(intense music) >> Hi and welcome to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin coming to you from our Palo Alto studio. Very excited to be joined by a CUBE alumni, the CEO and president of Anita Borg, Brenda Darden Wilkerson. Welcome back to theCUBE, Brenda. >> Thanks so much for having me. >> It's great to have you here. You have been at Anita Borg for about six months. You've got a great background in the tech industry and in education. Give us some perspective of what's happening, what's new with Anita Borg? >> Well, we are very excited to be in this space at this point in history. It's very exciting. Women are alive to the possibilities of what they can contribute in tech. We can thank so many important women who are contributing to the conversation, and it is our job to make sure that they have a voice. And so we are working really hard to make sure that the perceptions that would create barriers for women contributing to tech, having a career path, taking those really important positions of power in tech, that we obliterate them and that the flood gates are open for all who want to participate. >> I love that on the website I saw the what we do, one of the things that shattering perceptions. And I thought that word shattering, that description, was really, really important. >> It is very important because you would think in 2018 that these issues that our founder, Anita Borg, talked about years and years ago, I mean she was a visionary, when she said 50/50 by 2020. And actually we are coming back from the cliff that we fell off of in terms of being our percentages in tech. We're at about 22% now, and a lot of that has to do with those perceptions. What are the images that young women see? Or people in power in tech. What are those images that continue to contribute to those barriers, and that's first and foremost the thing that we're working to change. >> When you were on theCUBE at Grace Hopper 2017, just six months or so ago, one of the things that you said that I really love was people can be what they can see. So having awareness and showing females in technology and leadership positions, showing people this power of representation is critical. >> Very much, very much so. And really all we're talking about is telling the truth. You know? It's not as though the women haven't always been there. It's not as though they aren't making huge contributions, it's just making sure that when they do the work they get the credit for it and that people get to see it. I've seen it be very important in my previous work in driving computer science. All of the stakeholders needed to understand that underrepresented people of all kinds could do tech, and they were very much impacted by the images that they saw. And so it's our job to make sure that all of those stories get told. >> So you spent 15 years in education, and you had many years before that in tech. You made a massive impact with the Computer Science For All initiative that you founded back in 2013 in Chicago. Tell us a little bit about that because it's really exploded and I'm sure really kind of exceeded your expectations. Tell us about that initiative and where it is currently today. >> I'm very excited about the initiative. I mean, really it was born out of some of my own experiences. I was a person who, in my background, I wasn't exposed to computer science until I found it accidentally in college. I mean, obviously that accident changed my whole trajectory, right? So when I found out that that was still happening to women and underrepresented students when I got into education, that was sort of the genesis of wanting to do something about it. That was when we launched Computer Science For All. And yes, now it is a national initiative. In Chicago we have a graduation requirement. Students all have to graduate with at least one year of computer science, and we're seeing that transformation. I've got students who we started with in the beginning who are graduating this year from universities with computer science, data science, information science degrees, and they are doing amazing things. They're starting companies, they're developing products, all because they had that exposure. And so it's exciting now to be on the other side, really kind of coming home full circle, back to advocate for women in tech, as I started out. To make sure that those hundreds of thousands, millions of students have access to the opportunities that we need them to have access to. >> Right, that access is such a critical thing. And you kind of think in some respects, as we were talking about earlier, you've made a massive impact in Chicago, New York City, the Obama administration got behind this. Well, you started out with a goal of reaching four hundred thousand kids in Chicago, there's now over 1.5 million. But it starts with that awareness, that this shouldn't be an elective. But kids need access to understand I can be what I can see. If I can't see it, I don't know that it's an opportunity. >> And if I don't know, if I can't touch it and know that I have access to being the creator of technology, changing the world as we know technology alone can do, then we're going to miss out on the contributions that only they can make, and so that's what makes this so exciting. When we started out, I'm thinking of the kindergartners that started that first year. They're in fourth grade now, right? What is the world going to look like when they graduate from high school? It's just going to be amazing, I can't wait. >> Yeah, we were just covering Women In Data Science a couple of weeks ago, I was mentioning to you before, and I love that event because you walk into where the main event at Stanford is held, and you just instantly feel positivity, excitement of this movement. And there's so much opportunity within data science alone, and one of the things I wanted to talk with you about is we heard a lot of people that were guests that day talk about the creative element. And we often think of the hard skills that computer scientists and data science need to