live from San Francisco it's the cube covering Red Hat summit 2018 brought to you by Red Hat okay welcome back everyone would live here in San Francisco California the Moscone West for the cubes exclusive coverage of Red Hat summit 2018 I'm John for the co-host of the cube was my closest week analyst John Troy a co-founder of tech reckoning advisory and Community Development firm our next two guests is erica kochi co-founder of unicef innovation the United Nations Children's Fund and Mike Walker director of open innovation labs at Red Hat welcome to the cube thanks for coming joining us thanks love this story so Erica take a minute to talk about what you're working on at UNICEF you guys doing a lot of great stuff you got the relationship with Red Hat innovation labs but you doing some pretty amazing things take them into explain what you're doing at UNICEF some of the projects and what we're going to talk about here with the school and the magic fox all the greatness sure so UNICEF innovation essentially what we do is take technology and apply it to the problems facing children around the world and we do that in a variety of ways I think the things that we're probably most most known for is our work in mobile technology to connect frontline health workers and young people to to governments and have let them have a say in what's happening in in you know the halls of government and we have a program called you report which has five million young people from all over the world who are talking directly to their government representatives they need that now more than ever we certainly do yeah so open source obviously with red hat big shared vision talk about the shared mission like what's going on but there where's the connection I was the open source was great for society we've seen the benefits all around the world how is this translating for you guys yeah so I've been at Red Hat for a while and obviously we're the world's largest open source enterprise open source software company and I as a consultant been able to see Red Hat open source software used for many different purposes in every vertical you can think of but this one was really unique because we found a natural partnership I think between some of UNICEF innovations vision to use open source and open principles for maximum impact for good and so when I learned about innovation at UNICEF really by chance I just ran into a colleague at a meeting in New York and and she gave me a few words about it I said this is incredible because we can leverage all of what we learned at Red Hat our knowledge of open source to impact people and culture and not just for technical reasons and and partnered with UNICEF to make maximum social impact for children that need it most and you got red house key a technology company a lot of smart people there but with open source there's been a DNA in your bloodstream of the company around democratization and now we're out in the open with everyone online and everything's good this is a democratization piece talk about some of that the things that you guys are doing with red hat what specifically are you celebrating together here so we had a great collaboration with with Red Hat there at their labs program which really took a look at our challenge of using big data to read or understand what's happening on the ground especially in schools in countries that are either coming out of emergencies or have limited access to a lot of the parts of the country and so we layered satellite imagery information on poverty other sets of data you can really get a clear picture about where we should be allocating our resources and how we should be planning for emergencies and this collaboration just just finished up a couple days ago right and it's really been great what's some of the impact give an example of some of the use cases so actually saving time money will be things around yeah what what are some of the impact things that you see with this project what are some of the things a lot of countries right now are thinking about how they can connect all of their schools and make sure all of it their schools are online and give children this access to information that's really essential to to thrive in the world of today and tomorrow and if you don't know where your schools are and you don't know if they're connected or not and you can't see you know what else is happening it's in the socio-economic way in those areas it's really hard to figure out what to do and where to start so we're really just at the beginning of that process to try to connect every school in the world and we're at the moment we're trying to lay the groundwork to understand where we're at and where we need a level of insight you're providing once you connect the schools you can get people can know what to do and how to align with what's happening it's interesting I was just in Puerto Rico a couple weeks ago and the young kids there have self formed their own blockchain network between the schools and they're teaching themselves how to program because they recognize that to get out of their world and the mess that they're challenging through now post-hurricane they want to participate in the new economy so as someone not knowing that if I know I could help you're kind of providing a window into that kind of dynamic where is that kind of the use case is that how it's working so it's but participation and contribution is absolutely participation is key you know for young people and they need to it like really learn how to acquire the skills that they're gonna need to you know become successful productive adults in the future and school is you know one of the entry points to do that so