so she signed her daughter up for soccer. And the first practice was two or three weeks away. And the daughter, every day, morning, noon, and night, couldn't stop talking about soccer. What was it going to be like? How many balls are on the field? How do you play? What are the rules? Who do I get to play with? And when the first day of practice finally arrived, she put on her pink princess dress and they went to soccer practice. And the mom got to the field and the daughter just bolted out into the field. And she stopped about halfway through and she froze. And the mom watched as the daughter gazed to the other side of the field and all of the other kids were boys. And they all were wearing blue and black shorts and similar t-shirts. And the young girl, four years old, turned around and slowly walked back to her mom and said, mom, let's go home. She sticks now and she hasn't been back to soccer practice. So this is a really poignant example of the importance of inclusivity. When we don't feel like we belong, we actually oftentimes give up. There are magnificent people in the world who don't, but the masses usually do. And this is one of the reasons why the data tells us that women are leaving tech at double the rate as men. I think that things are starting to change. I talk to women and men every single day about this topic. And so I think things are starting to change, but we can't stop bringing attention to it, talking about it. So let's talk a little bit about diversity. So inclusive environments actually breed diverse of teams. But diversity is not all about gender. In fact, it's about a whole hell of a lot more than gender. It's about diversity of experience and diversity of thought. That's really what it's all about. But that is also why gender is so important to focus on and why we started there with the Chasing Grace project. I stand here before you as a woman in tech. I co-created the Chasing Grace project, which is about women in tech, but I really understand that the diversity of thought and experience is the most important thing to focus on. But our community, industry, and society's pursuit must also be about diversity of thought and experience. And that's what we're focused on. That's why gender diversity is so critical and why we have the project chose to start there. Excuse me. I'm repeating myself a little bit because I lost my place. I don't usually give keynotes. I usually prep people to give keynotes. Let's talk about the Chasing Grace project a little bit. So it is a documentary series about women in tech. Its number one mission is to recruit and retain women for the tech industry. I think we all know why that's so important. We need women at the table in the lab, in the board rooms. We need them badly so that we can create the future. There was an artificial intelligence talk. Artificial intelligence is a really good example of why it's so important that everyone be at the table informing the next generation of technologies because they will create our very existence, our very experience. But there's a parallel mission for the project and that is to give women a platform to be seen and heard for their experiences. So a few pictures of the women that have been sharing those experiences. When we hear their stories, we learn from them and we become more empathetic and we understand experiences other than our own. Women feel empowered and when they're empowered they're more likely to submit the patch, raise their hand in a meeting and ask for the promotion. But for so long we haven't heard from women. They've been heads down, they've been quiet, just like that four-year-old girl. But things are changing. Women are starting to talk and share their stories. Men too, about their experiences in tech. And I think that it's actually helping women who are early in their career, women who are mid-career and women who are in the twilight of their career, not feel so alone. And feeling alone may sound kind of soft, like okay, well whatever. But I think us in the open-source community know more than anyone else how important it is to feel connected and like you're a part of the group. Because when you do, you're more likely to build, create, debate, right, and innovate. Excuse me while I reference my notes. I'm really optimistic after spending a year and a half on this project because I'm hearing a lot of different experiences from men and women in tech. Today I have the pleasure to share for the first time one of those stories with you from a very important woman, Miss Nithya Ruff. I think many of you know Nithya. She's a longtime open-source contributor and participant. I first met Nithya about 10 years ago at a Linux con or collaboration summit, some Linux foundation event. And we quickly bonded over her, excuse me, over her jewelry. She has a beautiful necklace on in the piece that I'm going to show. She actually designs and makes her own jewelry. I don't know how many of you know that, but it's pretty amazing. But as we started talking more, we started to bond over how to market and promote open-source projects. Such an important component of the community. And we've been friends ever since. And she's been extremely instrumental in supporting the project. She's one of our biggest advocates. And recently she brought her company, Comcast NBC Universal, to the table. And they are one of our newest partners, very engaged. And we're going to have more to announce with them in the coming weeks. Nithya has been so forthcoming in sharing her stories and participating in the project that today she's the first woman to be featured in a new series that we're releasing right now called Meet the Women of Chasing Grace. We produce these episodes. They're not available online yet. You can only see them at screenings because we are negotiating with