have, but you found CS accidentally as you said, and one of the things that I've heard you say is the opportunity to be creative. Tell us a little bit more about what, how people, young girls can get creative and expressive creativity through computer science. >> Well, that's very important. We found that we could attract more girls into computer science when we told them that they could use these skills and this knowledge to solve problems that they cared about. You know, initially because it was such a, thought to be such a male-oriented subject, it was all about computer games and the kill games, and the girls were like, I'm not interested in that, but I want to do things that are impactful to the world, to change my society, to change my community, and you can do that with technology, and you can create something out of your own ideas from scratch, from concept, and I can see the lights go on for them, wait, I can create an app that helps my friends through a particularly difficult time with bullies. Yes, you can do that. And so, that is the exciting explosion that's about to happen. People who are really using these skills to solve problems for the human good, that's what we're going to see an increase of, because that's what many times the women bring. So Grace Hopper 2018 is coming up, what in September? >> It's September 26th through 28th this year, and it's in Houston, we're returning to Houston. We're actually even going to use the Toyota Center for our keynotes. >> And you're expecting 20 thousand people this year? >> That's right, we had 18 thousand last year, we're inviting 20 thousand this year. We're going to have over 17 tracks. Last year we had 405 concurrent sessions. The whole point is to give women an idea of how they can transform their lives, coming into technology at whatever stage they found themselves in, whether they are just seekers and are interested in learning about technology, or if they are middle career and going to that next stage or the executive level, we have something for all of them. >> So, and you give out awards, the Abie awards, at Grace Hopper. Give us a little bit of an idea of the types of categories in which women are awarded. >> So we award the top innovator, we award top educator, so wherever women find themselves, we want to bring attention to the fact that we need participation not in just what we think as the high-tech sector, but all along the pathway. People who are bringing attention to issues using technology in their community. We award all of those, people who participate in creating more of a well-rounded experience for all of us to understand what technology can do for our lives. >> And it's really everywhere, right? And that's one of the thing that I think is personally really intriguing about technology is every company now has to be a tech company. >> That's right, every company is a tech company, right? And so that's another thing that we want to make sure that people are not just thinking, oh if I'm going to get in tech I can just work for these five or 10 high-tech companies. Tech is everywhere, it's across the country, it's around the world, it's right where women are living and having their existence. And we need their contribution in those places. >> Yeah, another thing about WIDS and women, we were talking about data science that I found interesting, was some of these female leaders talking about the hard skills, the data analysis, the interpretation, but also needing to have more diversity in the analysis to remove, we all kind of come with biases, but to start having more female perspectives to really kind of open up the analyses and remove some of the biases, which was kind of something, to be honest, I've been in tech for a long time, I hadn't really thought about before. >> Yeah, and it's really shocking just how impactful some of those biases are in the data on people's everyday lives. We've heard things everywhere from as serious as different sentencing levels for people based upon the algorithms that are there, to how much things can cost more for important things like insurance, based upon the data that's there. I think the New York Times did a piece a couple weeks ago about face recognition software and those images that are in those databases. And so it's so important that we have diverse faces at the table, as a black woman, my face is likely to be misunderstood 37% of the time. Right? So to be able to have the diverse background there that will check for those images to make sure that they are more representative of the whole population is just going to make all of our lives better. >> So at Grace Hopper your audience is made up of girls maybe interested in STEM, women that you said are in many stages of their careers, on the corporate side, one of the things I read recently is that article that you wrote in Mashable called Voices of Women in Tech collaboration with Anita Borg where you talked about corporate activism, and there's some pretty significant benefits that companies can achieve by speaking out. Tell us a little bit more about that. >> Well, you know, we have a much more engaged and active population, especially the millennials, and they care what their companies care about and how they contribute or don't contribute to the causes that they care about. And so one of the most expensive things that a company will ever experience is their ability to retain great talent. And what we've seen is that millennials will decide to stay or leave based upon some of the things that companies contribute to or don't contribute to, so being able to pay attention and to get into the game of other things that are outside just the product that they produce, actually contributed to company's bottom line. >> That's pretty interesting. >> It's very interesting and very important, and knowing that is something that they can immediately put in place that impacts the success of their company. >> Absolutely, and some of the things, too, that I've heard on various CUBE shows that we've done is the millennials perspective on the gender