that's really important and everyone loves that - yeah I'm kind of curious about the structure of the project today in the keynote you know Jim why does she start us off by saying well you know we can't plan everything we've got to be a little bit more agile here's a framework for how to how to really approach problems when we really don't know what the outcome or even what we're gonna hit so can you talk a little bit maybe about the structure of the of the process and did you know did you start with a blank piece of paper or do you know how did how did you figure out the pathway to the ultimate outcome here yeah I can take it first um that's a great question because at labs we experiment with ways to get fast feedback and really in a very short amount of time usually one to three months and a very limited amount of funds how can we make maximum impact using open technologies and open practices so the project was already in progress like most IT projects are right Gardi been some research we have data scientists to work with and one of the first things we did was really talk about really our concerns and fears about how we might work together using an exercise called how might we we kind of came together and said how might we solve this problem or that problem and just got it out on the table one of the aspects that I think work really is dedicating a small team in a residency style engagement where we worked off premise so Red Hatters left their office UNICEF folks left their office we came together in akola works based in New York City that was fairly convenient and you know we all focused on a tough problem and we decided really early on that in order to make sure that this problem actually would be usable and in the hands of end users in the field across the world we needed to get face to face so we made a trip to Latin America to work with a UNICEF field office to get fast feet up feedback on prototypes and that helped us adjust what we ended up shipping as the product at the end of the two months cycle Erika how was the outcome for you and your game it's great I think you know one of the things that really aligns RedHat and UNICEF is not just a commitment to open source and the values around that but also this agile methodology I think that you know to really move something a product forward or sort of a program forward you need to step away from the daily part of life you know and move away from the the email and the connection to the laptop and the phone and I think we were able to do that I also think that you need to ground truth things and so that you know that trip to the field and to really understand the context and the problems that that people are facing is is completely critical to success and that's like agile programming you kind of gotta get get out in the front lines not ask about the data I'm really intrigued so you got multiple data sources coming in love the satellite thing you're changing lives but you're saving lives too is your talk about you may name real-time efforts here what's the data science thing what's the tech behind I mean is it ingesting data as a third party data Z how does it work I mean can you share some some of the mechanics on the date of data science piece er yeah I think there's probably a lot we can talk about I could talk about data all day love data but some of the things that I think were fundamentally really exciting about this project and about what UNICEF innovation has done so let's take for example Facebook they have a whole lot of data but that's one company and it's sort of one lens to the world right it's it's quite broad and we get a lot of information but it's one company what UNICEF innovation has done is found ways to partner with private and public companies and private and public data sources in a way that maintains the security and integrity of that data so that it's not exposing proprietary information but they've been able to create those that community essentially that's willing to share information to solve a really tough challenge for social good and so we have actually a really wide variety of data at our disposal and our job was to create a sandbox that allow data scientists to really both proactively plan for things that might happen and reactively plan when events occur when we don't even know what that event might be so you know I like to think back to Jim Whitehurst's speech last year at summit where I said planning is dead we've got to try learn and modify I think that's exactly what we aim to build a platform that you know hasn't been planned for any one event or action but provides the flexibility for data scientists to try experiment pull different data together learn from it sharing Maps we integrated geospatial data and maps to be able to pass this along quickly and then modify based on the results so we can more quickly achieve something with the greatest impact that's awesome yeah so for example if you take you know you take like for example epidemics right so many factors are so many different types of data are needed to really understand what's happening in an epidemic for example take Zika you have temperature right mosquitos only breed at a certain at a certain temperature you have poverty or which really indicates standing water where mosquitoes can breed you have socioeconomic factors so it does the house more likely does it have mosquito screens or not and then you have the social right what are people talking about what are they concerned about and I think like a really interesting picture emerges when you can start to layer all of these kinds of data and that really helps us see where we should be focusing it's great discovery information