 In the meantime, I'd love to get a sense of who do we have here in the room with us so far. Sure, I'll introduce myself, Patrick Solonius, local chapter president. Nice. I guess I'll go second. Hi, I'm Eli. I'm in Vancouver, Canada. I'm a net squared community manager. I go next. I'm Phil. I'm a consultant of real ventures and I created and hosted a rep matters, which is an interview series focused on black founders and entrepreneurs and investors. So that's why I'm here to talk to you guys about today. I want me to go after, even if I'm going to introduce myself. Yes, absolutely. Sarah Gina, CEO and co-founder of Minns, I actually feel you guys invested in our company. So that's our first investor was real venture. I know I saw part of your pitch and found a fuel. I start to look at the rest of it. That was the beginning of us. The beginning of Minns. So my name is Jan. I'm a PhD student in bioinformatics at the University of Montreal. Nice. We have three people who are shy and off camera. You're always welcome, of course, to join us but not required. But yeah, dive right in. I know I'm not actually. Hello, good evening everyone. My name is Anali and I'm the community manager at Minns. And so I'm happy to be here and meeting all you all. And she's check if I'm doing my work. You see we have like the means we have the means the means hoodies hoodies. Thanks, Anali. My name is Parker. I'm the community technology coordinator at Cocoa the Center for Community Organizations based in Montreal. We're a community organization that does organizational support for grassroots. This collective some not for profits. And I deal with anything that's tech related. So groups needs in terms of websites could be tech planning it could be like CRMs or thinking about technology about security data, whatever it is. I'm, you know, advising clients or like working with them so we very much favor a training approach, walking with not doing it for them. So it's very much about make knowledge transfer and trying to scale up different people work in the nonprofit sector. So I've heard about I used to run the net squared meetups like way back in the day and Oh, lovely. It fell off the radar because it got too busy, but and I know Eli as well. So I'm just really interested in anything that's related to community sector work, community work technology and thinking about thinking like critically and from an antiracist antipressive perspective about technology. So thanks for having me. Well, it's our pleasure. Thank you so much. I'm sure we'll have a lively discussion. Careful Parker we may well put you to work later and you know, I think it'll be fun. Perfect. And Keanu, is she there? Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, it's dark in my room so I have my camera off but I totally fine. You don't have to go on camera if you want. It's okay. I will show my face for a few moments. With your presence. All right. I'm sorry I was a bit busy during the beginning of the meet what are we talking about at the moment. We're talking about you. Just me. Okay. All right, I have no problem talking about me. So I, my name is Keanu Ortega. I am currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. I'm not sure where you guys are located, but I just set my foot into the door of software engineering. I am currently practicing my JavaScript. I'm part of this program called resilient coders, which is located in Boston. They are a community, a nonprofit community that focuses on helping minorities and people of color get into these high paying tech jobs. To increase the statistics of people of color inside these fields. And yeah, they work together just kind of to. Sorry. So just push, push people to get into these things and change the statistic around. Okay, well it sounds like we'll have a even more informed discussion today. So just everybody knows it will have a series of questions that we're going to ask our panelists. But if you have any questions just shoot me a message first I'll be really looking out for that in the chat and just let me know what your question is and then I can, you know, an appropriate moment. You know, kind of, I don't want to say sidetrack but spend a moment on your question with everyone and you can ask the question directly to the panelists so just shoot me the message first and we'll make that question happen. So how about we just get this started off for everyone who's here. Can the panelists. Let's start with you Sarah, can you just tell us, you know, your story that you know a three minute version of who you are, and how you got to where you are right now within tech. Thanks. That's great. Actually, actually what I realized that we have like attendance that is probably more knowledgeable than the panelists on the subject. So I think it will be great actually to move that into conversation. So, so my name is Sarah Gina, I'm the co founder and CEO of my intelligent machines. Schooled means. Before that because it's like the second part of my career, I spent 20 years in academia. I came from South of France, where I did my PhD in biology, then for my postdoc I moved to Montreal. I worked for eight years of McGill, then I got to Canada research here in systems biology, or to come. I finished and and did research on systems biology for 30 years at your camp and during that time I was like working a lot with AI people and bioinformaticians machine runner, etc. And I met two fantastic gentlemen, Abdullah Ibn Niredi aloh who was also university professor at your camp in bioinformatics and Mikael Camus and AI specialist who was working in industry. And through Michael then I realized that you could do very deep tech and advanced research in an industrial environment. And that felt super attractive to me. Then we decided to, to, to move and to move our research from the from the university into a company. And we created this. The weird thing happening and can discuss about how come. Three co-founders, there are two men, one woman in these three ones, how come I'm end up being the CEO of the company while we're through three PhDs, complimentary expertise, super high level of three of us. Actually, at first what we realized is that we I was not the CEO. Michael was the CEO of the company. And what happened is that we end up having this, this weird way of doing things so that I was pitching why he was the CEO because I'm like better at it. And when we pitch real venture the first time. Actually, it was the very first time that I didn't introduced us before I was pitching. And I pitched a company. And I remember the the person I was pitching was Isaac at that time or some seven I don't remember which one he was. But he asked, Oh, so you are the CEO and you're the CTO and you are the CSO and that was wrong, right. So that were not the position that we had and then I realized that, huh, how come you do the real CEO stuff and you don't have the title. And then I realized that, you know, and then we had this discussion and very fast we realized that the things were not in the appropriate way so we changed and I became the CEO and Michael the CTO. And everybody is super happy with that because he's more introvert. I'm more extrovert and anyway he doesn't wants to go to cocktail and and you shake hands and give cards and things like that. So, so, you