 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 in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Jeff Frick. We are here with Brenda Darden-Wilkerson. She is the new president and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm so excited to be here. So this is a new position for you, but you've obviously been involved with the Anita Borg Institute for your career, at least been aware of it. So tell us a little bit about what this appointment means to you. Oh, it's so exciting. It's like coming full circle back to a tech career that I started, back to understanding the needs of women having been there, gone through the various stages of my career, and then going into education, helping encourage women into the career in tech, and now being able to advocate for them to be able to contribute at whatever stage they're in, whether they're just entering, or whether they're one of the women who've been in tech for a long time and are getting promoted into C-suite, or whether or not they went through traditional education pathway to get in, or if they learned on their own. So it's very exciting. And it cannot be as hard as the challenge that you just accomplished. I'm so impressed, getting computer science as a requirement in the Chicago School District. Yes, yes. I mean, that must have been quite a battle. I can only imagine. It was, but you know, when you want something and you believe in it, it is amazing how you find other people who believe like you do, and you form a collaborative partnership that's really about caring about people. Right. Many of us had been in tech and we had had the challenges in. And myself, personally, I came about computer science accidentally. I went to college thinking I was going to go into medicine. So I was pre-med. And so I only learned about computer science accidentally. And of course, obviously it changed my trajectory. It's been my career path. And I was fine with that. Until years later, when we were working on making computer science core, I was doing some lobbying on Capitol Hills on a panel with a bunch of people. One happened to be a 19-year-old girl who had a story similar to mine. And I thought, how can this still be happening? Right, right. How can people not have this choice and have this exposure early in life so that they know how to choose to contribute to the thing that's changing the way we live every single day? So do you see it changing? We talked about this so many times on theCUBE. You know, that the core curriculum is the core curriculum that's been there forever. And that's a funny joke, right? Go back a hundred years, nothing looks familiar except if you go to the school. They're still reading the St. Mark Twain book, right? Do you see it changing? Because computing is such a big part of everyday life now. And it should be for everywhere. I mean, the fact that you got that through, do you see it changing in a broader perspective from kind of your point of view? I do, I do. Education changes slowly, unfortunately. But actually, when you look at, we launched Computer Science for All in 2013. And now it is an initiative that is national. The Obama White House embraced it and we were so proud and made the knowledge of going after Computer Science as something that all educators should really be thinking about as early as kindergarten for our students. It is making a difference in the lives of women. I've seen girls who many times would have been talked out of getting into a technical field by high school for the few that could trickle in and get into those one or two classes that used to be available. I'm seeing girls learn that they can be innovators as early as five, six, or seven years old. Okay, so I'm just waiting to see the world that they're going to create for us when all of them, because now in Chicago, they're required to have Computer Science to graduate. So that's everyone. So that's the key, it's Computer Science for All. And it is making a change. Not just for the kids, but the educators. I'm seeing women educators go, I could do this. I could get in and teach Computer Science. I could create something. That's exciting. So the New York Institute does so much good work around these issues from getting computers into the hands of kindergartners to helping women on the verge of C-suite jobs at some of the biggest tech companies in the world. Where do you want to focus as the new president? What are some of your special pet projects that you want to look at in the upcoming years? So I really want to think about how we dig into intersectionality. I want to, first and foremost, make vivid for more women of different backgrounds who may have traditionally been left out of the equation that there is an opportunity here for you if you want it. Okay, so that's about listening to them. That's about building additional alliances. That's about figuring out how to partner with organizations that we're all going in the same direction, right? So that more people that bring their unique lenses and experiences can help us create solutions, products, services that serve better just because they're there. So that's the first and most important thing. But then, of course, in order to do that, we have to figure out how to accelerate the work that it need to be.org does in helping companies to figure out how to solve any problems that they may be having about diversifying their workforce. So that's the other half of the equation. Do you see that the message is resonating? And this, I mean, you've been in the tech industry for, you're a veteran of the tech industry, let's just say, let's put it at that. But do you, I mean, just in terms of what we've been saying here too, is that it's a lot of the same stuff, a lot of the same biases. And then there's things like the Google Manifesto, which is this year, you know, and you just think, are we really still talking about this? I mean, where are you on the spectrum of completely discouraged, too hopeful and inspired? Oh, I'm hopeful. I mean, look around you. Look around you at all these women who are also hopeful. I am hopeful for them. We are hopeful together. And I think many times some of the remarks or things that happen out there are just an indication that maybe we're getting closer to moving that needle. You know, sometimes that's when you hear from people, is when changes are being made. So I'm not discouraged at all. I'm very excited to be on this team. It's a very powerful team. And to create the coalitions that our women are counting on us to do. It's pretty interesting with a lot of the negative stuff that happens in the news. It actually has a really bright silver lining in that it kind of coalesces people in ways that wouldn't necessarily happen. I thought your comment kind of about overt, or I guess the last guess, overt kind of discrimination versus kind of less overt. It's harder to fight the less overt. So when somebody shines a big bright light on it, it actually, in a way, is a blessing because then it surfaces this thing. The stuff that's kind of, you know, it's lukewarm. It's easy for people to explain away, even if it's really obvious to most people. But when it is as overt as it's been, it's out there now. It's like, now we have something that we all have to deal with. It's not, you know, we can't be lukewarm and mealy-mouthed about it. Let's go to work and address this, because it's so obvious. So in that way, it's a silver lining. Right, right. But there's the culture, the culture war that we're dealing with this, what Melinda Gates was describing as the brogrammers, the hoodie guys, the sea of white dudes. Where we think all the great ideas are coming from. What is your feeling on how do we combat that? So, you know, here's an interesting perspective. I'm gonna call on the entertainment industry to put more images out there that are representative of what's really happening, right? So, you know, I have a sister that's a lawyer, and she's older than I am, and there was a time when you just didn't see very many images of women lawyers or women doctors. But if you watch television, you watch the movies, there are plenty of those now, and the numbers, people can be what they can see. But if the images out there are all about the sea of white men, then we will fight that struggle because people are impacted by what they see. Right? The power of representation. That absolutely. And so I'm calling on people who have the power to change the images to do so, and to show the truth of what's really going on. Okay, so Hollywood, are you listening? I mean, do you have any final advice for the young women who are here? And maybe it's their first Grace Hopper Conference. Yeah, yeah. What do you think they should do to get the most out of their experience here in Orlando this week? Well, first of all, I'm so glad that you're here, and I want you to be encouraged that there is a sisterhood, there is a community that cares about you, that has seen some of the same things, some of the challenges, and maybe you don't even know about yet. But together, we can make a better world. We can be the change agents that we already are, but on a such bigger scale. So, you know, go for it, don't ever let fear stop you, and you will make a success out of whatever you're going after. Those are words to live by. We need to get a bigger, we need to get a bigger boat though, you need to take that deeper. I know, that's right, that's right. You can't get that on your IM platform. Okay, that's right, that's right. That's a new solution for you, Maro. Great. Well, Brenda, thanks so much. Thank you. We're so excited for you and to be here at Grace Hopper again. Thank you so much. I appreciate being here. Okay, thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight for Jeff Frick. We will have more from Grace Hopper in a little bit.