gap. And often they'll go, I don't know why you guys are still talking about this. And we think, we don't either, but we are, and it's refreshing to hear that this next generation thinks that that is just something that is just kind of ridiculous that we're still talking about, and also how important seeing a leader, a CEO being involved in something important, is to retention, so I think that's a great message that Anita Borg can help get out there and show businesses this huge impact and benefit to you and fostering your own talent. >> Yeah, you know, and it's encouraging, as you say, the millennials are jumping in, and many more people are jumping in and giving this perspective to companies, which is actually assisting them, right? So now they don't have to feel like, okay, this is just my idea, I'm going to take a risk and jump out. They've got people who are loyal to their organization saying, I believe in this and I believe in you, let's do this together, and so definitely our job is to make sure that companies have access to all the information they need to make these, what shouldn't be hard decisions, but we're there to help them. So the 50/50 idea, you have said that, and you mentioned that earlier, that you want to see 50/50 representation of females in the next 10 years. Tell us a little bit more about kind of what's coming out the rest of 2018 from Anita Borg, and how you guys are working to help make that, help get those numbers up from where they are currently. >> So it's all about awareness, and there's a lot of awareness out there, but what we want to do is increase it. You mentioned the idea of people can't be what they can't see. Images are so powerful, and so we want to work with media outlets, we want to work with entertainment companies with writers, with producers, and say help us create the images that can turn around and tell the truth, really. I mean we're not creating a fiction. Let's just tell the truth and allow people to understand that yes, this is how this works, and let's couple that with the data that shows that the bottom lines of companies that have more diverse workforces, that have more diverse boards, are muchly improved over those that are nondiverse. And so, we are creating that awareness, we are helping our companies find out what we call, not only best practices, but many times it's better practices. We're still working towards that best practice of here's how you can make incremental steps forward. Excuse me, you mentioned 10 years, I'm a little more urgent than that. I feel like the things that we get done are the things that we're most urgent about. One of the issues about why we're still dealing with these things, it's just been sort of like let's work on it in the sweet by and by. I want to say, let's work on it in the next two years, in the next three years. Let's make some goals, let's put some metrics behind them, and those were some of the things that we help companies do. >> I love that urgency. I think it's essential, but the awareness and kind of this idea that you have of, let's just tell the truth. There's really nothing more powerful than that. But also, the imagery and the representation is critical for that. If you look back at all of your success and think back to younger Brenda, what advice would you give somebody that looks at you and goes, wow. Where do I start? What's that recommendation for shattering someone's own maybe perception of themselves in getting into technology? >> Right, I mean we have to start with the conversation that we have with ourselves, but you know, we're in this world now where there's so many great images. Find those images. You know, you can find successful women. There are so many of them. Talk to them, reach out to those of us, because we want you to succeed. We want you to participate and come on board. And so, we have a world with social media that allows people to have access to each other that we didn't have before. The most important thing is don't take no for an answer. Not only because it's just not true, but because we need you, and it is an amazing time right now where you have all these women who are standing up saying that they want change, and we're here to support them, and we're here to support you. >> Speaking of this kind of movement going on globally about we want change, with the Me Too movement, a bit of a different genesis, however, the awareness is starting to be there. You talked about needing the entertainment industry to get on board and really start ensuring that we're sharing the truth here. What opportunities do you see to deliver through Anita Borg that maybe you can leverage that's coming from the Me Too movement and all of Hollywood that's really starting to stand up and be very vocal about this? >> Well, you know, it's interesting because people ask me that question a lot, and from my own perspective, there's this awakening because those same sorts of things are happening in tech as well, we know. We've seen the stories. It's not as though we're looking aghast at what's happening to women across the way. So these things have been happening, and what is happening is people are starting to look internally to say, how can I strengthen myself and stand up like these women did? And so at AnitaB.org we are creating those opportunities for women to network, for them to get mentored. We have communities around the world where women can get together and understand what the pathway was of other women. It would have been really helpful for me to have sort of some of those breadcrumbs out in front of me, some of those examples and other people to talk to, but we provide that as part of what we do in our organization. We provide training opportunities, other experiences where people can see all across the tech ecosystem where they can come in. It's not just one way in, it's not just one pathway, and so that's going to be a really important thing to make sure that women know they have choices. >> And I think it's so important in general, but you mentioned some of the attendees at Grace