know, so you realize this kind of thing, but there was at the very beginning something that I felt, you know, that I didn't want to take the front. And that's something that I really realized is this tendency. Probably and I discuss a lot of that with my, the other female CEO and leaders that I that I know that I had the chance to meet over the years that we have this tendency to just shy out and just stay in the back a little bit. And that there is something that needs to be done so that more women take the lead. And then you are talking about like entrepreneurship and and being the, you know, the CEO, the CEO of the company that you're leading. So that's, that's my story. And that's, and from there actually because you know that there are not that many leaders in tech, that's a woman and CEO of technology company. And of course, I'm giving a lot of conferences and involved in a lot of diversity and equity discussions and panels and things like that. I'm always very happy to do that. I think a lot of thinking that we had to do in our company to, to, to reach gender balance. And we can we will discuss about that, you know, the different things that we try to do so that we are now between 48 and 51% woman working at means so we're in, you know, around the 50%. So that's something that we're very proud of. Yeah. All right, perfect. And Phil, why don't you give us your three minute version, you know who you are, you know how also to how you got here I think the story of how anyone gets to where they are now is always an important part of it. Sure, so for me this is you know the second part of my career as well. Started out as an athletic trainer athletic therapist I worked with the lead athletes and kind of either rehab them from injuries and or got them ready for whatever it is, whatever sport they were doing. I do see an alouettes helmet in the background. Yeah, my specialty was football. So, you know, I had internship at the alouettes and whatnot and went to University North Carolina did my master's degree there, while working with their football team and then had a short stint in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles. And then I went to China to work with the Chinese Olympic Committee and some of their teams. And while I was there kind of realized that I had had this great career and that it was over that I wanted to do something else I wanted to come back to my community and make an impact I wanted to do something at scale. You know, and so when I really started diving into what that would mean. I'd always been interested in sort of entrepreneurship and technology, and I came across you know venture capital a word that I'd heard so many times but knew nothing about. And, you know, once I looked at it all I synthesized it into, you know, there's just a bunch of people sitting at a table who decide where the world gets to go. Right. Without these investments companies aren't aren't aren't made. You know there's other forms of funding yes but you know most of the high growth companies are injected with venture capital. And so I came back to Montreal and I started looking for people who look like me in this space. And there were none. And for a very diverse city Montreal tech is not diverse right, especially in terms of black diversity there there was no black venture capitalist that I could find right off the bat. And there are some that I've now found but they're they're more sort of reserved I guess not as public facing. And, and you know just in tech in general there weren't that many black people and so, as I networked my way into this space. I met john Stowes from real ventures and we started having these conversations that around, you know, race, racial diversity right. There's a lot of fantastic pushes that have been made over the past, you know, five to 10 years I'd say in terms of gender diversity and there's still a lot of work to do on that end. But in Canada there's been no real conversation about racial diversity and tech. And so that's kind of where I wanted to come in and make an impact and from that. And this sort of created rep matters where where I went and talked about this topic with with entrepreneurs and investors, mainly here in Montreal and in Toronto. Also got a few others from places as well but really that was my entrance into the space and yeah. So if I can just quickly to quickly go in there into your little bit into your story I mean your real ventures kind of speaks for itself most people can understand that. Can you just speak a little bit about what rep matters is specifically can you expand that. Sure, so the mission of rep matters is really to increase black participation in tech and venture capital right and as a core component of that I saw the need for for black people to be represented. Right, so that's that representation in and of itself creates an invitation for black people to join into the conversation. Right. And so there was, you know, two main goals one was that and then the other was also to have people who are in tech and in venture capital. Here these conversations that they wouldn't necessarily be privy to right these are two black people talking at a high level about entrepreneurship about tech and about venture capital, and and also about, you know, the racial implications within that black experience, the, and so on and so I wanted people that are already in the space to basically be educated on certain topics around that, and to, you know, enable them via that information to be able to create more inclusive spaces for black people to join in. Okay, perfect. So let's go on to the next question you know, um, you know, just to contact you why you continue Phil just to keep the flow going. Why don't you tell the audience maybe just a little bit of experience in regards to, you know, inequality, equality or inequality, either that you've experienced personally or that you've just witnessed stories that you've heard things that you've experienced in the workplace and specifically within tech, in regards to, for instance, race and inequality or race, and, and participation of blocks in the workforce in the tech world. For me personally, right. I try to, I try to stay away from, you know, anecdotal things and I just go towards the data, right. I think, you know, personal experience is important in terms of helping convey an emotion and or a certain point of view. What matters to me is the data at the end of the day, because I can feel some type of way. But if you know the data shows that there's equal participation of all racial groups then what I feel is just what I feel right. Right. So, but I will say that, you know, I don't feel like I've been, you know, treated any differently for the color of my skin specifically in this environment right I entered this environment very recently, right. Under a year ago, and have met amazing people in this space who wanted to work on on bettering this play the environment for other other black people. And what I will say though is that, you know, black people in Canada have one of the lowest participation rates out of all racial groups have the lowest pay by far out of all racial groups. So on average, black people in tech make about $16,000 less than white people or Asian people. There's a huge gap when you think