>> Announcer: Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE, covering Grace Hopper's Celebration of Women in Computing, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Welcome to day one of the Grace Hopper Conference here in Orlando, Florida. Welcome back to theCUBE, I should say. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Jeff Frick. We have just seen some really great keynote addresses. We had Faith Ilee from Stanford University. Melinda Gates, obviously the co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We also had Diane Green, the founder of VMware. Jeff, what are your first impressions? >> You know, I love comin' to this show. It's great to be workin' with you again, Rebecca. I thought the keynotes were really good. I've seen Diane Green speak a lot and she's a super smart lady, super qualified, changed the world of VMware. She's not always the greatest public speaker, but she was so comfortable up there. She so felt in her element. It was actually the best I'd ever seen. For me, I'm not a woman, but I'm a dad of two daughters. It was really fun to hear the lessons that some of these ladies learned from their father that they took forward. So, I was really hap-- I admit, I'm feelin' the pressure to make sure I do a good job on my daughters. >> Make sure those formative experiences are the right ones, yes. >> It's just interesting though how people's early foundation sets the stage for where they go. I thought Dr. Sue Black, who talked about the morning she woke up and her husband threatened to kill her. So, she just got out of the house with her two kids and started her journey then. Not in her teens, not in her twenties, not in college. Obviously well after that, to get into computer science and to start her tech journey and become what she's done now. Now she's saving the estate where the codebreakers were in World War II, so phenomenal story. Melinda Gates, I've never seen her speak. Then Megan Smith, always just a ton of energy. Before she was a CTO for the United States, that was with the Obama administration. I don't think she hung around as part of the Trump Administration. She brings such energy, and now, kind of released from the shackles of her public service and her own thing. Great to see her up there. It's just a terrific event. The energy that comes from, I think, a third of the people here are young women. Really young, either still in college or just out of college. Really makes for an atmosphere that I think is unique in all the tech shows that we cover. >> I completely agree. I think the energy really is what sets the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing apart from all the other conferences. First of all, there's just many more women who come to this. The age, as you noted, it's a lot lower than your typical tech conference. But, I also just think what is so exciting about this conference is that it is this incredible mix of positivity. let's get more women in here, let's figure out ways to get more women interested in computer science and really working on their journey as tech leaders. But, also really understanding what we're up against in this industry. Understanding the bro-grammar culture, the biases that are really creating barriers for women to get ahead, and actually to even enter into the industry itself. Then, also there's the tech itself, so we have these women who are talking about these cool products that they're making and different pathways into artificial intelligence and machine-learning, and what they're doing. So, it's a really incredible conference that has a lot of different layers to it. >> It's interesting, Dr. Fei-Fei Li was talking a lot about artificial intelligence, and the programming that goes into artificial intelligence, and kind of the classic Google story where you use crowdsourcing and run a bunch of photographs through an algorithm to teach it. But, she made a really interesting point in all this discussion about, is it the dark future of AI, where they take over the world and kill us all? Or, is it a positive future, where it frees us up to do more important things and more enlightened things. She really made a good point that it's, how do you write the algorithms? How are we training the computers to do what we do? Women bring a different perspective. Diversity brings a different perspective. To bake that into the algorithms up front is so, so important to shape the way the AI shapes the evolution of our world. So, I found that to be a really interesting point that she brought up that I don't think is talked about enough. People have to write the algorithms. People have to write the stuff that trains the machines, so it's really important to have a broad perspective. You are absolutely right, and I think she actually made the point even broader than that in the sense of is if AI is going to shape our life and our economy going forward-- >> Which it will, right? >> Which it will. Then, the fact that there are so few women in technology, this is a crisis. Because, if the people who are the end-users and who are going to either benefit or be disadvantaged by AI aren't showing up and aren't helping create it, then yes, it is a crisis. >> Right. And I think the other point that came up was to bake more computer science into other fields, whether it's biology, whether it's law, education. The application of AI, the application of computer science in all those fields, it's much more powerful than just computing for the sake of computing. I think that's another way hopefully to keep more women engaged. 