using the data to drive kind of we're to look at and we're to focus efforts exactly and also a global footprint right and in previous decades maybe this would have run on a piece with some sort of a proprietary GIS thing or or yeah I'm not even sure right you chip around discs maybe but I mean not not to be too product oriented right built on OpenShift we've seen a whole lot this week right these global footprint you could take it live on any cloud I assume that's a piece of it right at global accessibility now for they out for the the resulting application absolutely and we want to take you know what we've done in one scenario and apply it to many others in many other locations and so being an open source is key for this because we wouldn't be able to do this in other locations are replicated just as easily handed to local folks have them an adapted and/or take it further or have other people work on it whether it's academics other companies us nice I love the structure like how its agile I got a Eric I ought to ask you about this because we're seeing a big trend with open source obviously that's well on its way to becoming it is the standard of doing software but mission driven technology activities aren't just nonprofits anymore you starting to see collaboration the JOBS Act that Obama put in place really set the table for new kind of funding so you've seen a lot more younger people coming in and saying hey you know what I can build it on the cloud and grants aware but the code gets live on right so you seeing a new flywheel around mission driven nonprofits and for-profits a new kind of entrepreneurship culture can you share insight into how this is developer you see a lot of it you have a lot of thoughts on this your them please so I think that you know as technology companies become so much more influential in our lives you know they're not just showing you the news anymore they were they're moving into every aspect of our lives whether it's in our into our homes or even inside our bodies that they're they're occupying as so much more influential role in an individual's life with that comes a tremendous amount of responsibility and I think that while it's not enough to say you should do good because it's the right thing to do I think that employees also really demand it I think that you know and that shift will occur because employees realize that they want to they want to be doing good in the world and if they're gonna be influencing so many people's lives that's really really it's a new citizenship model for the younger generations early Millennials want to work in a company that's not just the profit hungar motive but also there's some dynamics going on with the infrastructure world you look at Facebook as a classic example you know the word weaponizing content has been a bad thing but we've been talking about in the queue there's actually a reverse of that polar opposite which is you can weaponize content for good meaning that all the same principles that do bad things can be used for good things so this is where we started to see a lot more people saying hey let's do more of the fad and punish so the new kind of rules are developing in the society so I find it fascinating and I'm just curious is this known within the societal entrepreneurship culture or what's the what's your view on how to do more how to do better I'm doing a lot of work in what AI is gonna be meaning what's what it's gonna mean for children in the world and you know there are so many opportunities we've been talking about some of them but there are also a lot of risks right what does it mean when your child's best friend is a robot what does that change about our us us you know as human beings and so I think it's you know you have to look at both sides and you have to be very conscious about designing the technology that you want to see in the world that's gonna make the world a good place to live in and I think that there definitely is an awakening and that's going and there's a lot this is a first generation set of problems that social entrepreneurship brings a just society I mean who sets the policy which side of the road the cars drive on or you know there's these new issues that are evolving that I've never been seen before you know cyber bullying - all kinds of things happening so congratulations on all those success so what's the forecast for Red Hat innovation has more of this gonna continue double down on it what are the things do you guys have going on yeah so Labs is growing quite largely we are now live in North America amia and a pack with plans to expand extend to Latin in the future and we're growing quite quickly in terms of our ability to execute I guess you know the labs team is relatively small a small number of specialists but we are all of RedHat so the way we operate is based on what we're trying to achieve together we will look at all of red hat and sometimes even outside of red hat to figure out who we can bring to the table to help solve that problem and so it allows me to work with our engineering with our business units even with our marketing so we brought marketing in to the first meeting not simply because we're creating a marketing event but we realized we need to advertise internally and externally what we build in order to gain adoption it's part of building a community and what I have found is because Labs has an injective that goes beyond you know simply a technological objective we're aiming to change ways of working and to change culture it's really easy to build a lot of interest and adoption among all Red Hatters to bring them together to solve a tough problem a really an interesting facet a lot about