about, you know, just well, you know, creation over the long term that is a huge gap. So, you know, there's a lack of data at the same time as I have this limited data there's a huge lack because we don't understand why that is. Is that because people at the same level are getting different salaries is that because black people aren't advancing to higher levels and getting promoted and and things like that so there's a lot of unanswered questions a lot of data that we need to collect here in Canada about what we're doing. And, but there's also stuff that points to you know clear and equity in the space. All right, Sarah, can you perfect those really great fill, Sarah, can you just tell the audience a little bit about, you know, could be anecdotal or could be data driven in terms of what you see in terms of inequality, or equality for that matter, within gender within the Canadian tech ecosystem. So, I think it's pretty well documented why I'm super about remembering numbers but when you consider the percentage of companies led by women, that very low number of them get actually funded by disease. And that is representative of the number of companies that are led by women. And that is completely not representative to statistics showing that companies led by women tends to actually to do better companies led by men. But that that's actually as motivated a lot of actions to be able to help women in investment in companies led by women, where for example, funded by standard venture, which is the fund that is specifically investing in in women led companies. I'll explain that though. And I think, I think you know, probably the same thing that we see within a company. How do you attract more women into a space is by having a lot of women already so you go over a certain threshold. And then over this certain threshold, then after you pass this kind of blockage, the thing that block the, the, so you break the glass roof. There is something actually investment that you can see. Of course, having women leaders, it's quite new. You see a lot of experienced entrepreneurs that are multi, you know, serial entrepreneurs. VCs tends to say hey, hey man, I know you for a very long time what's your next ventures and I feel confident to reinvest in you because you know I know you very well you were super successful and I trust you. Now, we are not so many women with a lot of experience that are serial entrepreneurs. And I think you know like this thing also as a negative impact. So, are you really trustful of the future, seeing more and more women leading companies, getting investment, becoming serial entrepreneurs. The VC world also getting more used of how to evaluate a woman leader and a woman CEO CEO, and there is something here that you can feel when you're a CEO of a company facing VCs. You know when you when a VC talk to you actually he needs to he likes pushing you some way to just have the feeling whether he will be able to trust you. And there is some kind of you know tricks and, and kind of relationship that they might you know that there is like the data thing and there is the feeling thing. Am I going to trust you, because I'm going to give you $5 million. Am I going to trust you. There are a lot of men VCs they don't know how whether you know they can trust a woman to to to take care of their money and they don't know how to test them and how to push them they're afraid actually to push on them because they're afraid that to be, you know, sued for harassment or whatever you know, so you actually think that's to some extent there's there's a certain you've not necessarily that there's a sexism always at play it's that they're trying. They're actually trying to not appear sexist so they don't push on you and then guess what they try to they can't sort of bring themselves to trust you. I think that is something that they want to do. I just think that that's something natural when at one point you know, and fuel tell because he's inside the VC world I'm like, I'm more on the other side so I have there is the gut feeling thing. I love this company, you know I love this company I feel comfortable I'm very enthusiastic and I trust them. It's that feeling thing I think it's something that gets educated, you know, like, you, you have an experience of of dealing with entrepreneur. There is some, you know, nonverbal language about like how you interact with them and how you will feel about them etc. When there is relationship woman man relationship dates, it's different. You know, it's just, it's just different so maybe they are not that huge and maybe it doesn't feel like that that comfortable maybe it's, it's more complicated to feel completely in love because whatever, you know, so I think that's the new thing here this new thing that they are not really used to my have an impact and I can feel that you know it's. And, and, and actually having woman VCs doesn't help. Doesn't change anything because if you go, actually, I've never been with the woman VCs of affirming in front of me it's like they want they don't want to go you don't they don't want to take care of the woman. Because they I'm pretty sure they don't want to they want their opinion to be respected because they know how what a great entrepreneur is, and not to be biased because she is the woman, the only woman entrepreneur that they have on their plate right. So, so that makes things complicated, but you know, seriously, I can feel there is a lot changing these days, you can feel it seriously there is much. There is many more women that are like becoming CEO and taking the lead of their company and getting investment and and and I really see it changing in 10 years is going to be totally different than now. Actually, I feel it just sort of a spontaneous question here you know do you because Sarah you feel things are changing. Do you and then do you feel things are changing on the on the race front in tech with right now Phil. Yeah, you know, I think that everyone got it got exposed to to a to a heavy dose of racism via George Floyd, right. Yeah. And you know that makes with the pandemic and the fact that we're all inside and all had time to really ingest what we had just seen it's not the first time we see that right. I still remember like early days of sort of like Internet videos. I remember seeing you know some kid get whose handcuffs get shot. Right. And they made a movie out of that right. It's not the first time we see these things. And so, but I do think that it hit a critical mass, in terms of the amount number of people who who are carrying over a longer period of time. So, do I think that the world is magically going to fix itself. No, but I think that enough people have been confronted with the truth that you know racism isn't hasn't gone to where now people are willing to take action towards towards that change, hopefully over a longer period of time and only time will tell, but you know that that's part of the work that I'm doing is trying to make sure that this conversation keeps going past, you know, this sort of displays a performative that might happen around a tragic event concerning people. And you feel within tech specifically it's actually starting to you know those are fairly societal kind of questions like George Floyd and things like that and you feel that that