'Cause a big part of the issue is, not only the pipeline at the lead, but there's a lot of droppage as they go through the process. So, how do you keep more of 'em involved? Obviously, if you open it up across a broader set of academic disciplines, by rule you should get more retention. The other thing that's interesting here, Rebecca. This is our fourth year theCUBE's been at Grace Hopper's since way back in Phoenix in 2014, ironically, when there was also a big Microsoft moment at that show that we won't delve back into. But, it's a time of change. We have Brenda Darden Wilkerson, the brand new president of the Anita Borg organization. Telle Whitney's stepping down and she's passing the baton. We'll have them both on. So, again, Telle's done a great job. Look what she's created in the team. But, always fun to have fresh blood. Always fun to bring in new energy, new point of view, and I'm really excited to meet Brenda. She's done some amazing things in the Chicago Public School System, and if you've ever worked in a public school district, not a really easy place to innovate and bring change. >> Right, no, of course. Yeah, so our lineup of guests is incredible this week. We've got Sarah Clatterbuck, who is a CUBE alum. We have a woman who is the founder of Roar, which is a self-defense wearable technology. We're going to be looking at a broad array of the women technologists who are leading change in the industry, but then also leading it from a recruitment and retention point of-- >> So, should be a great three days, looking forward to it. >> I am as well. Excellent. Okay, so please keep joining us. Keep your channel tuned in here to theCUBE"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 will see you back here shortly. (light, electronic music)

(instrumental electronic music) >> Announcer: Live from Palo Alto, it's The Cube, covering Women Transforming Technology 2017, brought to you by VMware. (crowd) >> Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of Women Transforming Technology. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. And I'm here at VMware, with Sindy Braun. She is the Vice President of Social Impact here at VMware. >> Hey Rebecca! >> Welcome! Thank you so much for taking the time-- >> Thank you. It's great to be here. >> To talk to us. >> So, I first of all want to commend you because this conference is fantastic. And you've really taken a Lot You've put it together. >> We did. Of course, it's a consortium, so we could not do this without the partners that we have, and, of course, the great team that is working on this. So, certainly, can't take credit for it, but it is the team has been tremendous in putting this together. >> Well, some of the feedback that I'm hearing is that this conference has a great mix of technical sessions, but then also professional career-based sessions-- >> Sindy: Um-hmm. Yeah. >> What's the balance that you're try to strike when you're putting it together. >> Sure, so this is actually part of what we were aiming at, is there are other conferences that focus on technical women, that focus on women in a certain industry. And this is where we wanted it to have that conversation, to build a community for women in tech. And I think it's the bit of a uniqueness around that, being able to create the network, the support system, the conversation that is happening and becoming even more important in today's world. And that's what we're trying to do here, is how do you create the conversation, and how do you continue the conversation. And this is our second year of doing it. Obviously, last year was such a success that coming back this year was almost a no-brainer in something that we really wanted to invest in. >> And the theme, breaking barriers-- >> Sindy: Um-hmm. >> Where did you... What was the thought behind that? >> I think it's where we're at from a diversity perspective where most companies, particularly, in Silicon Valley and in tech careers, how do we break those barriers? How do we break through? How do we take other people's stories and tell the story of breaking through, of building momentum? And we've got a lot of work to do, but this is where VMware is focused, is how are we going to pull together and make change? And for us, its always been driving it into the business, of making it a business-led initiative, as opposed to an HR-led initiative, which is where a lot of companies do this. And really making it both top down and bottom up because it's about changing consciousness. It's about changing the conversation, and it's about seeing the movement in both the diversity side, which is the numbers associated with it. And the inclusiveness side, which is how do you bring your whole self to work? How do you feel comfortable? And that's also you can see from where we're... The kind of people that are here. That's what it's about, is how do we change the face of women in technology. >> Gloria Steinem is giving the closing address. What a bold choice to choose a feminist. This is the Women Transforming Technology is the conference, and choosing a feminist icon-- >> Sindy: Um-hmm. >> To close it out-- >> Right. Talk today. We were obviously having discussions who would be the right choice and her name came up. And really it was, Wow, could we get her? (laughing) And she was available, and I think we're going to all be in for a treat this afternoon. We just got to spend some time with her, one-on-one Q and A. And it is... Runs so deep with her. She's actually pretty soft-spoken-- >> Rebecca: Um-hmm. >> But you can see that this is how she lives and breathes her life. And I'm just so excited! I can't wait to get in there and hear the keynote. >> One of your responsibilities here at VMware is being in charge of the foundation. >> Sindy: Um-hmm. >> And VMware has a very unique approach to giving. >> Sindy: Um-hmm. Yeah. >> Tell us more about that? >> So, that the approach that we've had is, again, most of what Vmware's and our culture is about is about choice, and about engaging our people, as opposed to many other sort of giving philosophies, which is really a top down approach. So, what we do is really give our