labs I know you do these pop-up labs and I think this was what you know you don't make necessarily make people come to you you son can come to them but I think like you said it's important to get outside your your office and your day-to-day for these focused projects you talked a little bit about your approach to yeah so we've learned a lot you know Labs is almost exactly two years old I think we launched in April of 2016 at OpenStack summit and one thing we learned is you know the world is a big place and we can't necessarily have a physical lab location everywhere so we do have first-class facilities in Boston Singapore in London but I would say the large majority of the work efforts we've done to date have been in what we call pop-up labs and what that allows us to do is create that immersion and focus on a tough challenge by getting people out of the office but also provide the ability to go home at the end of the day and have dinner at your home which a lot of people enjoy and from the red head perspective we've got a lot of folks used to travel so we can make that happen meet in the middle and and it's been a good hybrid approach that we end up doing more and more great stuff here actually is my final question for then to take from Jim Whitehouse keynote today how is blockchain changing this open for good economics that's absolutely right and I mean Erika you might want to weigh in as well but I think I love blockchain first of all I love math and I love the science behind it but I love the fact that it was developed in the open it was debated in the open it's radically transparent you can see all of the transactions of anyone in the chain and it's being used in ways that no one ever dreamed of I mean it was meant for a universal currency but you know think about this we might be able to use it as a token system so that we can actually ensure that humanitarian efforts that are done are actually recognized by people that they may not otherwise have funds right someone with very little money can still use so perhaps takers making sure the money gets put to use absolutely and endpoints we have accountability you know we're using it to exchange electronic health records securely and privately with the people that need them and only the people that need them so I don't know where blockchain will be in five years but I am optimistic that I think the mathematics and the fundamental is a blockchain or sound and I think more than anything it's the community that will drive new applications of blockchain and really define and answer that question for you well I know we'll be in New York next week with blockchain for consensus of ennum there's a lot of ents going on we've seen wealthy entrepreneurs donating Bitcoin and aetherium there's a really great project so and a lot of young people love the blockchain and crypto so who knows got to be on that labs we're definitely look you know looking into it and we have a couple experiments around the world that range from trying to do some smart contracts you know in in country environments to taking donations in in blockchain armies Arion cryptocurrencies I think that there are a lot of exciting applications for it in this due to do good space I also think that there's a tremendous amount of hype and you know you really have to ask yourself the key question of like does this need a central trusted Authority or is there one that exists that already is great um and do we need to record every transaction if you can answer those two questions then the other baby going somewhere well great point the other thing I would answer that agree hundred percent and that is is that blockchain and crypto our token economic certainty not the ico scams but is an efficiency heat-seeking missile it it targets efficiencies where there's inefficiencies announced where I see a lot of the action going on and you know efforts and for good are highly inefficient yeah so hey you knows well we'd love blockchain as you can tell we talk about all day long smart contracts token economics thanks for coming on and congratulations on your project thank you you're good to stuff their cube coverage here day two of three days live coverage here in San Francisco the Red Hat summit 2018 moved back after this short break stay with us

>> 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 in Orlando Florida. I'm your host Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host Jeff Frick. We're joined by Sarah Clatterback. She's the Senior Director of Engineering at LinkedIn, and Erica Lockheimer, the head of Growth Engineering at LinkedIn. Thanks so much for coming on the show, again. >> Yes, thank you. >> Thanks for having us again. >> We're getting the band back together. >> Absolutely. >> So before the cameras were rolling you were talking about the exciting initiatives and programs you have at LinkedIn. One of them that definitely caught Jeff's imagination was Reach. It's sort of a cross-fit for engineers. So tell us more about Reach. >> Yeah, so Reach is a program where we wanted to really look at how we're hiring talent in a different way. So one of the things, actually it was an inspiration of a candidate that we had at Grace Hopper last year, where she had come and she gave us her resume. >> Yep. >> Abby, and she said "I can't get an engineering job. I did a boot camp but no one will hire me. I don't have enough experience." And she really was the catalyst that really created the program. We said, we need to look at talent in a very different way. So we decided, it stemmed also from her and also from Whit where if there's working mothers, how do they get back into the workforce? So these two ideas started coming