conversation is indeed carrying over within the tech team. 100% I mean there's life pre and post George Floyd, like you know there's life pre and post pandemic and there's also like pre and post George Floyd in society in general and in tech specifically and I think in Canada we were delayed in terms of racial diversity. Right so there's already been movements towards racial diversity in the US probably just because there's more black people there right 13.5% of the US population is black, only 3.5% of the Canadian population is black. And so it creates different dynamics in terms of how you know how quickly things happen. But you know. Yes, the answer is like yes there I do see things changing because here in Canada, you know, who would have thought that you know I could just parlay my way into a partnership with real ventures and create an interview series right with I don't have a tech background I don't have a finance background I just have the passion of talking about what I want to talk about. Right, so that in and of itself to me shows a difference because I wouldn't have been able to do that five years ago. You know not that they're not good people or or whatever the case is it they just weren't as aware, it didn't get shoved in their face as it did with that you know nine minute execution video. Hmm. That's a very interesting comments Wow, I have a question for you Sarah so this is the let's drop we've been talking about making things conversation data driven so let's let's use some data here. So, despite making up, you know half the population, women only make up 25% of tech workers on top of that women are represented under represented by 50% within tech as a whole. Women only make up 25% of all technical roles within any tech companies, what factors do you think are leading to women joining tech companies less, and also especially why are they so under represented in the more technical roles do you think. Um, that's a question I asked to myself a lot, a lot, because when I go to, when I go to universities and when I go to give conference for women in tech and I see students there are a lot of, there are a lot of girls out there, a lot of women out there. We barely receive application to our job posting. And so we have like a lot of questioning on that. Actually, I think we've received more application by woman than a lot of tech company because we are, we have 50% of women working at least and I definitely think that there was like kind of an acceleration when we went over the 30% that women feel very confident to come because and I can, I can see that probably the fear to go into a space where it's like a 90% guys, you know, because and I totally understand them. I will not want to work in there and I will think seriously about, you know, going there. So, I think you know going over a certain percentage of women in a company will significantly help hiring more women. The other thing that we realize is we need to adapt it our application process. And just a lot of that with students, etc. We realize that if you have a super detailed application, not application posting was maybe 10 qualification to be filled. If women don't have eight out of 10 they will not apply. They don't have just two out of 10 they will apply, you know, it's like, it's terrible that the reality, you know, so, so, so we, we, we make a lot of effort to reduce the number of qualification that are like really described in our posting. So that, and, and that one point we even say, okay, even if you don't have everything just apply. Okay, and we'll discuss about it, because we wanted to have like more women applying. So, I don't have the answer about, you know, that I think all that maybe contribute to the fact that women are not going into a tank. So I think there is, there is a misconception of what's the private sector is a lot of women are very conscious about like the equilibrium like family work, probably more than men still, even if things are changing. Probably, there is a false conception than private sector and an industry is like more aggressive and require more time than academia or any like, professorship position probably it's true to a certain extent, but things are changing. Actually, and maybe Phil will agree on that, but the fact that there is such a lack of talent in tech will I think improve a lot of things. First of all, employers needs to have better conditions to allow their employees to have a better balance in life, just because they need to attract talent they need to increase retention rate of talent. And we cannot find the talent we want in Canada. So seriously, we're hiring everywhere. So we are hiring and you know, like, there is, you know, Africa, North Africa is really, really a place to hire people. So, EGI, etc. So there is a lot of people that are coming from outside coming in Canada, because of the attraction of tech and the fact that we are really eager to have more talent coming in. So probably this will have an impact, positive impact on diversity within companies. Well, it sounds like you're taking a very active position to try to encourage that it's not something that you're kind of sitting on your hands and hoping it just kind of happens you're you're you're going Actually, I'm an immigrant myself right, I'm French. So, you know, I'm more a notable minority, not really a visible minority. But still, you know, that's a cultural thing. My parents are Italian, they were immigrants in France and I'm an immigrant in Canada and then you know you have families of immigrants. And actually it means, and that's, that's when you were discussing about that like an alley like a few days ago. I think out of 34 employees will truly have three kibiker, you know, like born raised with parents born raised in Quebec I think there are like two or three. The rest are all immigrants, like first, second generation, a lot first generation. And, and, and they are like everybody. She's like second generation from, you know, in Algeria. You know, my co-founder is from Guinea. Michael is from France like me so so we are like from all over the place. So, and that's the tendency in the tech world because, because of the need of relying on immigration to acquire talent that we need to run our company. All right. So I have a quick question for you, Phil. You know, switching gears now to grace, you know, a lot of tech companies do hire do struggle in the same way that they struggled to hire enough women, a lot of tech companies struggled to hire enough people of color, just to give one statistic here this one is especially egregious, you know, at Google, for instance, less than 4% of their current workforce is African American. As you mentioned earlier, African Americans make up 13.5% of the US population. And, you know, that's a very stark statistic but it's repeated really right across tech. You know, in 2014, for instance, at 83% of Google's employees were men and 60% were white. And, you know, things have not really changed in the years since you know what, what do you think is causing companies to struggle so much with representing the diverse societies that they're selling into within their own companies. Yeah, I think that if I could sum it up in one word, it would be elitism. Right. Google's hiring practices were terrible, honestly. You