So I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but in middle school, I was kind of
a nerd. This is me in the fifth grade. Growing up, I had all the telltale signs of nerdiness,
I loved Dr. Who and Bill Nye the science guy, I started my own social justice club
and of course I got all A's. To be here, I wasn't as awkward as some of the nerds that
you saw on TV and movies. I wasn't Steve Urkel or Lewis and Gilbert from "Revenge of the
Nerds", I didn't have taped up glasses or a pocket protector and I definitely wasn't
this hunk. Sorry, Larry, I had to. (laughter).
But still, I suffered some of the same abuse that they got, some of the same abuse that
many of you in this room have gotten. And it wasn't necessarily because we were smarter.
It was because we were different. We weren't like the other kids. We didn't dress the way
they dressed. We didn't talk the way they talked. We didn't like the same things that
they liked. Growing up in the 1980s, there were few things that were less cool than being
a little brown girl who wanted to change the world. We were one of the few Indian families
in my neighborhood, and we were often singled out by the local bullies. Many mornings I
would stand there on my front lawn with my parents, cleaning up last night's TPing or
egging. One day somebody spraypainted "Dot head, go
home" on the side of our house. In school, it was much worse. I was the favorite target
of the original mean girls. They would surround me, laughing hysterically, taunting me, calling
me a Haji, on the last day of eighth grade they challenged me to a fistfight, after school,
showed up with a Wilson tennis racket, a baseball bat, a bag full of shaving cream, I showed
up alone and left with a big black eye. Many of us in this room have faced some version
of this saga in our past. But we know how the story ends, the nerds win.
(laughter). And it's not even close. If you need any proof
at all, just look at Fortune 500. And these self‑described misfits and outcasts, they
finally find a place where they belong, a place they can all call home, a place called
Silicon Valley. Here, they make the rules. In Silicon Valley, you don't get beat up for
talking about ICOing your e‑sports start‑up, you get venture funding, they build amazing
products and services that make the world better, they drive Ferraris, date models,
pop Dom after their IPO's, all the while sporting a cool pair of Converse and a hoodie. Pretty
bad‑ass. (laughter).
Silicon Valley becomes the real‑life "Revenge of the Nerds" or its sequel, and in true Hollywood
fashion, the geeks promise that with their newfound power, they're going to save the
world. Fast‑forward and it's 2011, and I begin to notice something, Silicon Valley,
it's pretty homogenous, people like me, women, people of color, we're still the outsiders,
so I think it's a pipeline problem, and I start Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit
that's working on close the gender gap in tech, I thought if only if we could teach
more girls to computer program, then Silicon Valley, they would embrace them, and we do
exactly that. In less than five years, we teach over 40,000
girls in 50 states effectively quadrupling the talent pipeline, girls like Jasmine, who
is a single mom, works at Burger King, four brothers and sisters, she builds an app called
Whacky Words because too many kids from her community in Oakland, they don't have money
for expensive SAT tutors, and she wants to help them march back up into the middle class
by building an app. Girls like Tricia, who have been cyberbullied their entire life,
she takes that pain and goes into her bedroom and builds an app called Rethink, so every
time you're about to send something that's not so nice, it asks you, are you sure you
want to send this? So smart. So different. I thought for sure these nerds would be accepted
in Silicon Valley. I mean, come on, if there's anyplace in the entire world that's going
to be open to outsiders, it's Silicon Valley, right? If anyone is going to be inclusive,
it's the very people who know what it's like to be ostracized, rejected, teased, for just
being who you are. There is nothing more that I love than teaching girls who conquer their
fears and master coding. But when I look at statistics like these, I can't help but feel
like I'm leading them into the lion's den. You know, reading all the recent memos and
open letters and lawsuits, I just can't help but feel that my girls, they're going to be
discriminated against and put down the way that I was, the way that so many of you were
back when we were the outcasts. It seems to me that some people in Silicon Valley, they've
lost their way, they've forgotten their roots. Now that they've made it, they're shutting
the door on people who look different, speak different, think differently.
They're not opening up their work places to people who are talented, with people from
different backgrounds and different identities. Instead, they're making people feel unwanted,
unwelcome, inferior, and even unsafe. I get it. It feels good to finally be the cool kids.
It's hard to make room at the popular table. It's uncomfortable. But if we're serious about
making the world a better place, we've got to start right at home. Tech CEO's love to
talk about how there's no problem that they can't solve. Well, I see one right here and
right now, and we're not solving it. My girls, they just want a chance to show you what they're
capable of, and if everybody in this room, if you gave them that chance, not only would
we close the gender gap in tech, but you would build better, stronger, more profitable companies.
All it takes is remembering that what made us different is what makes us so successful.
The world, it's a better place because of nerds. Just imagine where we would be without
them. No PC's, no internet, no Smartphones, no streaming Game of Thrones. We have all
of this because the nerdiest of nerds came to Silicon Valley to be different, to let
their freak flags fly high. That's what I love about Silicon Valley. That's what makes
it so special. That's what makes your companies so special, so successful, because you care
about more than just the bottom line. You care about building technology to make a difference.
I admire that so much, and so do my girls. They dream one day of working at your companies
and joining your community. Let's not forget our roots. Let's put an end to leaving people
behind and putting people down, let's join together and say Silicon Valley is a place
for nerds, no matter who you are or what you look like, and we're
pretty
proud of that. Thank you.
(applause)