>> Announcer: Live, from Orlando, Florida, it's theCube,
covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Brought to you by SiliconAngle Media.
>> Welcome back to theCube's coverage of Grace Hopper
Conference here in Orlando, Florida,
I'm your host, Rebecca Knight.
We have a great panel here today, we have three guests.
We have Hilary Burns and Caroline Lester, both Reporting
Fellows for the GroundTruth Project, and Tori Bedford,
who is a Field Producer for the GroundTruth Project.
It's great to have you guys on here.
>> Thank you for having us. >> Thank you.
>> So, I'll start with you, Tori, since you were a
reporting fellow last year at the Grace Hopper Conference,
tell our viewers what the GroundTruth Project is,
and what your mission is.
>> So, the GroundTruth Project is a non-profit based
in Boston and it hopes to encourage young journalists
and earlier-career journalists all around the world.
So there is a series of fellowships going on,
pretty much at all times.
Different projects, there's one going across America
right now that's looking at, it's called
Crossing the Divide, it's looking at divides in America.
It's a very divisive time for American politics so
they're doing stories about that.
And, obviously, we are re-upping our women in tech,
women in leadership fellowship this year
which we're really excited about.
>> And so, each of you are working on your own, individual
stories and then you will get back to Boston and produce.
So, Hilary, let's hear from you, what are you working
on here, what's your topic?
>> Sure, so most of my time spend at the Grace Hopper
Celebration so far has been spent talking with student
about their career aspirations, any barriers they foresee,
coming across any concerns they have about entering
a male-dominated industry.
And it's really been fascinating hearing their stories,
some of them are international students, others are
from universities all over the world
and including Canada and the U.S.
So, it's been very inspirational to hear.
>> So, but here the ones that are aspiring to careers
in technology and they're here at Grace Hopper,
but there must be other ones who are too discouraged
so they're not here.
Are you also getting that angle, too?
>> Well, I think it's important for that group of women
to see these women who do feel empowered and are,
a lot of them use phrases like,
"We are making a difference in the gender gap
"and if I don't do it, who else will do it?"
So, I think it's important for all aspiring technologists
to hear these women's stories.
>> Are they discouraged, though?
Because the headlines are bleak, I mean, we know that
it's the numbers, but it's also the Google manifesto,
it's the shenanigans of Travis Kalanick and people like
him in Silicon Valley.
What do they make of that?
>> It's interesting, all of them are very intelligent,
very aware of what's going on in the world.
I've heard a mixed bag of responses from, "I try not to
"read too much because I don't want to go in expecting
"and having my own biases, I want to see for myself."
Others are saying, "Yeah, I am nervous and I want to see
"more women creating a path that I can then follow."
So, I think there are a lot of people that are
optimistically optimistic about their future.
>> Cautiously optimistic. >> Thank you.
Thank you for correcting me. (laughs)
But, it's been interesting to hear
all the different perspectives.
>> Great, Caroline, how about you, what are you working on?
>> Yeah, so, I am personally interested in the more personal
stories of some of these women speaking at the conference.
I've talked to the four really,
wonderful, inspirational women.
So, one of my favorites, I've just published a story on her,
Chieko Asakawa, who is an IBM Fellow which is the highest
honor you can receive at IBM.
And she went blind at the age of 11,
and has spent her life programming and creating programs
and tools to help the blind
access the world that is
pretty hard to navigate if you don't have eyesight.
So, she is super inspirational, super smart, super funny.
So, it was a pleasure talking with her.
And then I'm talking with three other women,
Yasmine Mustafa, who started something called Roar for Good.
>> Rebecca: We've had her on the show.
>> Oh, you did? >> Yeah.
>> Wonderful, great.
So, she's fantastic, I'm really glad you covered her.
And then another woman named Sarah Echohawk, who,
sort of, is
an advocate, an activist and is getting more
and young, native women involved in STEM.
And then, finally, I'll be talking with Stephanie Lampkin
of Blendoor, who started this wonderful app
to try and overcome the implicit bias, and unconscious bias
that happens when people are hiring women
or people of color in recruiting for them.
>> So she's starting this app that she will then sell
to companies, or sell to other recruiters?
>> So, she's already started it and she has a lot
of major tech companies involved.
I think Airbnb uses it, I want to say SalesForce uses it,
you're going to have to check me on that one.
But she's got about 5,000 people on it right now.
>> Wow, so the goal of these stories is to inspire
other women by their success.
>> Exactly, so these are four radically different women
coming
into tech in radically different ways
and it's just really incredible to see how they've managed
to overcome all sorts of obstacles in their way.
And not only overcome them, but, sort of, utilize them
to their advantage and stake out a place for themselves
in this industry.
>> Great, Tori, what are the projects that
you are working on here?
>> So, we've been hearing a lot about diversity,
diversity is so important, and we've been hearing
about how increasing diversity in a company makes
your company better.