know, it came to light that they were that they're historically black colleges and universities HBC use where a lot of black African Americans go and get amazing educations were on the check off list not check on list check off list for their hiring, right. They were not Google was not hiring from those places and now, obviously, since everything's happened and it's become more of a thing. Now they've reversed course they're investing in relationships with HBC use, making sure they hire and create an internship things and doing the things that are necessary to hire black talent because black talent is there. Right. So it's a combination of things but when an huge entity like Google says we are not hiring from this place. There's just less incentive to go into tech at all when you look at it down the line because it's like okay well, where are we going to get hired if I, you know, if it's that or go and be an engineer, or go and be a doctor or you know, immigrants who are not getting into tech will go into these other areas right. Think of healthcare here in Canada right how many, you know, black healthcare workers do you know, tons, you know, same thing with Filipinos for example how many tons of Filipino healthcare workers, because they know they're going to get jobs there. Right. And so it comes down to sort of that critical mass that Sarah was talking about is just, you know, if that critical mass isn't there they don't see themselves represented and therefore it's not it's not only not an invitation it's a disinvitation it's saying you don't really matter to us we're not going to create anything for you. And why would me as a black person why would I go into that space, if I'm not welcome there, you know. It's very complex there's a lot of barriers that have to be worked through, but if everyone, you know, takes responsibility for their, they're part of it right early education right you need to get black kids into stem instead of rerouting them away from stem. In the public school system here in Quebec, they route black kids away from stem. And this is anecdotal yes but I've heard from many different people. And so schools need to take responsibility for that universities need to make sure that they're recruiting from various schools right not just the sort of elite CGEP so whatever the case is. And so on and so on right then employers need to make sure that their, their pipeline isn't just from you know McGill right, how many McGill not that many you know so you got to be hiring from everywhere. And then VCs right need to be making sure that they are purposefully setting standards for okay, you know, you need to be this. This amount, you know, diverse and these different criteria for us to invest in you, and so on and it goes up the chain again to the LPs who invest into the venture capital firms, they should be making the same demands as well. And so it's about educating everyone on what they're what they're, you can't make someone take responsibility but you can encourage them to you can tell them here's the problem. Here's the opportunity to fix that problem, and it is a huge opportunity in tech we can literally change, you know, the wealth gap in Canada by between black and let's say white people opposite spectrums of the wealth gap here in Canada. By focusing on tech and by inviting black people into tech, and by making sure that they have the skills to thrive and to move up the chain. You know what I think we'll definitely be getting into some of the benefits and not just at a societal level but also even just the corporate level a little less altruistically even just, you know, how does this make a company stronger when they have a more diverse workforce. You know, one thing you brought up and it is an interesting question that they'll fill you said, you know, we're talking a lot about Google and it's an obvious one because it's not a company that has failed quite profoundly in creating a diverse workforce. What would the, what would you say, do you say that those same kind of elitist trends are even true within smaller startups. You know that's an interesting question I'm curious what your take is on it. You know, um, I think that it depends I think the smaller startups don't necessarily have a say right they're competing with Google, and so it's like the top tier challenge is going to go to Google. You know, the top tier talent right and so I think it really depends on the individual culture of startups have such different cultures I can't, you know, blanket like like all all early stage startups are like this. It really depends on who's creating that company and that's why it's so important to have diverse people, founding and leading companies. That is why it is so important. And that's a choice that's that's something that need to be decided by the leaders and be forced by the leader I got. We were at the Google accelerator, a quarter ago, and and we had a chance to meet fantastic female leaders. We met Meg Whitman, who was the CEO of LA Packard and eBay and such an incredible woman. And when she was starting LA Packard, she told us, I think it was LA Packard, she said that she wanted to have a diverse board. She asked her, I don't remember the person that she has a chair of the board to say okay, I want to have like three Latinos and three color people and like three women on my board. And they came back and say okay we cannot find any like forget it you will have all white blah blah blah. The board will not happen I want that that's it you have to find so here are the magazine of the more influential people and please find the person I want. And at the end of the day they found it, but you need to you know make effort, you know, like you need to try and look for them specifically and find them and and hire them so this is not going to be easy. This is this needs to be like this will record an effort at the same time, but this will have like to go from the top and say okay you need to have the leader say okay that's it. Now I want my company to be gender balanced. I need to have at least x% of color people are from different ethnicity. And that's it. And they need to impose that to their recruiting team, because that's, you know, positive selection has one impact that you create this attraction pool of diversity that will after fuel your company with diverse people that you need to appreciate it, and it's not going to come by accidents you really need to do it. It's be very conscious. Yeah. And this is a question that will be for both of you but let's start with you Sarah. You know, to what extent are the inequalities within tech do you feel, you know, not just a tech problem but kind of a reflection of wider problems within society in how, you know, how women are treated or how women, the opportunities that women have same thing for people of color do you feel that tech is essentially just a reflection of the wider inequalities that we see within societies or something special about the sector. I don't know, I think, I think, you know, that that was the tech came from geek that were in their garage and built, you know, build the tech world, and they were like, mostly white people young male that were working with your computer in the garage that super that's horrible what I'm saying but you know it starts