 Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering Grace Hopper's Celebration of Women in Computing, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the Grace Hopper Conference here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. I'm joined by Ayanna Howard. She is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and also Chief Technology Officer at ZY Robotics. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. So, start to tell our viewers a little bit about ZY Robotics. I know it was a spin-off of your research that you were doing at Georgia Tech. Yeah, so interesting enough, ZY Robotics, so at Georgia Tech, I focus on working in technologies, robotics for children with special needs. Primarily children with motor disabilities, cerebral palsy, for example, children with autism. And so one of the things that we had developed was the ability to access computing technology. Because I was running robot road programming camps. So I was running camps for all children, so an inclusive camp that had typical children, children with special needs. And what happened was people kept asking me, oh, can you take this home? It's like, yeah, now this is not in my Georgia Tech lab. Sorry, but you can bring your kid back. And so the company really came out of trying to commercialize that special technology that allowed inclusiveness for kids in this kind of STEM education. So that's how ZY Robotics came about. So talk a little bit about the technology. What does it do? How does it help kids with these different learning needs? So imagine you have a child who has a motor limitation. And if you look now, there's so much is on apps, tablets and smartphones, even education. And if I have a motor disability, have you ever tried swiping with your fists, right? Or even if you're an older adult and taking your finger and if you have a tremor by moving things around? So this is very difficult. And yet that is the way the technology is made, which isn't a service, it's just not made for everyone. And so what we've done is we've created these devices, very fun, think of it as a stuffed animal that allows you to, if you want to stop, if you want to do your finger, if with your access point is in your foot and you just tap your foot, allows you to interact with a different educational apps. But what we found is that typical kids also like playing with the toy. Right, right, right. So I was like, oh, what is this? This is interesting. So that's why it provided this nice blend of kids, of any abilities, the ability to access these educational apps. So you also are a full-time professor at Georgia Tech and you run a traineeship in healthcare robotics. Tell our viewers a little bit more about that. Yeah, so I run a program called Arms that's funded by the National Science Foundation. And what I found is long time ago, the way that we were training our computer science students, our engineering students in robotics was typically, I would say ad hoc. So I'd have a student and they were like, I'm interested in healthcare robotics and I would call up my clinician friend and say, hey, can we do an observation? And my student would go there and basically shadow a therapist or a doctor for the day and then they go back. And so this is what I was doing. And I found out that most professors who had students in healthcare related activities were doing the same thing. And I was like, wait, hold it. But this sounds like it's more than just me. Maybe we can formalize this a little bit more. And so the traineeship program actually takes roboticist students and immerses them in the medical side. And so for example, this past summer, they spent the entire summer over in the clinic and the hospital watching surgeries. I mean, like actually scrubbing up, following patients, understanding what is Parkinson's and how do you do assessments? And so they were fully immersed as if they were a medical resident student or resident person in the clinic. And what happens is then, and this is very on their first year, they come back into their studies and now they understand, okay, if I'm designing this technology, what does it mean if I'm designing someone who's recovering from stroke? What does that really mean? And they have a vision of the patient, not just their own, I mean, they have a real vision of Mr. Joe that they worked with and how he might have struggled with some concept and what they're doing can actually enable. And so it gives engineers, computer scientists, roboticists that power. And the empathy to really understand how it will be used. Yes, understand that and not build or design in a box, which is really unfortunate that sometimes we do that. We design based on our own beliefs, not taking in the account that there are other users and you are maybe not, you are not the user necessarily of your own technology. So I want to talk a little bit about this conference. This is your third Grace Hopper conference. What does it mean to you to be here and what do you get out of it? Are you here for Zyrobotics? Are you here for Georgia Tech? Are you? You know, I'm here for women in computing. And so it's actually not linked to a specific company or organization. It's the fact that I feel a responsibility as they call me a role model. But I think we're gonna go with it. We're gonna go with it. I mean, I feel that there were a lot, I had a lot of mentors growing up. Not many were women. It's only in my later age that I've actually met some great, great women mentors. And so I feel a responsibility to come to Grace Hopper and just talk, share my experience, sometimes be vulnerable and open to, you know, the trials and tribulations, but then the pure joy you get from staying in the field and the pure joy you get from actually impacting the world with your mind, with your technology, with your stuff. And I think it's amazing how you can be here and see all these young ladies, both students, and older, like well-established women leaders and say, yeah, we got this. We can change the world with our power. So we're really at this inflection point in technology where problems, the biases, the barriers that have kept women from progressing in, from first of all, getting into the field and also progressing are really front-page news. And sort of the problems that women have faced in the industry, the sexism, is really being talked about. But is that a good thing in the sense, I mean, yes, it's one thing to get these problems out there, but are we also discouraging women because it's showing women how tough it is to be in this industry and this brogrammer culture? You know, I think there's a two-edged school. So in one instance, these things were happening anyway. And if you actually look at retention, which is surprising, retention of women who've been in the computing field for a longer period of time, a lot of them were dropping out. It's like, wait, hold it. You got through the pipeline, what happened? And so we all knew a lot of this stuff was going on. We have firsthand experience with it. And so what the conversation now is letting everyone know about it. And I think that's how anything happens is that then others are like, I didn't realize. Others start empathizing. I didn't realize that this is what you were going through. What can I do to help? Even if they are not necessarily a woman or a minority. And so I think what happens is by having that conversation, it makes everyone aware of it so that things can start changing. Is the negative, the fact that maybe young women are like, oh, I don't want to go through that? I think by having role models that are like, hey, yeah, this is what it's like, but guess what? I'm running this company. I'm CEO. And so imagine what it'd be like if you come in now when the conversation is open versus when I was going through it, when nobody was talking about it. And you couldn't have anyone to say, hey, can you help me? I just need some assistance just to talk about something. Now you can. You can be open. So what is your advice? I mean, we know that the numbers are bleak. 