 Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the best name in tech conferences. 18,000 women here in Orlando, filling up the Orange County Conference Center. We're excited to be here for our fourth year and part of the whole program is getting some of the leadership from Anita Borg on to give us an update. We're really excited to have Elizabeth Ames. She's the SVP of marketing and alliances and programs, but we just think of her to Elizabeth at Anita Borg. So, Elizabeth, great to see you. It's great to be here. Absolutely. We're thrilled to have you here at the celebration. Can't believe it's been four years. I've been telling so many people. There's still so many people that have never been here. I was amazed at the keynote the first day. There was the call, the house lights went up, how many people it's their first time. And as big as this conference is, as much as the people that know and love it, there's still a lot of people that have not been exposed to this show. It's absolutely the case. We have every year, it seems like more and more sort of first timers, which is great because we'd love to have them come back. And we, but I think it's really an expression of how this issue has become a big issue and that the women are really engaged and excited and they want to be a part of it. So it's great. The other thing I don't think a lot of people know is there's obviously a lot of recruiting going on. There's a lot of young people here, which is what I think really gives it its flavor. But we had Workday on. They said they had 140 people here from Workday. I talked to a guy last night at dinner from Google. I think they had 180 people. And I said to her, do you have any show that you bring that many people to that's not your own show? So the amount of investment that I said was it's all young, fresh out of school. No, it's all ranges, all ages. So again, I think there's a lot going on here that people are just not that exposed to. Yeah, that's absolutely true. So the, you know, if you look at our attendance overall about, you know, 70% are industry. And a lot of those are companies that are bringing their women. And some of them are there younger women who have maybe been in the firm for, you know in the company for a year or two or three or something like that. But, you know, the place where a lot of women drop out of the industry is more mid-career. And so I think more and more companies are seeing this as a way to help kind of their mid-career women reconnect to the field and make those connections with the community at large and get a little bit more reinvigorated. So we definitely see companies bringing all kinds of women out of their organization. And they like to bring a mix so that they have some of their senior women that are sort of mentoring, you know women who are mid-career or women who are more junior. And it's just, it gives them a really good mix. And then about 30% of our attendees are academic, we call it academic, but it's primarily students. So undergraduate, graduate, postdoc and research type people. And then, you know, some amount of professors and teaching assistants, those types of people. Yeah, and I really think it's the youth that give this show its special vibe. I mean, there's a lot of great keynotes and some fantastic stories. Really great global representation, kind of African representation. But I do think it's the youth, it's the youngsters that bring a really unique and positive energy that you don't really see at many other conferences. Yeah, and I think part of that is that the community at large, you know, women that are in the field, they care about the women coming up. And they want them to succeed and they want them to have every single opportunity. So everybody's kind of invested in them and interested in nurturing and helping them along. So it does create this really, I don't know, positive environment, right? I mean, we always jokingly say, there's a reason we call it a celebration, right? And we don't call it a conference, we call it a celebration. Everyone's a delicate too. I like that too, not attendees. And that's come up on a number of interviews too, where when people have reflected back on people that have helped them along the way, the payback, it's almost like it's been scripted is, okay, now you need to do this to the next person, really pay it forward. And that again is a consistent theme that we've also heard on the keynotes earlier today, that it is about paying it forward, which is funny, because sometimes you'll hear kind of a catty women reputation that they're trying to keep each other down. You know, that was kind of a classic, another hurdle that women had to face in the professional world, that they weren't necessarily supporting each other, and that is not the case here at all. It's very much a supportive environment. I mean, we may have a self-selection bias going on there. Well, that's probably, that's okay. But yeah, I mean, I think there's nothing but support for one another in the community, and everybody recognizes that we all have to pull together, right? So interesting times at Anita Board, the organization that puts on Grace Hopper, change of leadership, we had Brenda on, so kind of a fresh phrase, fresh energy. Telly is, I'm going to see if I can get her a horse tomorrow to ride off into the sunset, if the sun breaks out here in Orlando. So exciting times, it's time of transition, always a little kind of mixed feelings, but also tremendous excitement and kind of a new chapter, if you will. So tell us a little bit about what's going on at Anita Board. Yeah, it's an incredibly exciting time. I mean, first of all, a nod to Telly. She's been at the helm for 15 years. She's seen an incredible amount of growth. She took this on really as a favor to her dear, dear friend, and then took on the mantle upon Anita's death. And so she's done an amazing job, and she's certainly an icon within the community overall. So I'm sure you'll hear more from her in the future, but it's been great. Brenda is a new fresh face. She has accomplished some pretty amazing things with the Chicago Public Schools. She's really invigorated to step into this space, and it's great having her. I mean, I think the thing that you really, hopefully you got from her when she was here is that she is just this incredibly genuine person. She's lived the experience. She can relate to what all of these women have gone through, and she has this