like that and then you know it's like continued like that for a while. Is it, is it reflecting really the rest of the world. And I think you have in terms of problematics that we have about sexual harassment, etc. I think I'm pretty sure that this exists in the tech world as well, probably less than than you know in the, in all their other area, you know, we don't have like all the different problems about. But the gender, the gender equity, yes, we have this problem, like probably more communion than in any other field. Yeah, you don't see that in hospitals, for example, but use we see it a lot in tech. So I think the tech world as his own issues and and. Yeah, and but I, yeah, I strongly believe that there is a lot of there is a lot of opportunities right now for women. There is a lot of education to be done on the on both direction I think a lot of leaders are really conscious that they need to have more women in a proposition and in tech, in general, and in a proposition in tech. But you have also a lot of education to do to women that need to go and apply to do this position at the same time. So I think I think you know is not just the responsibility of the person that is hiring. There is also a responsibility that that is on the shoulders of women that don't necessarily apply to this position either. And we see that so so they need to just trust yourself and apply to the cost and the position you know you do that this this exist as well I see it a lot. You know, I have interviews with I had interviews with women and that's only with woman I remember they come and they just tell you every all the reason why you should not hire them. Like, what are you doing seriously. Like, okay now you explain me why I should not hire you. Could you please tell me why you're coming here you know. So there is there is a lot of, there is a lot of education to be done as well for women to trust themselves a little bit more, like a lot more to take the lead. Maybe misconception, maybe a lot of effort to be done by the tech world also to to to have a better family work balance that is happening. I can't help with what you said just a minute ago of thinking of Cheryl Sandbergs of course you know lean in a little bit of I hear that and what you're saying. Yeah, perfect Phil, what about you give your take on whether you feel that tech or the problems of racial diversity within tech are simply a microcosm of society or maybe there's something special about tech that's, you know, causing certain failures to for for black people and other people of color, you know to be represented properly. Yeah, I don't know that it's a microcosm but it's a continuation, right. Our society today was built on the false idea of white supremacy. Right. And this is just a continuation of that the sort of idea that the only people who can create, you know, these huge tech companies are, you know, white men. And so it's a continuation of that. And the barriers of access right that exists now came were created recently right the whole tech space was only created recently. And yet those barriers remain like even though this was a new space and there was potential for a completely different approach to things like everything that was before it just, you know got shifted right into right into tech so I wouldn't say it's really a microcosm I'd say it's a continuation. Yeah, yeah, and you don't feel there's anything specifically about tech that makes the problem more acute then. I mean I think Sarah, you incorrect me if I'm wrong if I'm not paraphrasing the right way but it sounds to me like you are feeling that there is something about tech, you know kind of its history it's an association with quote unquote geeks that does sort of make it a little bit. There is something that makes it more acute and I think it is very borne out in the statistics but if I'm not mistaken Phil you don't feel necessarily there's anything about tech that maybe makes that problem more acute then. I think it's society's perspective about tech that makes it so it's the idea like how many, how many, you know, black founded unicorns that you know. There aren't that many, there are some but there aren't that many. And so that you know it's even weird to even think of that as like oh I hadn't you know, yeah I don't know any you know black founded unicorns out there. You don't think about it but subconsciously it registers and you know and so when you think, oh such and such founder you know has their company now is a billion dollar valuation in your mind you're not you're not thinking a black person you're you're not actually thinking a white person. That's first thing pots in your head. First thing pots into mind, right. And so it's society's idea and perception of what tech is that that just just continues right if we don't change that narrative if we don't if we don't find, you know, those sort of black examples of, you know, very successful investors and investors and whatnot. If we don't do that and champion them, then it's the idea is going to continue to perpetuate whether whether it's in good faith or bad faith. You understand what I'm saying. Yeah, no that makes sense. I'm not talking about intention here I'm talking about like what actually what actually happens. I think that's also just, you know, my, I guess you could say hot take on on anything regarding diversity one of the most interesting parts of the discussion is about intentionality and I think it's the part that people who are maybe hostile to the profession, you know, have to be I don't want to say persuaded about but they have to understand that it isn't always about intentionality we're not. No one's calling, you know systemic racism doesn't require people to be intentionally or consciously racist. It's about a system that's been created that has that perpetuates a certain racist outcome or a particular sex sexist outcome. It's a very interesting topic in systemic sexism so it's a very interesting topic around intentionality and these types of situations. There is there is something actually I just wanted to. There is something also both like choice of community or of gender. You know, I went to this, we went to this competition of French founders and this is like French from France, companies, right. And I was amazed about the numbers of companies around food. Okay, that's cultural thing French and food you know we were French you're speaking about food. There is something actually about a lot of entrepreneur women were more like attracted by social things than really tech things. So there is actually a probably a natural tendency to lie into, or to go into something that resonate more about your culture about, you know, like, that is, so when you become an entrepreneur, you know, probably when you're a woman another thing you don't think is about artificial intelligence, you know, like it's like, you know, maybe now more, but before when you know like the generation of my mother, when they were like, oh I'm going to have my own company. All their culture, all their education, everything we're not like predisposing them like to go into like computers was predisposing them to go into something else, right, like French people are predisposed to go into food stuff. So I'm wondering whether you know, and whether the, you know, what's