 Hi, and welcome to theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin, coming to you from our Palo Alto studio. Very excited to be joined by a CUBE alumni, the CEO and president of Anita Borg, Brenda Darden Wilkerson. Welcome back to theCUBE, Brenda. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to have you here. You have been at Anita Borg for about six months. You've got a great background in the tech industry and in education. Give us a perspective of what's happening, what's new with Anita Borg. Well, we are very excited to be in this space at this point in history. It's very exciting. Women are alive to the possibilities of what they can contribute in tech. We can thank so many important women who are contributing to the conversation and it is our job to make sure that they have a voice. And so we're working really hard to make sure that the perceptions that would create barriers for women, contributing to tech, having a career path, taking those really important positions of power in tech that we obliterate them and that the floodgates are open for all who want to participate. I love that on the website, I saw the, what we do, one of the things that shattering perceptions. And I thought that word shattering, that description was really, really important. It is very important because you would think in 2018 that these issues that our founder, Anita Borg talked about years and years ago. I mean, she was a visionary. When she said 50-50 by 2020. And actually we're coming back from the cliff that we fell off of in terms of being our percentages in tech. We're at about 22% now. And a lot of that has to do with those perceptions. What are the images that young women see or people in power in tech? What are those images that continue to contribute to those barriers? And that's first and foremost the thing that we're working to change. When you were on theCUBE at Grace Hopper 2017, just six months or so ago, one of the things that you said that I really love was people can be what they can see. So having awareness and showing females in technology and leadership positions, showing people this power of representation is critical. Very much, very much so. And really all we're talking about is telling the truth. It's not as though the women haven't always been there. It's not as though they aren't making huge contributions. It's just making sure that when they do the work, they get the credit for it and that people get to see it. I've seen it be very important in my previous work in driving computer science. All of the stakeholders needed to understand that underrepresented people of all kinds could do tech. And they were very much impacted by the images that they saw. And so it's our job to make sure that all of those stories get told. So you spent 15 years in education and you had many years before that in tech. You made a massive impact with the computer science for all initiative that you founded back in 2013 in Chicago. Tell us a little bit about that because it's really exploded and I'm sure really kind of exceeded your expectations. Tell us about that initiative and where it is currently today. I'm very excited about the initiative. I mean really it was born out of some of my own experiences. I was a person who in my background, I wasn't exposed to computer science until I found it accidentally in college. I mean obviously that accident changed my whole trajectory. So when I found out that that was still happening to women and underrepresented students, when I got into education, that was sort of the genesis of wanting to do something about it. That was when we launched computer science for all. And yes, now it is a national initiative in Chicago. We have a graduation requirement. Students all have to graduate with at least one year of computer science. And we're seeing that transformation. I've got students who we started with in the beginning who are graduating this year from universities with computer science, data science, information science degrees, and they are doing amazing things. They're starting companies, they're developing products all because they had that exposure. And so it's exciting now to be on the other side, really kind of coming home full circle, back to advocate for women in tech, as I started out, to make sure that those hundreds of thousands and millions of students have access to the opportunities that we need them to have access to. Right, that access is such a critical thing. And you kind of think in some respects, as we were talking about earlier, you've made a massive impact in Chicago, New York City. The Obama administration got behind this. So while you started out with a goal of reaching 400,000 kids in Chicago, there's now over 1.5 million. But it starts with that awareness that this shouldn't be an elective. We, kids need access to understand, I can be what I can see. I can't see it. That's right. I don't know that it's an opportunity. And if I don't know, if I can't touch it and know that I have access to being the creator of technology, changing the world as we know technology alone can do, then we're gonna miss out on the kind of contributions that only they can make. And so that is what makes this so exciting. You know, when we started out, I'm thinking of the kindergartners that started that first year, they're in fourth grade now, right? Wow. What is the world going to look like when they graduate from high school? It's just gonna be amazing. I can't wait. We were just covering women in data science a couple of weeks ago. I was mentioning to you before, and I love that event because you walk into where the main event at Stanford is held and you just instantly feel positivity, excitement of this movement. And there's so much opportunity within data science alone. And one of the things I wanted to talk with you about is we heard a lot of people that were guests that day talk about the creative element. And we often think of the hard skills that computer scientists and data science need to have, but you found CS accidentally, as you said. And one of the things that I've heard you say is the opportunity to be creative. Tell us a little bit more about how people, young girls, can get creative and express creativity through computer science. Well, that's very important. We found that we could attract more girls into computer science when we told them that they could use these skills and this knowledge to solve problems that they cared about. Initially, because it was such a, it thought to be such a male-oriented subject, it was all about computer games and the kill games and the girls were like, I'm not interested in that, but I want to do things that are impactful to the world, to change my society, to change my community. And you can do that with technology and you can create something out of your own ideas from scratch, from concept. And I can see the lights go on for them and wait. I can create an app that helps my friends through a particularly difficult time with bullies. Yes, you can do that. And so that is the exciting explosion that's about to happen. People who are really using these