Hopper are maybe women who are in transition who are maybe, had a career in something different for a while, and are now getting into tech. I'd love to maybe understand that a little bit more, maybe some of the demographics there, but how do you see, what are some of the inspirational stories maybe that you can see where a woman who was maybe mid-career or somewhere around there, just went, you know what, I am interested in this, maybe didn't have the confidence when she was younger. Any stories there that kind of jump out at you that are great examples of it's never too late? >> Absolutely, in fact that was some of my first inspiration in getting involved with taking my background in tech and sort of lighting the path for people to get in who had traditionally been shut out. My first educational experience was at a community college level. And many of those people were people who, like myself, had not been given that introductory experience of computer science in K-12 space. Maybe they went to work and did some other things, maybe they got talked out of it. You know, it's not for you. And they came back later saying, you know, maybe I could learn, maybe I could try, and so really opening up that pathway to them. I've seen people who have gone from either having no education or maybe having even a PhD in linguistics figuring out once again that creativity. How can I take that and apply that technologically to creating solutions that only I would care about or know about? And so we've seen people come from all different walks of life, different career paths, and start small. Some of them are self trained, some of them are bootcamp trained, some of them go back and get an additional education. What we do at AnitaB.org is, not only help them understand those multiple pathways, but we work with partner companies to say, you know, there are other ways for people to come in. We've got these, what, 500, 600 thousand empty positions. Why don't you take a look at some of the people who are in your industry already? If you're a bank and you've got a woman who's been working for you for 20 years, she knows your business inside out, she is loyal, she can learn the tech. So we're seeing those types of transitions take place as well. >> Fantastic, well Grace Hopper in Houston in September. Is there also Grace Hopper, there are forums in other countries? >> Yes, so we also have Grace Hopper India that takes place in November, right after the one we do here in the United States. We've also started to have one day Grace Hopper events, we call them Hopper by Once, and we are planning those out around the world. And so we're increasing, we're trying to increase people's opportunity to come and experience all of the wonderful things that are available at Grace Hopper. We hear so many wonderful things about how it's transformative in their lives to see that many women in one place, to have access to training and mentoring and networking opportunities, and we're just excited for what's to come. >> Well we're excited to see what happens in the next few months, and Brenda thanks so much for stopping by, sharing what's new with AnitaB.org, your vision for that, and the transformation that you're already helping to facilitate. >> Thank you for having me. >> Absolutely our pleasure. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin, from our Palo Alto studios, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. (intense music)

(upbeat techno music) >> And welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're having a CUBE Conversation in our Palo Alto Studios. We're excited to have our next guest, who is an ABIE award winner from the Grace Hopper Celebration. Would've been competing in early October, we tried to get her on then, schedules didn't mesh so it took us a few months, but we're really excited to have our next guest. She's Mercedes Soria, she is a VP of Software Engineering for Knightscope. Mercedes, welcome. >> Thank you, thank you, I am so happy to be here. >> Absolutely, so, congratulations again on your award of leadership and part of the winnings of that is you got to keynote in front of 18,000 people. So A, What was your impression of Grace Hopper and B, how did you like keynoting in front of 18,000 folks? >> Yes, how was Grace Hopper, it was a huge community of women in technology. I was so excited to be there, everybody was just looking up to women, everybody was trying to help each other. How do you go forward in your career, and I was really focused on STEM careers, which is one of my passions. So I was so glad to be there. And how it was to keynote in front of 18,000 people, so I hadn't done that before, so I can check it off my bucket list, that was one thing. And it was amazing, there were so many women who just clapped and they just kept supporting it and I had to stop several times while I was giving the speech, so it was once in a lifetime opportunity that I'm very grateful for. >> It's an amazing accomplishment, again, congratulations, and it's amazing show, if you haven't been to Grace Hopper, you have to sign up, how fast you say it sold out? >> Mercedes: 25 minutes. >> 25 minutes, oh. Go to anitaborg. or anitab.org now, that's right, they changed the URL, yeah, I'll have to check it out. So let's jump in about Knightscope. So for the people who aren't familiar, go the website, knightscope.com, a bunch of really cool fun stuff, tell us about what Knightscope's all about. >> So Knightscope is a company that is trying to cut the crime cost to the US in half. So most people don't know that the US spends about one trillion dollars a year just to deal with crime in the US, so our goal at Knightscope is to cut that in half with the use of new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. A group is software plus hardware plus humans, so we take the good things that humans do, which is make strategic decisions, the good things that machines do, which is do the monotonous work and store data for a very long time, and we combine those to try to help with crime. >> Right, so that's