about the Asian culture, what's about you know the African culture. And so when, when people have different culture they have, they have different different things they will be more interested in. And that's probably, you know, caricature, I would say that in French, but, but there is something also in there. But that comes down to, again, to society's perspective on those things, right, like if. So the French, I mean, I've lived in France, I understand French culture very well. You know, the French love of food, right, is very true, but it's also perpetuated exponentially by the other people who aren't French, like all the French love food, all the French love food. And so, you know, right, I'm six foot four, I'm half black, right. So when I was a kid, everyone was like, oh, you're a basketball player. And I didn't really play basketball. Well, I became a basketball player, right. You know, if enough people look at you and say, do you play basketball, you kind of want to pick up a basketball and say, yeah, I can play, you know. So, so it's also, yes, of course, is the internal culture, but there's also the external culture, right. We don't think of tech hubs, we don't think Africa, even though there's amazing tech hubs going on in Africa, right. We think Asia because, I mean, we can go into the history about this but really when, you know, Japan got taken over after the Second World War and we're told, okay, you can't develop any weapons, we'll develop an entire technology system that thrived right in other countries in the area to the same. And so you can look at sort of the historical context of those things and understand why society evolved in that way. But you can also intentionally say, hey, this community, why don't we get involved in this, right. I think that that there's potential for that as well, as opposed to strictly relying on historically what your community did, you know, so. Great. So, you know, a quick question here and actually I think, Phil, you've made illusions to us I want to start with this. How much do you feel that the question about diversity is really one about culture like where does culture come into this. How do you change a culture, just if you could expound on culture and diversity around race, and how those two can, how you can create a culture that's, that's helpful to that discussion. When you say culture, do you mean like company culture. Yeah, company culture exactly company culture. Sorry, so can you just say that question I wasn't sure what culture was so yeah yeah no problem no problem just how would you explain how would you explain how culture can be helpful to creating a diverse workforce what kind of cultures for instance, might attract a diverse workforce, what kind of cultures might actually go out of their way to accommodate that and make sure that it happens. I mean, diversity in and of itself is a core value right right that that should then define the culture of your, of your business right so if you say, Okay, my business is core values are, you know, diversity, you know, innovation and whatever the you build things around that, that those core values and that becomes your culture right you try to. Well, and I'm saying this is how you know, ideally things are done it's not always how things are done sometimes companies just pop up and it's like no one's thinking about that and it's like cool like whatever. After that. The diversity in and of itself is like there's companies that have a culture of diversity, like mims who have a culture of, you know, gender diversity it's it's in the fabric of what they do and it's an intentional choice. So it all it takes is intention. Right. If you are intentional about your company culture. It'll simply reflect your founding team, if your founding team is all white, then then then, and you're not intentional about culture. The likelihood is that your whole workforce is going to end up or the majority of workforce is going to end up being a reflection of you, because it's just a psychological normality for everyone we are comfortable and attracted to people who reflect us. Period. And it's not, again, it's not it's not a negative thing. It's just a fact. Right, we are attracted to people who look and talk and move and like us. Right. And so, if we're not intentional about about that, then ultimately, the company will just end up perfect reflecting exactly who the founders look like, typically. And how do you feel about that question Sarah what I mean certainly the culture of diversity that's a I think that's a very important point. What do you feel about a culture that attracts diversity or that leads to a more diverse outcome and what's that role of company culture and leading to those types of outcomes. So I, as I said previously, this choice, this is a choice, this is the deliberate choice that need to be done by the leader to to to generate this, this culture. And that's something actually that you that you need to decide. And that's not something that you're going to be forced to be doing or that you're going to be forced because if you don't do that your company is going to be dead. So, so you really need you know the leaders need to say okay that's it. You know, I that's something I want to do. I need to move that into because that's normal and I, you know, everybody will feel better after. So we need to move this and make the effort it takes so that we reach this, this equity and this balance. So, so if they don't decide it, you know, it's not like tomorrow company that will not reach 50%. So, so gender balance will be less successful or will be less impactful or, you know, there is no real evidence that make that will make your company less successful if you're all composed by men, or all composed by women. You know, there is nothing that says that the company that is really well balanced is more efficient than the company that is not right. I think we all agree and actually we all agree that, you know, within the group of people and because and a company is a community at the same time you know you have this nice group of people. You know, do you think are becoming more fluid if you're like more equilibrated more representative of the entire society. And that's just so I think you know that that needs to be like a more like a philosophical decision that need to be taken by the leaders. I think it's interesting that you say that because and this kind of code goes back to your question Patrick about whether there's a difference in tech. When you think about startups right the, the, the, the duration of life of the startup is short right there's a there's a high failure rate and in that founders are focused on on creating a viable business and like Sarah said, the diversity isn't one of those things that will make or break your, your company in the first you know five or 10 years it won't make or break it. I think that you know there's sufficient amount of data to show that diverse led companies you know create enough in terms of innovation to start in that with that. Really there's like she said there's no like tangible like yeah if you're just white guys you're going to fail that's not true we've they built all tech. So, so I do think that it's particular to the startup environment that because companies come and go so quickly. And