PAVNI DIWANJI: Ah, so we have a bunch of makers and hackers
in the audience.
That's always good.
Right?
So we are really, really enthused to have you
all again here at Google.
We are committed, as you all know,
to the cause of encouraging every woman to be a techmaker.
And I'm very committed to encouraging
every woman I meet to be a software engineer, not
because I think it benefits Google,
but I think it benefits the world.
Because I believe that is what is
going to be the engine of life for the future.
And we want to equip our side of the house, our population,
to be tooled, no matter what discipline they go after.
So I was here last year.
And I was really pleasantly surprised
that it is growing and growing.
And I talked last year about my journey and my learnings.
And it is really amazing to see how many common elements there
are in all our stories-- my story, the stories
of the speakers today, and also, of course, your stories.
I could tell from the questions.
I almost wanted to answer all of them,
because having taken off time for kids?
Yup.
Done it.
Have had a difficult on-ramp?
Yup.
Done it.
All the problems you run into.
So I'll be around if you want to talk about that afterwards.
But today I think I was given the responsibility
to conclude the day.
And I was thinking, what would be
the three big things that you can take away from today?
And I will tell you my nominations,
and then we can of course talk after about what you took away.
And that's always good.
So the first thing I want to talk about is stretch.
And I think making uncomfortable your norm.
So Avni, our keynote speaker today,
talked a little bit about it.
She's an amazing woman.
She said, stretch your imagination.
But I think it applies to everything you do.
So I would say stretch your skills.
Put yourself in new situations.
And I would say not only in your career,
but even in your personal life.
Forcing change, I have found, is a fabulous way to grow.
And what I always tell myself is that awful feeling you get when
you're trying to do something new,
I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
And I've always applied that throughout my career.
I remember when I was with Sun Microsystems,
and we'd just published Java, and I
was at the height of my software engineering career.
And then I decided to jump to do a startup.
And that same feeling was there in my gut.
I'm like, oh, I'm not sure I should do this or not.
I'm a bit scared what it's going to bring.
And honestly it was the best ride of my career,
because I grew like I never knew.
I found talents I never possessed.
So it's a great thing.
That uncomfortable feeling, embrace it.
So the second thing is-- I think Telle Whitney came and talked
to you about lifting as we go.
So I think that we focus a lot on our diversity numbers
and how bleak the situation is.
And I mean, I look at it, and I say,
we have to get started somewhere.
So if you look at the start of any revolution,
it always starts small, and then it lights up.
And I think we are in the light up phase.
I'm an optimist.
I like to think that way.
So Telle talked a little bit about lifting,
and Cheryl did too in her book.
So lift as you go.
So I think I want to talk a little bit about that.
So lend a hand, a helping hand.
Look around you.
I said make community around you who
kind of resonate your passions.
Be part of the community, and give back when you get.
So I think when I say this, a lot of people say,
I don't have time.
I am pretty maxed out between family and kids
and just keeping up with my career and my job.
And what I say to them is it doesn't
take-- in my experience-- it really doesn't take very long.
Because all you have to do is look around you
and find someone who needs a little nudge, a little helping
hand, a little support.
In the right moment, that's what we need.
So I will give you one example.
We just actually last month had our global women's conference
at Google.
And there were some amazing speakers lined up.
And about a week before the conference,
I was thinking, well, all this experience on the stage
is great, but what if we use this forum to give women
Googlers who are technologists, who are software engineers,
a voice to voice their ideas.
It was really quickly-- we did a call for submissions
to all the women tech at Google and said,
do you want to come and talk about your idea?
We called it Red Talk, because it was like TED,
but I really didn't want to call it TED.
We wanted it to be en empowering and inspiring experience.
So we called it Red.
And we were quite amazed.
Within a day, we got more than 50 submissions.
And we said we want to welcome any 10x ideas.
And we got over 50 submissions.
We had a hard time picking the five people we wanted
to spotlight on the stage.
And every single idea that was on the stage, that was amazing.
It was like big.
It was like game changing, even for Google.
So what does this say?
It didn't take very much effort to shine spotlights
on people's ideas.
It doesn't take very much effort to help another woman in need.
It doesn't take much to help someone who might be doing
an off-ramp because of kids.
It doesn't take very much to help someone
with their coding problem.
I don't think it takes a lot.
It just takes a mental shift to make it part of your day.
So lift as you go.
Remember that.
I think we need all of you to do that.
And the third and the last one I want to talk about is making.
Now I was backstage here and I saw
some of the things you guys have made.
So I think we have a lot of makers in the audience.
I was a bit surprised that the organizers putting all of you
to task to design and wear watches for Google.
But it was quite inspiring what has come out of that.
I think hikers are going to have a wonderful experience
with this design.
So be your our own maker.
I think make your future.
Make your brand.
Make what you're about.
And make your community.
So I will tell you one-- I have a lot of stories to tell,
but I'll tell you one of my recent stories
that is about a year and a half, two years ago.
I'd been working at Google for-- this is my tenth year,
believe it or not.
So I was working away, and I realized--
I have two daughters-- my younger daughter was
looking for trains on Google.
And instead of serving her Thomas the Tank or something
similar, we were actually serving her the train schedule
for Caltrain train station.
And I thought, OK, this cannot be right.
And that is what led the simple idea of how
wanting to help kids led to the start of what is now
a pretty big project at Google.
It's never easy, but you have to start somewhere.
And I think if you just say we're going to do it,
and we can do it, then the rest will just take care of itself.
So with that, I think I have one nice slide to end the day.
So all the power to you.
I think you can do it.
And thank you.