skills to solve problems for the human good, that's what we're going to see an increase of because that's what many times the women bring. So Grace Hopper, 2018, is coming up, what, in September? It's September 26th through 28th this year and it's in Houston. We're returning to Houston. We're actually even going to use the Toyota Center for our keynotes. And you're expecting 20,000 people this year? We had 18,000 last year. We're inviting 20,000 new this year. We're going to have over 17 tracks. Last year we had 405 concurrent sessions. The whole point is to give women an idea of how they can transform their lives, coming into technology at whatever stage they found themselves in, whether they're just seekers or interested in learning about technology or if they're middle career going to that next stage or the executive level. We have something for all of them. So and you get out awards, the Abbey awards at Grace Hopper, give us a little bit of an idea of the types of categories that, in which women are awarded. So we award the top innovator. We award top educator. So wherever women find themselves, we want to bring attention to the fact that we need participation, not in just what we think of as the high tech sector, but all along the pathway. People who are bringing attention to issues using technology in their community. We award all of those people who participate in creating more of a well-rounded experience for all of us to understand what technology can do for our lives. And it's really everywhere, right? And that's one of the things I think is personally really intriguing about technology. Every company now has to be a tech company. That's right. Every company is a tech company, right? And so that's another thing that we want to make sure that people are not just thinking that, oh, if I'm going to get in tech, I just can work for these five or 10 high tech companies. Tech is everywhere. It's across the country. It's around the world. It's right where women are living and having their existence. And we need their contribution in those places. Yeah, another thing about WIDS, and when we were talking about data science, that I found interesting was somebody's female leaders talking about the hard skills, the data analysis, the interpretation, but also needing to have more diversity in the analysis to remove, we all kind of come with biases, but to start having more female perspectives to really kind of open up the analyses and remove some of the biases, which was kind of something, to be honest, I've been in tech for a long time. I hadn't really thought about before. Yeah, and it's really shocking just how impactful some of those biases are in that data on people's everyday lives. We've heard things everywhere from as serious as different sentencing levels for people based upon the algorithms that are there to how much things can cost more for important things like insurance based upon the data that's there. I think the New York Times did a piece a couple of weeks ago about face recognition software and those images that are in those databases. And so it's so important that we have diverse faces at the table as a black woman. My face is likely to be misunderstood 37% of the time, right? So to be able to have the diverse background there that will check for those images to make sure that they're more representative of the whole population is just going to make all of our lives better. So at Grace Hopper, your audience is made up of girls and maybe interested in STEM, women that you said are in many stages of their careers on the corporate side. One of the things I read recently is that article that you wrote in Mashable called Voices of Women in Tech Collaboration with Anita Boer where you talked about corporate activism and there's some pretty significant benefits that companies can achieve by speaking out. Tell us a little bit more about that. Well, you know, we have a much more engaged in active population, especially the millennials and they care what their companies care about and how they contribute or don't contribute to the causes that they care about. And so one of the most expensive things that a company will ever experience is their ability to retain great talent. And what we've seen is that millennials will decide to stay or leave based upon some of the things that companies contribute to or don't contribute to. So being able to pay attention and to get into the game of other things that are outside just the product that they produce actually contributed to a company's bottom line. That's pretty interesting. It's very interesting and very important and knowing that is something that they can immediately put in place that impacts the success of their company. Absolutely and some of the things too that I've heard on various Cube shows that we've done is the millennials perspective on the gender gap. And often they'll go, I don't know why you guys are still talking about this and we think we don't either but we are and it's refreshing to hear that this next generation thinks that that is just something that's kind of ridiculous that we're still talking about and also that how important seeing a leader, a CEO being involved in something important is to retention. So I think that's a great message that Anita Bore can help get out there and show businesses this huge impact and benefit to you in fostering your own talent. Yeah, you know, and it's encouraging as you say that the millennials are jumping in and many more people are jumping in and giving this perspective to companies which is actually assisting them, right? So now they don't have to feel like, okay, this is just my idea, I'm going to take a risk and jump out. They've got people who are loyal to their organization saying, I believe in this and I believe in you, let's do this together. And so definitely our job is to make sure that companies have access to all the information they need to make these, what shouldn't be hard decisions but we're there to help them. So the 50-50 idea you have said that and you mentioned that earlier that you want to see 50-50 representation of females in the next 10 years, tell us a little bit more about kind of what's coming out the rest of 2018 from Anita Bore and how you guys are working to help make that, help get those numbers up from where they are currently. So it's all about awareness and there's a lot of awareness out there but what we want to do is increase it. You mentioned the idea of people can't be what they can't see. Images are so powerful and so we want to work with media outlets, we want to work with entertainment companies, with writers, with producers and say, help us create the images that can turn around and tell the truth really. I mean, we're not creating a fiction, let's just tell the truth. That allow people to understand that yes, this is how this works and let's couple that with the data that shows that the bottom lines of companies that have more diverse workforces, that have more diverse boards are much improved over those that are non-diverse. And so we're creating that awareness, we're helping our companies find out what