together, and we said, why not create a program where we can maybe have them come to LinkedIn, get their skills back up, teach them how to code, and eventually work at LinkedIn. So we kicked off the program, and we did very little media, and we had over 700 people apply, and we went through 500 applications, and had 30 candidates at LinkedIn. So they just finished the end of the group session, but they are converting. They're learning how to code. They're checking code live to the site, and these are people from different backgrounds. As a veteran, returning back to work, even some people that have been in a bad situation of being homeless. I mean, this is talking about, not only about career transformation, but transforming their lives. And it's such a special program that has just changed the way that we're thinking about hiring. I don't know if you want to add anything. >> Yeah, I mean, I think that it's had a great impact on our company. I think, the way we think about hiring, but also how the whole team has interacted and really come together to support these apprentices, in being successful as engineers. So I've seen it actually transform the entire culture of our engineering team through this whole program. >> It's interesting, you use the word apprenticeship . And I think of that too, 'cause there's always the talk, right, about technology taking jobs. On the other hand, we hear over and over, there's all these open tech jobs. There's nobody to fill them. >> Yes. >> And then you got the transition with the truck drivers that are all going to be displaced by autonomous trucks, in the not distant future. So it's interesting as you point out, to kind of rethink, kind of the classic, go to school do your time, come in at the bottom and work your way up. Because there needs to be a much more variant to be able to get people to retrain, to take people through various backgrounds. And are you seeing that reflected, 'cause you guys, obviously, represent a bunch of companies that are looking for people. Are you seeing a broader adoption of this kind of non-traditional approach to getting talent? >> Well, it's a program that we started off as a pilot. >> Okay. >> We are definitely going to do a second round. So we would love to share and open source how we're doing it and we'd love to have other companies thinking this way. But it's truly, back to Sarah's point, it's really not only transformed our culture, but it's even thinking about how we're hiring. We're in hiring committee every single week, and we start looking at these candidates, like oh, it looks like a Reach candidate. Before you would've maybe bypassed them and said oh they're not ready. This is now a different way to invest. But I definitely want more companies to do this, and we'll pilot, we'll share it, we'll open source it, and it will be fantastic. >> So talk about some of the other programs including Invest, and how you're helping, making sure that employees are happy where they are. >> So Invest is a program that came out of the Women and Tech Initiative between Sarah and I, and we thought about some of the personal experiences that we had, is how did we get to where we're at? And you want to design a program about your own experiences. You're like, hey I know that works. Let me just create a playbook around it. So we met, and we said we have executive coaching. We had basically a community of people, we could talk to about some challenges and we had managers invest in us. So why not create a program about that. So we have, this is our third session that we're doing it, and we have 50 women in the program. But the program consists of two day executive coaching, one-on-one with your manager, continuant of bringing the community of women together, and going through this. And what we've found in the success results is there's zero in the last 10 months of them being part of this program, and 40 percent promotions which is fantastic. And then what also happens is they go into this program, and they want to be mentored, and they graduate really literally from the program. Now we want them to pay it forward. >> Pay it forward to the next cohort that's going to come through this program. And I think we have several things we can measure. I mean, you talked about the promotion rate, but we can also talk about, did they have, sort of, a career moment in the year following their trip through the program. Were they able to step up and take a bigger assignment, more responsibility. There are other ways to measure the success of the program, as well, and we're seeing that across the board. >> Yeah, and just to add on to it, it really is a community that we're starting to build within the company, and it just feels fantastic. People feel great. We're walking around through the hallways like, I'm part of Invest when can I sign up. Everybody wants to be a part of it. So we need to figure out, and we can scale it faster. >> Well measurement is also so important too, because so many companies want to know what the return on investment. So how do you think about the data collection and then measuring progress? >> Yeah, so basically for all these initiatives before we start them we say what are going to be the things that we're going to measure? What are the metrics of success. And I think in this particular case, Erika mentioned attrition rate. That's what's in it for the company is retaining top talented women. But then on the other side, are they achieving their career goals? Are they getting promoted? Are they able to step up? So those were, kind of, the two metrics that we had set for the program before we even started. And then we can basically check and see, are we