distributors and because we can't sell them until we have a full body of work. But there's been so much excitement for the project that we're talking about it. We're sharing it as much as we can. But we thought that with four to six months between episode premieres that we could release a series of shorts online. So the first two are going live today and then we'll release one every Friday from here on out. And this gives you a chance to kind of get behind the scenes and see a little bit more from these women than you might see otherwise if you can attend a screening. I will give you a preview. We are going to be screening episode one here directly afterwards in the sponsor showcase. So I hope you'll join us. It's the full 22 minute episode of the first it's 22 minute episode of our very first episode about the pay gap. So Nithya's story that we share today is just a couple minutes and it's about the role that her father played in kind of moving her into her path pathway in tech. And it really shows I think the importance of male allies but also of all allies. The importance of community and again feeling like you belong and creating inclusive community and it all starts with the individuals in your life. So with that let's roll Nithya's short profile. I was born and brought up in Bangalore India which has now become Silicon Valley of India. I grew up in a very middle class household. My dad was an engineer. He actually hired a lot of women in his organization and in different capacities so he showed me that there were very strong careers that women can have in business. And then every time we had visitors at home I didn't usually hang out with the women in the back in the kitchen or in the dining room separate from the guys. He would always pull me into conversations with his visitors and so he really involved me in those conversations. He treated me as an equal. My mother was really anxious to get me married especially an arranged marriage. It was he who said no I think she should really stand on her own legs. She should have her own income. She should be an independent woman because when you have that everyone respects you and everyone gives you you know equal status and he insisted that I first get my education before I got married. Someone came to visit our house and they planted the idea of have you thought about going to the U.S. to study. And it was my father who was very pivotal at this point in time and said to me you really got to get a degree in computer science. If you're going to the U.S. do computer science because that's the future. It's important to have people around us who sponsor us and mentor us and push us and many of the good moments in my life happened when someone believed in me and pushed me to do more than I could or believed in me more than I did. Please join me in welcoming Nithya onto the stage for just a moment. Thank you for joining me on stage. Nithya a beautiful jewelry. Thank you. Thank you. So tell me what the influence of your father early on has had on you in navigating mentorship and allyship today and how important that is to you. You know when you have the support of someone like your father or someone like a teacher or a friend or someone who believes in you and inspires you and opens doors for you you realize how important that is to your life and that gave me the gratitude to kind of say I need to invest in others. I need to do the same for others and open doors for them. So it's particularly fantastic to show my story at this venue because this is my tribe this is my hood and this is my you know environment in open source and so thank you so much for doing that and you know every one of us here is here because we had someone who believed in us a teacher a friend a woman in our lives a mother a father you know without that we wouldn't be here so I'm glad that each of us is taking a step to help someone else in our lives and thank you again for on behalf of Comcast and NBC Universal we are so thrilled so thrilled to support Chasing Grace and you know the men and women of Comcast are happy to be part of it. We've always believed that women especially are so underrepresented in tech that we need to you know provide allies and support them in their journey so thank you again. Thank you Nithya thanks Nithya. So the project I'm so grateful the project has grown so quickly over the last year and a half it's gotten much bigger than just the open source community but I just want to express my thanks because the open source community is also my tribe and it's where everything started and our very first supporters come from this community so thank you to everyone Nithya and Comcast NBC Universal included. So thank you to the Linux Foundation for letting me pitch my project a little bit this is clearly a nice thing for them to do and thank you again for allowing me a little bit of nerves it's really a trip for me to be on this stage I've done a lot of keynotes and talking this year but this one's probably the one that made me the most nervous right because this is my tribe and it's where it all started. Please watch every Friday for the profile shorts we will be announcing the episode two premiere on the east coast our premiere number one was on the west coast we'll be announcing that next month join me in the sponsor showcase for a special screening of episode one and please please if you're interested in supporting the work if this topic is important to you which I hope that it is the future depends on it we cannot produce the series without your support we have a number of sponsors I will give them a little bit of plug here but we need more you're missing if you're not on this slide that's my bit of guilt and shame please please join us at the project sponsor it host a screening thank you for the time thanks a lot