we call not only best practices but many times it's better practices. We're still working towards that best practice of here's how you can make incremental steps forward. Excuse me, you mentioned 10 years. I'm a little more urgent than that. I feel like the things that we get done are the things that we're most urgent about. One of the issues about why we're still dealing with these things, it's just been sort of like let's work on it in the sweet buy and buy. I want to say let's work on it by in the next two years, in the next three years. Let's make some goals, let's put some metrics behind them and those are some of the things that we help companies do. I love that urgency, I think it's essential but the awareness and kind of this idea that you have of let's just tell the truth, there's really nothing more powerful than that but also the imagery and the representation is critical for that. If you look back at all of your success and think back to younger Brenda, what advice would you give somebody that looks at you and goes wow, where do I start? What's that recommendation for shattering someone's own maybe perception of themselves and getting into technology? Right, I mean we have to start with the conversation that we have with ourselves but we're in this world now where there are so many great images, find those images, you can find successful women, there are so many of them, talk to them, reach out to those of us because we want you to succeed, we want you to participate and come on board and so we have a world with social media that allows people to have access to each other that we didn't have before but the most important thing is don't take no for an answer, not only because it's just not true but because we need you and it is an amazing time right now where you have all these women who are standing up saying that they want change and we're here to support them and we're here to support you. Speaking of this kind of movement going on globally about we want change with the Me Too movement, bit of a different genesis, however, the awareness is starting to be there. You talked about needing the entertainment industry to get on board and really start ensuring that we're sharing the truth here. What opportunities do you see to deliver through Anita Borg that maybe you can leverage that's coming from the Me Too movement and all of Hollywood that's really starting to stand up and be very vocal about this? Well, you know, it's interesting because people ask me that question a lot and from my own perspective, there's like this awakening because those same sorts of things were happening in tech as well. We know, we've seen the stories. It's not as though we're looking aghast at what's happening to women across the way. So these things have been happening and what is happening is people are starting to look internally to say, how can I strengthen myself and stand up like these women did? And so at Anita B.org, we are creating those opportunities for women to network, for them to get mentored. We have communities around the world where women can get together and understand what the pathway was of other women. It would have been really helpful for me to have sort of some of those breadcrumbs out in front of me, some of those examples and other people to talk to. But we provide that as part of what we do in our organization. We provide training opportunities, other experiences where people can see all across the tech ecosystem where they can come in. It's not just one way in. It's just not one pathway. And so that's gonna be a really important thing to make sure that women know they have choices. And I think that's even, it's so important in general, but you mentioned some of the attendees at Grace Hopper are maybe women who are in transition, who are maybe had a career in something different for a while and are now getting into tech. I'd love to maybe understand that a little bit more, maybe some of the demographics there, but how do you see, what are some of the inspirational stories maybe that you can see that where a woman who maybe was mid-career or somewhere around there just went, you know what, I am interested in this. Maybe didn't have the confidence when she was younger. Any stories there that kind of jump out at you that are great examples of it's never too late? Absolutely. In fact, that was some of my first inspiration in getting involved with taking my background in tech and sort of lighting the path for people to get in who had traditionally been shut out. My first educational experience was at a community college level. And many of those people were people who like myself had not been given that introductory experience of computer science in K-12 space. Maybe they went to work and did some other things. Maybe they got talked out of it, you know, it's not for you. And they came back later saying, you know, maybe I could learn, maybe I could try. And so really opening up that pathway to them. I've seen people who have gone from either having no education or maybe having even a PhD in linguistics, figuring out once again that creativity, how can I take that and apply that technologically to creating solutions that only I would care about or know about. And so we've seen people come from all different walks of life, different career paths and start small. Some of them are self-trained, some of them are boot cab trained. Some of them go back and get an additional education. What we do at www.neededb.org is not only help them understand those multiple pathways, but we work with partner companies to say, you know, there are other ways for people to come in we've got these, what, 500, 600,000 empty positions. Why don't you take a look at some of the people who are in your industry already. If you're a bank and you've got a woman who's been working for you for 20 years, she knows your business inside out. She is loyal, she can learn the tech. You know, so we're seeing those types of transitions take place as well. Fantastic. Well, Grace Hopper in Houston in September, is there also Grace Hopper, there are forums in other countries? So we also have Grace Hopper India that takes place in November, right after the one we do here in the United States. We've also started to have one day Grace Hopper events. We call them Hopper by once and we are planning those out around the world. So we're trying to increase people's opportunity to come and experience all of the wonderful things that are available at Grace Hopper. We hear so many wonderful things about how it's transformative in their lives to see that many women in one place to have access to training and mentoring and networking opportunities. And we're just excited for what's to come. Well, we're excited to see what happens in the next few months. And Brenda, thanks so much for stopping by sharing what's new with AnitaB.org, your vision for that and the transformation that you're already helping to facilitate. Thank you for having me. Absolutely, our pleasure. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin from our Palo Alto studios. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.