a nice explanation. The short answer is, if you go to the website, it's all rolled up into these cool robots that look like C-3PO, and I'm wondering if there's a little man inside there, but we'll get into that later. But I think it's a really interesting concept because you are bringing together many of the hot topics in technology right now, so one of'em just with robotics. You got these robots of various shapes and sizes, but as you said, really, it's the synergy of the robots with the people that give kind of a one plus one makes three effect. How is it, where are those points of intersection, and how does the robot help the human do a better job, and how does the human help the robot do a better job? >> So the robot helps the human because, in this case, security guards have to walk around the same places all day long, right, they have their route, they do that all day long and they get very, very bored, and they get to the point where they don't care anymore and they just scan a badge and then that is the job, right? So that's what the robots do, which is, they don't mind going around the same area all day long, recording data, recording video. That's where the synergy is. Now what the robots, at this point, can do is make a decision in terms of, okay, I have this five things, should I make an alarm to my supervisor and say a guard needs to come. The robot only provides information, so all of that information that we provide is so the human can make a decision on what to do next. >> And does it feed into, I mean obviously these are big security systems that already exist inside these big buildings and these big facilities. Does your robot tie back into those facilities, is it a different layer on top of it, how does it work with the existing security infrastructure that's already in place? >> So the existing security infrastructure is a bit separate at this time. There is a project that we're working on in terms to integrate because there's so many security systems out there, for a start up like us, we need to be very smart in terms of where we spend our resources. So we got to do studies and figure out which were the better senders, the better companies that we need to partner with to do that. But at this point, it's a separate tool, so you open it and all the gear you need is a current browser, you can open it from anywhere in the world, and your security people can look at all the data the machine has collected. >> Right, so the other interesting piece that you're tying together via these machines is really this combination of AI and ML, artificial intelligence, machine learning, but also your background is in user interface, so it can't just be happening in the background because these machines need to do their job, executing through and with people, on the UI side and the security guards and the security infrastructure behind them. So as you've introduced more AI and machine learning into the software components that you can drive the UI, how is that changing the world, how is the UI world changing because now you've got so much more data and so much more kind of compute behind that before it even gets to the actual user that's interfacing with it? >> Yeah so the UI's a little more rich these days, it used to be a webpage and HTML and JavaScript page, and that's all it did, right, but now we have a lot more information that we can provide. For example, we have machine learning algorithms that detect if there's people in an image, so I don't only tell you this is my video, but I also give you a picture of the person that I just saw, and then I tell you, hey, this is what I saw. It makes your experience a lot more incursive. >> Right, and another potential integration point, right obviously with photos in the security system for IDs and passes and all those things. >> Yeah, even face detection at some point as well is very important for us. >> Now you have four different models, why do you have so many models, what's the use cases that would drive you to have four different models? Hard to support four models instead of one as a startup. >> Yeah so our customers have very different needs. Crime doesn't happen just in a shopping mall, crime happens at PG&E offices, it happens at the mall, it happens at different locations, it could be outside, it could be inside, it could be in a hospital, it can be in a parking lot, so what we tried to do was to cover all of those potential places where crime will be. So with that we have four products; we have the K5, which is our first product. It goes into ADA compliant environments like hospitals and data centers, it's a big robot and mainly used for things like a parking lot to detect license plates, to make sure that it's monitoring all the outside. Our second product is the K3 which is a smaller machine, and what it does is mainly goes inside, it can go through a door and it can do things like monitoring who's at the office at night, raising an alert if there was a fire, stuff that happens inside. We have the K7 which goes to outside places where you have things like speed bumps, you have different kind of terrain, gravel or other type. And then the K1 which is our static model that what we're working on that for the future is to have concealed weapon detection at that point, which is something that is very useful for places that have, like for hospitals, when somebody comes in, they want to be able to know if these people are armed. >> Right, I'm just curious if you can share where customers have seen the most impact, the most benefit by using one of your robots. What specific behaviors have just been a game changer when they put in the Knightscope robot? >> Yeah, so I can't tell you the actual customer, that is something >> No, no, that's okay. >> That we can't say, but I would tell you one example. We have, for example, a hospital and this place is open 24/7, obviously the emergency room, and when they will have, it's down in LA, so they will have at least one break-in every week at the parking lot. So we put our machines there and the past