employees the say in where did they want to give? How did they want to engage? And we call this Citizen Philanthropy, and we talk about it that every individual can make a difference and that's the Citizen Philanthropy. But at the end of the day, that's how we get to having a collective impact, right? And it has been phenomenal. We have done some work internally around employee engagement, what does this mean? And we're seeing phenomenal results from just how embedded this is in our culture. How proud people are of being able to give in this way. How much they value this as a culture. And we're seeing more and more of this within all of our employees. Most people talking about millennials really wanting to have their sense of purpose, but I'm seeing it across the spectrum. It's not just millennials, it's people at my age, which is much more than a millennial (laughing), all the way across, which is how do we get that sense of purpose? How do we give back? And that's essentially what the foundation approach is, how do we awaken the philanthropist in everyone? >> So, where are employees giving back? Give me some examples of how Citizen Philanthropy plays out. >> Across the board, so we invite our employees to engage, we invite our employees to... And we very generously offer 40 hours of service learning, right? I think just even that phrase, we don't call it volunteerism because really we're focusing on the being of service, and what do you learn from that, right? And I think that has a profound impact on people, and it's not just about, Oh, I'm going to do two hours here or there. It's seeing the impact this has, and then being able to apply it back to their own selves, and see how this grows them and changes their perspective of the world. When we first launched the foundation, it was under the then CEO, Paul Maritz, and he's made this comment up, Anybody who works here has won the lottery of life, alright. And it's part of who we are. And being able to give back is such a tremendous, just privilege. And people feel that and we see it. We just did a survey and we're working on our employee NPS score, which is would they recommend the company. And we found that those employees that have engaged in our foundation programs are 25% more likely to recommend the company. So, you can see how this is really embedded-- >> So, it has an effect on retention. >> And retention, be the culture, and that, in turn, has an impact on hiring because they'll recommend it to their friends, and who, again, are looking for more in a company than just-- >> Um-hmm. >> How am I going to earn my paycheck? And I think that's part of what the foundation allows us to accomplish for people. >> I think that quote from your former CEO has stayed with me, You've won the lottery of life. Do you think that is part of the culture in Silicon Valley, too? I mean, there's a humility there? Because I got to be honest-- >> I think there is-- >> It doesn't appear that way (laughing). >> There's a lot of privilege out there. And I think that's the opportunity that we have, and I think we're seeing some of this changing, with the Warren Buffet's giving away his money. >> Rebecca: Um-hmm. >> What the Gates' Foundation is doing out there. But I think there's a constant reminder of that sense of privilege that where we are in the world, and how we almost have a responsibility to give back and make a difference for others. >> Rebecca: That's great. >> So. >> Well, Sindy Braun, thank you so much for joining us! >> Thank you, this has been a pleasure. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, your host at The Cube. This is Women Transforming Technology at VMware. We'll be right back. (instrumental electronic music)

>>The cube at IBM. Impact 2014 is brought to you by headline sponsor. IBM. Here are your hosts, John furrier and Paul Gillin. Okay, welcome back. Everyone live in Las Vegas at IBM impact. This is the cube, our flagship program. We go out to the events, instruct us to live in the noise. I'm John Ferrari, the founder of SiliconANGLE Joe, my close Paul Gillen. And our next special guest is great bushes as a legend in the software development community. And then she went to st this school in Santa Barbara. My son goes there, he's a freshman, but there's a whole nother conversation. Um, welcome to the cube. Thank you. Uh, one of the things we really exciting about when we get all the IBM guys get the messaging out, you know, the IBM talk, but the groundbreaking work around, um, computer software where hardware is now exploding and capability, big data's instrumentation of data. >>Um, take us to a conversation around cognitive computing, the future of humanity, society, the societal changes that are happening. There's a huge, uh, intersection between computer science and social science. Something that's our tagline for Silicon angle. And so we are passionate about. So I want to, I just want to get your take on that and, and tell about some of the work you're doing at IBM. Um, what does all this, where's all this leading to? Where is this unlimited compute capacity, the mainframe in the cloud, big data instrumentation, indexing, human thought, um, fit, Fitbit's wearable computers, um, the sensors, internet of things. This all taking us in the direction. What's your vision? There are three things that I think are inevitable and they're irreversible, that have unintended consequences, consequences that, you know, we can't, we have to attend to and they will be in our face eventually. >>The first of these is the growth of computational power in ways we've only begun to see. The second is the development of systems that never forget with storage beyond even our expectations now. And the third is a pervasive connectivity such that we see the foundations for not just millions of devices, but billions upon billions of devices. Those