profound commitment to make things different. And just the biggest part that you can possibly imagine. And a little chip on her shoulder, but she talked about, you know, and it's come up time and time again where when people are told they can't do things, for a lot of people, there's no greater motivator than being told you can't do this. You shouldn't do this. You're not qualified. And she said, you know, I've been in positions where I've been told I can't be there. And so to have that little chip on her shoulder, I think is a real driver for many folks. It is because, you know, it, you know, we recently did a little written piece that hasn't actually gotten published yet, but where we kind of went back and looked at a lot of the language that we're hearing today about like, well, women are not biologically suited to be, you know, programmers, or, you know, women aren't this or women aren't that. And we did this little like, let's look back historically and like, when did women get certain rights? And one of the things that really stood out for us in looking at that was, you know, women weren't admitted to all of the, you know, premier colleges, Harvard, Yale, you know, whatever. Right, right. Until the 1960s, right? Which is kind of shocking when you think about it, right? Yeah, like yesterday, practically. And, you know, the language that was used at the time was almost identical to the language that we're hearing today. Women weren't biologically suited for this, and it's really not in their, you know, the right makeup for them. And, you know, and yet today, half the students at those schools are women, right? Right, right. And women have earned their way there. Right. So I just kind of laughingly say it's like deja vu all over again, right? Like, we've heard all of that. We've heard people tell us, you can't do that. You shouldn't do that. No, you're not welcome, right? And I think women are just, they're not going to back down. No, well, it's interesting times too, right? Because kind of the classic gates, you know, the distribution gate, the financing gate, the investment gate to build companies, create companies. They've all been broken down, and kudos are serendipitously, computing is the vehicle that's broken down a lot of those traditional barriers, right? You used to be, you couldn't start a new company because you had to get into the distribution. You couldn't be a writer. There was only like a few newspaper editors that controlled everything. That's all completely changed. And now the ubiquitous distribution, democratization of software, open source, you don't have to raise a bunch of money and buy a bunch of servers. It's so much easier to go out and affect the world than there's no easier way to affect the world than writing a great piece of software. Yeah, I mean, I think you're spot on on that. I mean, there's so much more leverage out there for people that want to start something. And I believe that will accrue to the advantage of women. And I think that, I think the thing is, is that I always end up saying like, women are going to do great things. And then I have to stop myself and say, they are doing great things today. And I mean, I think we've seen that already with some of the keynotes. I mean, Fei-Fei Li, right? Like, I mean, and yet you hear her story as an immigrant, as a mother, as an Asian woman. She's had her challenges and she told her personal story, not like with a woe is me, but with a just a clear eye towards the things that she had to overcome to get where she was. And a lot of hard work, right? Just to flat out a lot of hard work, including working at the dry cleaners while she was going to school. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And yet there she is, one of the leaders in that space. And doing incredible things. And so I think you're starting to hear more and more about those women. I think they've always been there. I think that we just don't hear as much about them. And so this venue is such a great opportunity for us to hear more of their stories. Right, and we learned a lot about that last year with the whole Hidden Figures thing that we had on here as well as the movie. And that was again in the sixties, right? So we're in October. Kind of the end of the year. As you look forward to 2018, what are some of your priorities for Needed Board? I won't put you on the hook to tell us where Grace Hopper will be next year. You can tell us if you want. Oh, I saw it posted. Is it posted already? Oh my goodness. I saw that and I was like, whoa. I didn't know that was in the wild yet. But give us kind of what are your priorities for next year? You know, I know ABI locals been, you know, a thing that's been growing over time. What are you kind of looking at as you do in your 2018 planning? You know, as amazing as it is to have 18,000 people here, which just blows our mind and we hope it continues to grow. We also know that no matter how big this conference gets, that not everyone will be able to come here for a variety of reasons. And so building out the local communities and, you know, making it so that empowering those local communities to have smaller versions of this type of thing and growing this movement to a bigger scale that really encompasses all the women that are out there. Because even though people here say, like, oh, 18,000 women, holy cow, it's like the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands and thousands more women out there. We know there are, right? And so we really want to find a way to reach every single one of them and bring support and connection and inspiration to every single one of them so that they, you know, stay in the field, and achieve their dreams and their highest potential. And that will have an impact on them and on the communities that they live in. So that's really what our focus is. Well, Elizabeth, again, always great to see you. Congratulations on a phenomenal conference. And thanks for inviting us to be here. We, you know, it's really, honestly, one of our favorite places to be. We love having you here. And I would just end by saying, like, all you people out there, come join us next year. There you go. You got to tell them where? Houston, Texas. Back in Houston. Good barbecue. Ask me, I'll tell you where to go. All right. She's Elizabeth Ames. I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE from the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2017. Thanks for watching.