seven months that they have been there, they got zero, they got no break-ins. And the nurses now feel safer going to their cars, people feel safer going there at night, so that is one example. We also had an example of a shopping mall where there was a guy who was basically exposing himself and nobody could catch him because he would drive, as soon as he saw a security guard, he would drive out. So we were able to catch that person as well. There are some people to steal merchandise, so they came, they stole something, they left, and the very next day, they come back and they try to sell this back to the mall people, so by seeing who these people are then determining that they came back to the mall, we were able to apprehend them as criminals. >> Right, on the first example, on the parking lot example, does the robot have active deterrents that it can do, can it sound alarms, light lights, to make people feel safer in a parking lot, that's very different than just monitoring things? >> Yeah so what the robot does is, it has a sound that it's all day it's playing that sound, there's a lot of lights, the lights change color based on what's happening around the robot. Another thing that we have that helps a lot of people feel safe, we have a push-to-talk functionality, so if you were feeling something was wrong at night, you can push that button and you can directly talk to the people at the security operation center. They can walk you through what to do, they can follow you while you go to your car, there's different functionality that we have that helps people feel that they're safe outside. >> Right, and on the shoplifting one, it's interesting 'cause lots of stores have cameras, right, that's not a new thing. So what did your system do differently that the regular camera that they had in there before probably would've filmed the person but didn't necessarily wasn't firing off the alert, recognizing they were back again, did somebody go in and manually type in this particular person's a shoplifter. How did you guys take it to a much different level than just kind of a static security cam? >> So the main thing that you should keep in mind for static cameras is there's always black spots, blind spots, there's no way that they can see everything, and mainly you have cameras inside of the shops, you don't have them outside, so what we did is, we not only saw that we not only got the video of the person inside of the shop, but we saw them when they came outside, we saw them when they were moving, all of this is recorded in video and that we can then match them and see the people who were. Another thing that we do that cameras don't do is we can detect your mobile devices, anything that has that's looking for a network, we can identify that device, and that is always for you and that is always for that device, so we can match those devices when they come in. >> You shouldn't have waited this long but one of the most interesting things about the company and what you guys do, and it's highlighted by what you just said, is the way you go to market. People are not buying these robots, right, you offer the robots as a service, so really interesting model and really brings up interesting things like you said where you can do all kinds of software upgrades, you can do hardware upgrades, you can do all types of changes to the actual unit that the customer just benefits, it's a classic SAS model. So how did you get to that stage and how do people like having, now, kind of a simple monthly payment with all the upgrades and constant, I would imagine, a lot of upgrades coming pretty consistently? Pretty interesting way to go to market, how's that received in the market? >> It's very well, people really accepted, especially when it's new technology. We decided from the beginning that we wanted to be, to own the whole technology stack, and even the robot itself because we knew there would be a lot of upgrades, we knew there would be changes and we wanted to serve our customers in the very best way that was possible. So to help people adopt new technology, we help them with how do they perceive it on a daily basis. If you come to somebody and says they want you to buy a hundred thousand dollar robot, uh, you don't know what that's going to be, but if you said, I charge you ten dollars an hour and give you a robot, that not only changes software every other week, it changes hardware every six months, and you have whatever robot will fit your needs the best. People are really accepting of that model, to the point that all the companies are jumping into the same thing. >> It's really interesting because then it begs where you guys will develop as a company, you know, are you are robotics company, are you a software company, are you a software monitoring company, do you become really a security AI company that pulls from lots of different data and lots of different sources? It really opens up a broad range of opportunities for you guys in which you want to go or where you find your most expertise or where the market takes you. Pretty exciting way to go to market. >> Yeah so what we decided to was we wanted to be the Apple of security guards, so what Apple does is they have their software, their hardware, they own all of it, and therefore they have a very loyal following. We want to be that for security guards, so we own the whole environment, we make changes when we wanted to, and then we go to market that way. >> Okay, that's a great story and again it's knightscope.com, they're fun pictures for one, but it's a great story. But before I let you go, Telly would not be happy if I didn't take a few minutes to talk about your journey. How did you get here, VP of Software Engineering? You know, software's eating the world, it's a great place to be, you've got a solutions based system, but really it's a bunch of metal wrapped up with software inside. So how did you get here, and I wonder if you can share a little bit of your journey to become VP of Software Engineering? >> Yeah so I'm an immigrant, I'm not from the US. I was