 Hello, and welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit, live for two days in DC in person. theCUBE is here, there's an expo floor, there's people face to face, down here at Adriana Gascona, who's the founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, CUBE alumni, friend of theCUBE. We've known her for a long time, watched her success, really making an impact. Great to see you, thanks for coming on. Wonderful to see you, John. Thanks so much for having me. You know, one of the things that Sandy Carter talks about, Max Peter talks about, all of the Amazonian leadership talks about it, is skills training, okay? This is a big deal, okay? So getting talent in to the industry is critical, and also diversity in women in tech and underrepresented minority groups are key. This has been like a constant focus. You've been successful in convincing folks about tech, and working hard. What's the update? Wow, so the reason why we're here, not only is Sandy Carter our amazing chairman of the board, six plus years, but we heard so many pain points from several of our partners, as well as our good friends over at the White House and the Department of State and many other public sector agencies, that there is a deficit. It's been very difficult to find diverse groups of talent, and talent period to join their companies and populate those important IT jobs, STEM jobs, whether it's very, very technical, or more data-driven, or more sort of design focus, product development focus across the board. It's been very hard for them to find talent for those jobs. So Girls in Tech has partnered with AWS to create an initiative called the Next Generation Public Sector Leaders, and really focusing on creating awareness on career development opportunities for up and coming talent, diverse talent, that is curious and interested in job opportunities and educational opportunities within the public sector. So it has multi-tiers, right? And it's something that we've devised based on the need and based on a lot of data and a lot of interviews from a lot of our partners and within the APN network. And we're doing a mentorship program, which is a six month long program matching these amazing public sector executives, really accomplished leaders, as well as our members from around the world to connect and expose them and provide that nurturing, fostering mentality so that they can succeed in their careers. So eight of us is getting behind this mission. And public sector is really fast growing, changing. You're starting to see a lot of public-private partnerships go on. So not just the old school public sector business. I mean, the pandemic has shown the impact of society. So what does that do for the melting pot of talent that you've seen anything out there? And how does that relate to this? Has that helped you at all? Or what's that mean for the mission? So there is a melting pot of talent. I just think we need to do a better job of creating awareness and really knowing where that talent lives. Like what are the blogs that they read? What are the videos that they watch and listen to? Where are they, right? And we need to do the hard work in investigating and understanding, taking a more empathetic approach to really finding out how we can access them, what their needs are. What are the things that pique their interests within these jobs within the public sector? And customize it and market it so that they'll be eager and excited and it'll be more appealing to them. So I looked at the press release, I just want to get your reaction to something you got. Evening with the experts, it's an in-person event. Yes. When is that, is that here? Is that going to be on your own event? What's that about? All the events that are going to be in person will be in DC. There will be some virtual events as well. Our mentorship program is all virtual, six month long program with curriculum and matchmaking on a platform that we use. The evening with the experts, which is a panel discussion with experts from AWS and beyond the APN network. We'll talk about challenges in technology, opportunities within career development and also jobs. We'll do recruitment like on the fly type of activities as well, speed interviewing, speed networking. We also have a few other programs, our webinar, which is about the next gen public sector opportunities and this is more about the challenges that people face, that companies face and the new technologies that will be launched very soon and we're doing a widget on our jobs board to highlight the new career opportunity, new job opportunities from all of the public sector partners we work with. So very comprehensive. It's very comprehensive. So on the six month guided mentorship program, how does someone get involved in applications? What's that going on there? It will be an application process and we will promote it to anyone who signs up to our newsletter. So go to girlsintech.org, sign up for our newsletter and we will be posting and sharing more information on how do people get involved. But we'll definitely send custom EDMs essentially promoting to the people who are here at the conference and also through our girls in tech DC chapter as well. So I have to ask you, I know you've been really busy and very successful. You've been out and about. What's the trend line look like? Well, not for the last two years though. We've been in lockdown. Now you've been working hard though, I've seen it. Have not, not and about, now you are. Yes, not and about. What's the temperature like now in terms of the pulse of the industry relative to progress? What are you finding? What's the current situation? Progress for women in tech in the industry. So since I started girls in tech in 2007 we've made a lot of progress. I would say it's a lot slower than I thought it would be but you do see more and more women and people representing BIPOC actually apply for those jobs. We, it is astronomically different than 2006, 2007 when I started in my first startup. There's a lot more mentorship, there are a lot more organizations out there that companies are more accountable with ERG groups and they're changing their policies, they're changing their training programs, they're having more off-sites. There's now technologies that focus on tracking productivity and happiness of employees. So that, like all of that did not exist or I should say none of that existed. It was rare. You know and so we worked hard, we worked hard but it takes a village, it takes a lot of different people to create that change and now one of girls in tech's mission is not just providing that education, that community, that mentorship, we want to get the corporates involved. We want to teach the corporates about DE and I training, the importance of diversity, different tactics to recruit, so on and so forth and it's been so amazing, so inspirational. I love, I started working more on partnerships and having our monthly calls with partners because I love it. I love collaborating and having. It's going to recruit a good peer group around you too to accelerate and create more territory of awareness and impact, more people can get their hands involved and I think to me that's what I think, you're starting to see that with podcasts and media, people are starting to go direct, tell their story, apps are out there now, as you mentioned. I feel like we're on a crossover point coming soon. Totally thinks it's different, but it's still a lot more work to do. A lot more work, we just scratched the surface. I know, I know, we just scratched the surface but we're so excited to be here. AWS is a huge supporter, thanks to Sandy Carter and her team, it's been an amazing experience. Sandy's got great vision and she takes risks so she's actually got the Amazonian concept of experiment, try something, double down if it works and that's great to see that you guys have extended that relationship with her and the team. I like this idea of the fellowship cohort model or that program you have, the mentorship program. I think that's super cool. That's something I think will be very successful. It's been successful so far. We typically oversell our mentorship, our mentee spots. We only have 500 spots and last one we had over 2300, like a crazy amount so we know that our members are really hungry for it around the world and we know it'll just be as popular for the public sector. So what's next for you? What's the vision? What's the next step? Was events are coming back in person? We're here in person. Yeah, there's just so much going on. I wish I could clone myself and we're busting at the seams and I think the things that are really exciting to me are being able to produce our programs internationally specifically in developing countries. So we're working, we haven't made an official announcement yet or anything but we are working on expanding in African countries with AWS. They are doing some efforts and making some movements there. So places like Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, we are looking to create chapters there for girls in tech and then expand our programming. We're also, as mentioned earlier, we're working a lot with corporations to provide DE&I training. So training about policies, inclusive leadership, making sure they have the tools and policies to succeed and for their employees to feel comfortable, safe and productive in their work environments. You're going to great to see you. Congratulations, girls in tech.org. Yes. The URL, check it out, a great mission, very successful making progress. Any stats you can throw out there that you can share? Yeah, of course. What's going on before you wrap it up? Yeah, so right now girls in tech has 58 active chapters and 38 countries with over 70,000 active members and by the end of the year we will have close to 100,000 active members. So hopefully we'll see you next year and that number will double or triple. Sign up, tell them John sent you. No, don't say that because you won't get out. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Nice to see you too. Thanks so much, John. Great to have you on. Cube coverage here at AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington DC. It's a live event. We're face to face. We had some remote guests. It's a hybrid event. Everything's being streamed. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. Thanks for watching.