 My name is Antoine Simmons and I have a little bit of time between the transitions so I will do an interpretive dance, no I'm kidding. I'm really glad to be here, Chicago is a great time, I've been here in too long so glad to be in the windy city. So you know I sometimes think that diversity as a topic in tech is going to fade away. But if something happens you have someone writing about extremely toxic and sexist culture at a major technology company or someone writes a manifesto about why diversity is something you shouldn't waste time on. But I think the topic is here to stay and there are real problems in technology. We see a lack of balance when it comes to representation of women and minorities and also benefits like paying promotions are often not equally distributed. These are new problems. In the 60s there was an actor on a TV show who realized that the actress working with him wasn't paid as much as the male actors. So what did he do? He went to the studio executives and he demanded equal pay for her. The actor was littered Nimoy, the actress was the show Nichols. I think that Nimoy realized that equal pay for equal work is good business. And Nimoy if he had access to current research would know that that's correct. A few years ago ASA published a report that showed that there's a very strong link between diversity of gender and race in companies. That there's real business benefit in having equal representation at your company. But I think that Nimoy also saw this report from last year by Peterson that said that if you have more women leaders in your company then you get better results. So there's obviously a link between having diversity and very strong business results. The research is very, very clear. But first we have to understand the difference between diversity and inclusion. Diversity is like a party, right? You send out your invitations, you're done. And it can easily be a numbers game. But inclusion goes further. Inclusion means that you're being welcoming. If someone journey a long way, you make sure that you are appreciative. Or if they don't drink alcohol, you have non-alcoholic options. So inclusion requires empathy, diversity, you just need a stamp. So now that we talk about diversity and inclusion, we have to understand privilege. And first, what privilege is not? It doesn't mean you're not working hard. If you're riding a bike up a hill, you're working hard. But there are other people riding that same hill who have obstacles that you don't even see. That you don't have to even deal with. And so they work in tech just like you do. But they go through different obstacles and they run into boundaries that you don't even recognize. And so you, however, can do something with your privilege. What's privilege? Privilege is access to benefits based on your traits. And so there are two major types of privilege. There's what I call birth privilege. And those are things that you're born with. Those are things that the two people who made you gave you. So your race or your gender or your level of ability. And also everything that is used to discriminate. Those are your birth privileges. But then there are your selected privileges. Things that change as you grow. That might be where you go to school. Or it may be your religion. Or different things that you choose as you grow into an adult. Now the combination of your birth privilege and your selected privilege come under what I call your portfolio privilege. Now some of you have all of these privileges. Some of you have probably at least one. But think about your role in tech. Your career in DevOps. What if you had to go throughout your career without those privileges? If you didn't have racial privilege. If you didn't have gender privilege. If you didn't go to a good school. How much harder would it be to work in tech? Well there are people you know who don't have these privileges. And it's hard for them. But you can lend your privilege. And how can you do that? I have three examples and let's go with B. So the next time that the executive team asks you to do a presentation why not invite B? Why not give her a chance to let her light shine to the executive team? So let someone who doesn't have your privilege do that presentation. Or we have L here. So the next time that your company decides to come to a conference like this why not let someone who lacks your privilege go? I mean isn't this your third or fourth DevOps days? Or we have M. And so next time that your boss says hey I have this great project I need someone to manage it. Let someone who lacks your privilege manage it. Let them have the opportunity to lead at your company. So the power of lending privilege is that you don't really give up anything. But you just share your benefits. You share what you have with everyone else to make technology the meritocracy that we all wanted to be. So if we want technology to truly have business value then we have to build diverse and inclusive cultures. So everyone in this room you have a role to play by lending your privilege. Thank you.