born South America, and when you're in South America and somebody tells you, hey there's an opportunity for you to go study in the US, you take that opportunity. So I came to the US to study for college, I had a Bachelors in Computer Science and then a Masters in Computer Science. >> Where did you go to school? >> I went to Middle Tennessee State University, and like I said, when somebody tells you, you're going to the US, you don't ask questions, you just go. >> So who made you that offer, how did that come about? >> My university in Ecuador, where I was from, they had an agreement with the university in Tennesee. So they would send students back and forth in an exchange program. >> So you're a good student, they identified you as having great potential and you got picked for that program? >> So 5,000 people apply for 20 spots when I applied. >> Wow. >> So 20 of us came, and out of the 20, the only two people who are staying in the US, my sister and I, we're twins, I have a twin sister. >> 'Cause you ask your sister for support, maybe? Twin sister. >> If I really, it probably had a lot to do with it. And then with technology, I found my way into Knightscope, and Knightscope is a really good company for women in technology specifically, and that is some of the work that I pushed myself to do. Our women in technology numbers are about 25% to 28% of the company which is a huge number for Silicon Valley. So we hire women, we try to mentor them, I myself take time to spend time with them, and then help them get a career that they're excited about. >> And when did you discover your affinity for computer science? It's always a great debate as to when is the best time, or when is the optimal time, or the most popular time for young girls and eventually young women to get involved in STEM? What was your experience? >> So I live with my uncle in Ecuador and my mother, so I always knew I wanted to do something structured, and at the beginning, he was an architect, so I thought I would be an architect, but then I started reading some science fiction books and the closest thing for me to science fiction, making that a reality, was a career in computer science and technology. So that's how I started, and that has led me to, now, Knightscope, and we're doing the most advanced technology that is out there, we're out there with artificial intelligence, we have machine learning, all of the technologies that are out there, robotics, we are using them to put them to use for the greater good. Our job is to keep America safe, and we all are working towards that goal. >> But I think you just want to make something fun that looked like C-3PO. >> It's more like R2-D2 actually, and if you want to see more, go to knightscope.com. >> Okay, and final question. So you're advice, more general advice, to older girls or young women, in terms of what they should do if they want to get into this or why they should consider a career in STEM if they haven't already. >> A career in STEM is very, very rewarding. You're going to be doing sometimes things that nobody else has done ever before. You're out there in front of everything that's happening with technology, and it's actually exciting. When you find other women that do what you want to do, look at people's backgrounds, look at what they've done, look what they're trying to accomplish, and then, make sure that you get into their lives and they'll help you through it. There's a lot of women who would be happy to help out and one of those is me, I'd be glad to help people out. >> Well, Mercedes, thank you so much, again, for spending some time. Congratulations on the award and comin' in and tellin' us your story and educating us more on Knightscope. >> Thank you, and if anybody wants to know, knightscope.com, they can find all about our technology. >> Alright, she's Mercedes, I'm Jeff Frick, we've been having a CUBE conversation in Palo Alto, thanks for watching, we'll catch you next time. (light techno music)

>> Announcer: Live from Orlando, Florida it's the Cube covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of the Grace Hopper Conference here at the Orange County Convention Center. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We are joined by Aysegul Gunduz, she is a professor at the University of Florida-College of Engineering. Thanks so much for joining us. >> No, thank you for having me. >> So, congratulations are in order, because you are a ABIE Award winner, which is awards given out by the Anita Borg Institute, and you have been given the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. So, tell us a little about, about your award. >> Well, thank you for asking. We've heard a lot about Grace Hopper and Anita Borg throughout the conference, but Denice Denton, she was actually very close friends with Anita. And she was a leader in her field, her field was development of polymers, and she worked on the first development of RAM. But she was actually the first ever dean of a college of engineering at a major university... >> Rebecca: First ever woman. >> First woman dean, yes, so she became dean at the University of Washington, and then she actually became chancellor at University of California, but just beyond her research she really promoted and lifted the people around her, so she was a big proponent of minority issues. So, she supported females, she supported international students, and she was openly gay, so she really had a big influence on the LGBTQ community, so I just wanted to, you know, just recognize her and say that how honored I am to have my name mentioned alongside hers. This award is given to a junior faculty member that has done significant research and also has had an impact on diversity as well. >> So, let's start talking... >> Denice is a great inspiration. >> Yes! The award given an homage to Denice, so your research is about detecting neurological disorders. So, tell our viewers a little bit more about what you're doing. >> Sure, I'm an electrical engineer by training, who does brain research for a living, so this confuses a lot of