It just brings in more perspectives,
and it also, what's really interesting is that,
in tech, it can catch people who have a diverse range
of perspectives, can catch problems with products,
or with a code, or with something, and how it would
be implemented out into the world.
I caught this really interesting panel yesterday
about disability and looking at how people with disabilities
can make companies, specifically tech companies,
can help to improve them.
This woman, Jennifer Jong, who is an Accessibility
Program Manager at Microsoft, she was really interesting.
She was talking about how,
I wrote a piece on this yesterday,
she's talking about how,
when you bring people in with a disability,
how they can catch things that other people just don't see
or wouldn't normally notice.
And also how, when we create things for those
with disabilities, you know,
a lot of things that have been implemented
by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
She talked about the button that you press to go through
the door, how it can also be used by people who don't
have disabilities and how it's important to
create things that can be used by everybody,
but that have inclusion in mind.
>> So, why is that true?
What is her perspective on why people with disabilities
have this special ways to detect blind spots?
>> So, if you're creating something, there's no way that
you can know how many users are going to be interacting
with it, there's no way that you can predict that a person
with a disability won't be using it, and so it's diversity,
it's really important to bring in different perspectives.
So, they had talked about a video, a really beautiful,
promotional video that showed a range of visuals,
it was very effective but it had no sound
and a blind person wouldn't get anything out of it.
And so, it's like looking at a product, you need somebody
to be in the room, just like you want women
and people of color and a range of ethnicities,
you want diversity, you want someone to be able to say,
"This isn't going to work for me, this isn't going
"to work for my child, this isn't going to work
"for a range of people."
And that's a really effective and important thing
that ultimately saves your company's bottom line,
because then, you won't have to go back and change
your product in the future.
>> And fix it, fix it as a problem.
>> Right, you'll spend more money fixing your product
than you would if you had just talked about,
had inclusion and diversity, if you'd just considered
that from the get-go, you'll ultimately save your
company more money.
>> So, the question for the three of you, really, is that
as you said, we hear so much about the importance
of diversity and of getting a variety of perspectives,
and having people of different genders, and races,
and cultures feel included and having a voice at the table,
I just want to know, I mean, do companies really feel this way
or is that what they say at Grace Hopper because this is
what makes sense to say to their target audience?
>> It's totally possible that it's just a marketing ploy,
it's totally possible that they're realizing that
half the population makes money and can do things,
and that makes more money.
I mean, a lot of tech is driven by the bottom line,
it's driven by financials, but in the case of the
disability thing, it's like, it almost doesn't matter.
It is not only the right thing to do, if you need
a financial incentive, that's not good.
Obviously, it's the right thing to do so you should
be doing it for that reason, but if you do also have
a financial incentive, that's not bad.
And if we're, sort of, driving more towards empowering
women and giving women a voice and allowing women
to do things and taking them seriously,
ultimately that's not a bad thing.
>> And just to add to that, I think there is a lot
of research out there today, for example, having more
women on corporate boards, that that does impact
the bottom line and, obviously, that's what companies
are most concerned about.
So, I think that companies are starting to realize that
having that diversity and inclusion is good for business
as well as a marketing ploy.
>> And I think, I mean, just to add,
I also think that, you know,
whether or not this is a good thing, I think companies
do realize that that is important.
And they're realizing that it's necessary,
I don't know, it's necessary to impact the bottom line
and that is something that, whether or not we like it,
it is the most convincing factor
for many of these companies.
>> I think it's also, when you have women moving up
to positions of power, to the C-Suite, to positions
of leadership, they understand that women are people
with skills and they are the ones who are, you know,
hiring more women, and that ultimately helps
the bottom line.
So, as you have more and more women moving higher
and higher to the top, that's when, like when we talk
about the companies changing, that's because women
are changing.
And they're changing the perspectives of men
and everybody else in between that works at the company.
>> Are women changing?
I mean, I think that's a question, too, is that we're all
as collectively as a society, becoming more aware that
these biases exist in hiring and recruitment practices.
But, I think that's the question, are women starting
to change, too, the way they behave in the workplace,
the way they go about managing their careers?
>> I know it's changing minds, like other peoples' minds.
>> That's a really interesting question, though.
One student I talked to who was from India,
talked about the gender discrimination she has faced.
And she said she did change how she acted, she shut down
all emotions, she took any emotion out of her responses
because her colleagues would say, "Oh, you're a woman,
"you're so emotional," and she was tired of that.
So, it's an interesting question to look at.
I don't know, I don't have the data in front of me
but it would be interesting to look into that.
>> Yeah, great, that's the next GroundTruth project.
Excellent, well Hilary, Caroline, Tori, thanks so much
for being on theCube, we've had great fun talking to you.
>> Yes, thanks for having us. >> Thank you.
>> We will have more from the Orange County Convention
Center, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women
in Computing, just after this.
(upbeat music)