25%, tech is comprised of 25% women. 15% in leadership positions. For black and Latina, it's abysmal. What do you tell your students about this industry? So I tell my students, one is if you want to change the world. And usually students that take my course and work with me are ones that want to have an impact with their minds, with their technology. And so my thing is, is if you want to change the world, you know, science engineering is the only way that you can because the world is based on you and your technology. And in fact, if you don't, and then I put in the guilt, if you don't get involved in this, then the world is not going to change and your kids' kids will have to live in this world that you have. And so it's really your responsibility to get into this thing. The guilt is a good, that's good, yeah. For women, guilt is really good. I know it's powerful, it's so powerful. Yes, yes. I want to talk a little bit about funding because one of the, I know that your trainee program is partly funded by the National Science Foundation. So funding is such a hot topic here and whether you're a female entrepreneur who's trying to get money for your idea or you're a scientist trying to fund your research. Can you talk, tell us a little bit about the landscape, what you're seeing, what you're feeling. I would say that government funding, so National Science Foundation, I would say NIH, there is more equality in the representation. There is more equality. It's not 50%. Okay, okay. But it's, you know, you have a fighting chance, right? I would argue though that in the startup world, you need to go for government funding and nonprofits and maybe angels because honey, VCs are not going to look at you. I truly believe that in the startup company, I talked to a lot of women entrepreneurs who have broken the VCU and they tell me how many, basically how many frogs they had to kiss, you know? Yeah. And so I think that landscape has not changed as much but I think funding as a scientist for government grants, I think it's more, it's not fair but it's more equal because in government, it's okay for you to say as a program manager, hey, something's wrong here. Yeah. Because that is, the government represents, you know, the population. So it's okay as a program manager to say that. I don't know if it's as safe to say that as a VC, like, hey, our company portfolio doesn't look like the rest of America. Right, right. So your advice there for female entrepreneurs or female researchers trying to get money is to go first to either angels or the government. And then- I say that will help you keep your company alive but you still have to kiss a lot of frogs. Yeah. You still do. And eventually you will find a frog that turns into a princess and will fund you. But if you think about how do you survive through this company and how do you keep it to the next level? You go through any type of funding resources you can and so if the angel funding world in terms of government is not a guarantee but if it's easier, grab that, non-diluted by the way, typically, but still go the VC direction. Now, in terms of the funding environment though, NIH and NSF, do you feel they're getting as much money right now? We have an administration that is questionable. Yeah, no, so overall the budgets themselves are- So NSF and NIH, this last cycle, they kind of weathered a cut. But if you look overall over the last umpteen years, you see that the rates of acceptance has dropped because there's a lot more researchers going for funding. The budget doesn't keep up necessarily with the cost of living expenses kind of thing, cost of tuition, cost of grad students. And so overall the funding has declined but that is not a gender issue. That is a issue just about the value of the basic research in general. In the US, a lot of us understand but a lot of us do not and so we feel that in terms of the funding crisis. So as a professor but then also as someone who's working in industry, how do you make sure that women can see themselves and see potentially rich and rewarding careers? So I do a couple of activities, for example. I'm going to talk about one which is CRAW Brad Gohort. And so what that focuses on is graduate students, women, either PhD, master's wanting to be a PhD. And what we do is we provide a mechanism for them to interact with senior women. So we bring in these- So this is not just at Georgia Tech, this is nationwide? This is nationwide. Young women, they come in like, oh, what is this? First off, they get to see other of their peers at other schools. Second is we bring in senior women that are doing exceptionally well and they do things like one-on-one mentorship, they share. So we've selected women who are open to sharing their experiences, both the goods and the bad. And so it provides that network of, okay, look, it might be hard in grad school but you have a pure network. Take advantage, and there are senior women you can take advantage and talk to and kind of ping them on different issues that you have. So I think programs like that, and we're not the only one, but programs like CRAW grad cohort, CRAW URM and the graduate cohort are ways to ensure that you don't get discursions at the end of the day. So Xirobotics, it's founded in 2013. What is the future of it? I mean, it's such an exciting technology and one that I think really has a lot of uses because as you said, it's not only for children but it could be for stroke victims, for aging people who are sort of losing some of their mobility. So my goal, I would say five years, right? So when I started, it was like five years old because that's like the Holy Grail, you make it for five years. So we're at year four, we just crossed. So we're in that five years. But what I see more as the vision, what I would say the secret magic of Xirobotics is to make sure that accessibility is an integral part of the conversation. It's not an afterthought. It's not a following design technology. Oh, let's think about accessibility and inclusiveness after the fact. And so I'm hoping that, one, the product, of course, takes off but also that it starts changing the conversation a little bit. So for example, I go out, I talk about, how do you design technology that is really, really cool? Is cutting edge? It's accessible as it's core. It's accessible to the different learning needs, different access ways that people have of interacting with technology. How do you get that message across that, hey, you can do this and you can still make money? So it's not like, you're like, oh, accessibility, we can't make any money. Like, no, you can actually still make money even if it was a core value. So that's my vision is to have basically, have Xirobotics lead that but then have other companies adopt it as like, oh no, why haven't we done this? Yeah, this makes total, total sense. Great, Iona Howard, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure having you on theCUBE. Thank you, this was fun. Thank you for the invite. I'm Rebecca Knight here in Orlando, Florida at Grace Hopper. We will have more just after this.