people, but I basically tell them that our brains have bioelectric fields that generate biopotential signals that we can record and we're really trying to decipher what these signals are trying to tell us. So, we are really trying to understand and treat neurological disorders as well as psychiatric disorders, so I work with a lot of neurosurgical patient populations that receive electrode implants as part of their therapy, and we are trying to now improve these technologies so that we can record these brain signals and decode them in real time, so that we can adapt things like deep brain stimulation for the current pathology that these patients are having. So, deep brain stimulation, currently, is working like, think of an AC and it's working on fan mode so its current, you know, constantly blowing cold air into the room, even though the room might be just the perfect temperature, so we are basically trying to listen to the brain signals and only deliver electricity when the patient is having a pathology, so this way we are basically turning the AC onto the auto mode, so that once they are actually not having symptoms, unnecessary electrical, it is not delivered into their brains, so pace makers, when they invented were functioning that way, so people realized they could stimulate the heart, and the person would not have a cardiac arrest, but now we know that we can detect the heart pulse very easily, so someone thought about 'OK, so when we don't detect the pulse, heartbeat, let's only stimulate the pace maker then,' so that's what we're trying to adapt to the neuro-technologies. >> And what is the patient response? I mean I imagine that's incredible. So, these are people who suffer from things like Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome, I mean, it's a small patient population that you're working with now, but what are you finding? >> So, first of all, our patients are very gracious to volunteer for our studies, we find that, for instance, in Tourette's syndrome we can actually detect when people are having tics, involuntary tics, that is characteristic of Tourette's syndrome. We find that we can differentiate that from voluntary movements, so we can really deliver the stimulation when they are having these symptoms, so this is a paroxysmal disorder, they really don't need continuous stimulation. So, that's one thing that we're developing. We find that in essential tremor, again, when people aren't having tremor we can detect that and stop the stimulation and only deliver it when necessary. We're working on a symptom called freezing of gaits in Parkinson's disease so people define this as the, having the will to walk, but they feel like their feet are glued to the floor so this can cause a lot of falls, and at that, really, age this can be very, very dangerous. So, we can actually tell from the brain when people are walking and then we turn the stimulation in this particular area only during that time so as to prevent any falls that might happen. >> So, it's really changing their life and how they are coping with this disease. >> Yes, true, and it really makes going to work in the morning (laughs) very, very exciting for us. >> So, another element of the ABIE Award is that you are helping improve diversity in your field and in Denice Denton, in the spirit of Denice Denton, helping young women and minorities rise in engineering. >> Yes, so, I'm going to talk about this in my keynote session tomorrow, but I really just realized that all my confidence throughout engineering school was due to the fact that I actually had a female undergraduate advisor, and once I came to that realization, I joined Association for Academic Women at the University of Florida, which was established in 1974, because these pioneering women fought for equal pay for male and female faculty on campus, and this is still honored today, so I'm very honored to be serving the Association as its president today. All of our membership dues go to dissertation awards for female doctoral students that are, you know, emerging scholars in their fields, and I also approached the National Science Foundation and they supported the funding for me to generate a new emerging STEM award for female students in the STEM fields. So, you know, that is my contribution. >> So, you're passing it on... >> I hope so. >> the help and the mentoring that you received as young faculty member. >> I truly hope so. >> I mean, (stammers) right now we're so focused on the technology companies but on campuses, on the undergraduate and graduate school campuses, how big a problem is this, would you say? >> So, I'm a faculty in biomedical engineering, so, in our field we actually have some of the highest female to male ratios compared to other engineering fields. People attribute this to the fact that females like to contribute to the society, so, they like to work on problems, they like to work on problems that have a societal impact and I think working with, basically, you know, disorders in any branch of medicine, it really fires, fires up female students, but yes, when we go to other departments such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, the ratio is really, really small. And it still is a problem and therefore we are really trying to mobilize, you know, all female faculty, just to be present, just the fact that you're there, that you're a successful female in this field... >> Rebecca: The role models. >> Yeah, really makes an impact, you know, I think, the most repeated quote at this meeting is that 'You can't be what you can't see." So, we're really trying to support female faculty. So, we're tying to retain female faculty, so that, you know, the younger generation of females can see that they can and the will do it as well. >> You can't be what you can see, I love that. Those are words to live by. >> Right. >> Yeah. Well, thank you so much Aysegul, this is a pleasure, pleasure meeting you, pleasure having you on the show. >> Thank you so much, pleasure's mine. >> We'll be back with more from Grace Hopper just after this.