the failure rate is so high people aren't focused on a metric that isn't actually going to, you know, help them right now grow their company. So, having spoken to a lot of like early stage startups, that's, it's kind of like okay, we would like to do that, but, you know, we're worried about marketing we're worried about sales we're worried about, you know all these things they're going to keep us alive. Tomorrow and you know fundraising and this and that. So, that might be something specific to tech startups that may not be as obvious in other places that have a longer duration. And actually I wanted to ask you Phil about this you know the putting aside, you know, I like, I think everyone wants to kind of at least understand what the data might suggest and you've alluded to it. You know putting altruism aside we all know that it's it's altruistically good good and moral to have a diverse company but what are the actual selfish benefits for having a more diverse company do more diverse companies do better. Yeah, so there's been a lot of studies large scale studies, I mean, Boston Consulting Group did a few Deloitte did a few McKinsey did a few. I mean, anyone you can think of has has done it and it. What these large scale global studies show is that yes I mean companies that are more diverse at a top level at every level really outperform their competitors, especially in terms of innovative innovation related products. And so, you know, after this many reports that show this on you know independent studies it's kind of like well. We might want to listen and there's and there's a sort of. Yeah, a business argument for now the question is, are they more diverse, because they have a better leadership and then also they have a better tech because they have a better leadership. And then the one is not the cause of the other one is just yeah it's all about causation and correlation and yeah but I think there's enough interesting interesting data. To point, at least to try it like it hasn't, you know, to try it more often, you know, so yeah no I agree with you though that yeah like correlation doesn't doesn't doesn't doesn't mean causation. Because it takes an effort seriously takes really that you really, you know focus on it to be able to be to reach, you know, balance and to be more diverse and you know like it requires a significant amount of effort to do it so companies that did that really to do it. And so you can suspect that they will have made a lot of other efforts that are really related to the quality of the service of the quality of the product that they are that they are generating at the same time right. So being a scientist, for me, I will never be able to exclude the fact that these two points are correlated because they all have the same origin, you have strong leaders that are visionary that really feels and give this as an objective for their company. And at the same time, because they're visionaries and they are good leaders they have good products, but they're really execute. Ultimately, to execute on on on the diversity front is an indicator that they can execute all the other friends on the other things as very interesting, but at the end so for us actually you know and particularly right now. reaching balance so actually being able to attract more women talent is actually will help us will help us develop better product. Why, because it's super complicated to find great talent so if we can attract them because women are more attracted to come at means because there are more women at means than you know, like, you know, then that's a good plan. I'll see that like that because that's a good thing that we do that right. So that there will be an impact of attracting very excellent talent, women talent being able to retain them into our cooperation because we are gendered balanced. Well you could also make the argument not just in terms just my own little hot take here I mean not just in terms of execution but in terms of also just being a more conscious, you know, leader in general the fact that you are, you know, you can kind of step out of yourself. You know, sort of step out of your own perspective and imagine, you know how a more diverse team could help, you know, might have spillover effects in terms of other ways that you run your business. But yeah, it's very interesting discussion about the causation part. And last question here that I have prepared, you know, what are some resources that that both of you could recommend to the audience. Resources about diversity, whether it's about, you know, women's empowerment, whether it's about racial justice, or about tech or that touches on all of those subjects. Sarah, can you start that off. Yeah, I didn't prepare anything so let me think about it feel do you have any. I don't have anything prepared per se but the Brookfield Institute has put together some some really interesting reports, and a lot of the data that I that I say comes from their report called who are Canada's tech workers. I mean, they do a good breakdown in terms of gender gender breakdown and racial breakdown and that was really an important report for Canada, because we're always citing us data, right, because we don't really know what's going on because we don't have we don't have data properly in Canada, right. And another thing I'd say that was pivotal for my philosophy and anti racism was ebrem x kendi's book, how to be an anti racist. It changed my perspective of how I approached you know racism and anti racism. So that was that was refreshing. And it's a great entry level sort of book into anti racism. Great. And what about you Sarah. Seriously, I don't know. Okay, I will pass on that one. That's okay. That's okay. I don't know what I will recommend as a reading. Nope. podcast. No podcast. Yeah, there is, there are a lot of actually of postcard I know we could could post the ones that there is. I'm tired. So I will never be able to find the name of the company here. A lot of reports on gender diversity in Canada. Really, if someone's interested, it's just a Google away. It's not hard to find the really good information and reports on gender gender diversity. So if you look at the reports, you know, like standard ventures and all the funds that are really specifically funding woman led companies, they generated significant amount of materials about, you know, the performance of these companies, etc. Because of course they have like to get money to fund companies that are led by women's so so they have like to do a lot of this exercise to prove it. All right, well, on behalf of everyone here I want to thank both of our guests. You know, I hope I invite everyone to just take themselves off of me for one second we live in a COVID age I think this is the only way we can give you a round of applause. Thank you so so much and I invite anyone in the audience. Does anyone in the audience have anything they want to ask or anything they want to contribute for that matter. No. All right, well, let's see here thanks taking way to be more conscious perfect. Well, in that case, thank you so much to especially our guests but also to the audience members. Thank you so much and have yourselves a great evening I hope we're all walking away, just a little bit more enlightened. Thank you. Thank you. Take care.