achieving those results, or do we need to pivot something about the program, or reshape the program. So we do this at least yearly, if not quarterly, to see if we're tracking towards our goals. >> And just to add on to measurement, like she mentioned, it's hard to mention, how do you feel? You went through this program, how do you feel? They are feeling better. They are feeling more empowered. They want to actually be part of Whitmore and then help pay it forward. So that's also an amazing measurement of success too. >> I went to an interesting pitch night a little while ago. Stanford, I think MIT, Babson, and Cal, and there was a start up there. They were looking at external data sources, social media, et cetera to try and quickly identify high-risk leaves inside the company. So to basically would be the drive your candidate's election to say this person looks like, they're doing behaviors that might indicate they might be boogieing. >> Right, right? >> So maybe they should invested in to keep it going. 'Cause obviously it's so much better to keep your good people than to have to hire, retrain. >> Definitely. >> Et cetera. The huge ROI. And of course, the last thing, and I joke with you guys every time I see you. 'Cause I see you so often on LinkedIn usually, in a classroom. >> Good, keep on using LinkedIn >> With a bunch of little girls, teaching them, taking your weekends to teach coding and tech. It's just fantastic. But really interesting that you're expanding that program as well. So that Sarah can get some of her Saturdays back which I'm happy for. And really taking something successful. >> Yeah. >> And as you said, open sourcing. Open source continues to be such a great innovation engine. One of you can tell us a little bit about that. >> Yeah, absolutely. So our high school trainee program, we've been running it for three years now. We just finished our third cohort, and I think the results sort of speak for themselves. We've got a 96 percent rate of students going on to pursue stem degrees, and 89 percent studying computer science in particular. So I think we're actually seeing the result that we want out of the program, and we've even gone and reached a lot of girls who might be first generation college attendees, and we're even having the same success with them. So we really wanted to expand this program, horizontally scale it so to speak. So what we've done is we've put our program outline, as well as our curriculum that we do during the summer, online on GitHub, and we're encouraging other companies to pick this up, to adapt it to their own needs, and to provide additional opportunity for students around Silicone Valley and beyond. >> What's the biggest, consistent, it's not a surprise if it's consistent, and you've been doing it for three years. But as you run these programs, when you get the girls in for the first time, what's the thing that most people would never expect that you see over, and over, and over? >> I think for me, it's really seeing the identity transformation of the students. They come in. They're not sure if they belong. They feel intimidated, and by the end of the summer, they're confident, they're certain that they're going to be engineers. They see a future for themselves in Silicon Valley, and that's reflected not only at the end of the program, but also as they follow up with us in the subsequent years. So, for example, one of our first cohort has already finished her undergrad at Berkeley >> Yay! >> Wow! >> in two years, in computer Science. >> She finished in two years? >> She finished her undergrad >> She's a very motivated lady. >> She's so excited. >> She's amazing. >> Wow. >> And she's in a third year master's program right now. I get updates periodically from all the students. How they're doing, how their programs are going. One of the women from our first cohort, Vanessa, is also here at Grace Hopper. So we're going to meet up for dinner tomorrow night. It's really great to follow them as they become confident technologists into their career. >> Great story. >> So I want to ask you, being here at Grace Hopper, it's easy to feel that companies really get it in the sense of the importance of recruiting and retaining women, making sure that there's opportunities for them. But in terms of the state of the industry, and I'm asking LinkedIn which really epitomizes professional career management. >> Yes. >> Do companies get it? Where are we? >> So I think there's several companies that want to do something, I think we're all still trying to figure it out. As sad as that may be at times, but it's a hard problem to solve. When you're at a conference like this and you're like, there's not enough women in tech. There's tons of women in tech. If you have to think about how you're hiring in and if you want different results, you have to do something different. So what are you doing? Your old ways of doing things is not the way to do it, clearly. So how can you pivot and change? So I think they need to continually try different things. But I feel good. I feel we're going to get in that right trajectory, but it's going to take some time. >> Yeah, I think this is algorithm optimization, right? >> Yes, good analogy, good analogy. >> The inputs and the outputs. Are we getting the result that we want? And we're all iterating our algorithms to figure out what's working, and how we can do better. >> New inputs, new inputs. >> Excellent. Well Erika, Sarah, thank you so much. It's always so much fun having you on the show. >> Well thank you for having us, it's fantastic. >> Absolutely >> I'm Rebecca Knight, for Jeff Frick who will be back tomorrow with more from Grace Hopper. See you then. (upbeat music)