three trends appear to be where technology is heading. And yet if you follow those trends out, one has to ask. The question is you begin to, what are the implications for us as humans? Um, I think that the net of those is an interesting question indeed to put in a personal blog. My wife and I are developing a documentary or the computer history with the computer history museum for public television on that very topic, looking at how computing intersects with the human experience. So we're seeing those changes in every aspect of it too, that I'll dwell upon here, which I think are germane to this particular conference are some of the ethical and moral implications. >>And second, what the implications are for cognitive systems. On the latter case we saw on the news, I guess it was today or yesterday, there's a foundation led by the Gates foundation. It's been looking at collecting data for kids in various schools. A number of States set up for it. But as they begin to realize what the implications of aggregating that information were for the privacy of that child, the parents became, became cognizant of the fact that, wow, we're disclosing things for which there can be identification of the kid in ways that maybe we wouldn't want to do that. So I think the explosion of big data and explosion of computational power has a lot of us as a society to begin asking those questions, what are the limits of ownership and the rights of that kind of information. And that's a dialogue that will continue on in the cognitive space. >>It kind of follows on because one of the problems of big data, and it's not just you know, big, big data, but like you see in at CERN and the like, but also these problems of aggregation of data, there are, there are such an accumulation information at such a speed in ways that an individual human cannot begin to reason about it in reasonable ways. Thus was born. What we did with Watson a few years ago, Watson jeopardy. I think the most important thing that the Watson jeopardy experience led us to realize is that theory is an architectural framework upon which we can do many interesting reasoning things. And now that Watson has moved from research into the Watson group, we're seeing that expand out in so many domains. So the journey is really just beginning as we take what we can know to do in reason with automated systems and apply it to these large data systems. >>It's going to be a conversation we're going to have for a few generations. You were beginning to see, I mean computing has moved beyond the, the, the role of automate or of automating rote manual tasks. We're seeing, uh, it's been, uh, I've seen forecast of these. Most of the jobs that will be automated out of existence in the next 20 years will be, will be, uh, knowledge jobs and uh, even one journalism professor of forecasting, the 80% of journalism jobs will go away and be replaced by computer, uh, over the next couple of decades. Is this something for people to fear? I'm not certain fear will do us any good, especially if the change like that is inevitable. Fear doesn't help. But I think that what will help is an understanding as to where those kinds of software systems will impact various jobs and how we as individuals should relate to them. >>We as a society, we as individuals in many ways are slowly surrendering ourselves to computing technology. And what describe is one particular domain for that. There's been tremendous debate in the economic and business community as to whether or not computing has impacted the jobs market. I'm not an economist, I'm a computer scientist, but I can certainly say from my input inside perspective, I see that transformational shift and I see that what we're doing is radically going to change the job market. There was, you know, if you'd go back to the Victorian age where people were, were looking for a future in which they had more leisure time because we'd have these devices to give us, you know, free us up for the mundane. We're there. And yet the reality is that we now have so many things that required our time before. It means yours in a way, not enough work to go around. >>And that's a very different shift than I think what anyone anticipated back to the beginnings of the industrial age. We're coming to grips with that. Therefore, I say this, don't fear it, but begin to understand those areas where we as humans provide unique value that the automated systems never will. And then ask ourselves the question, where can we as individuals continue to add that creativity and value because there and then we can view these machines as our companions in that journey. Great. You want to, I want to ask you about, um, the role, I mean the humans is great message. I mean that's the, they're driving the car here, but I want to talk about something around the humanization piece. You mentioned, um, there's a lot of conversations around computer science does a discipline which, um, the old generation when a hundred computer science school was, it was code architecture. >>But now computer science is literally mainstreams. There's general interest, hence why we built this cube operation to share signal from the noise around computer science. So there's also been a discussion around women in tech tolerance and different opinions and views, freedom of speech, if you will, and sensors if everything's measured, politically correctness. All of this is now kind of being fully transparent, so, so let's say the women in tech issue and also kids growing up who have an affinity towards computer science but may not know us. I want to ask you the question. With all that kind of as backdrop, computer science as a discipline, how is it going to evolve in this space? What are some of those things for the future generation? For the, my son who's in sixth grade, my son's a freshman in college and then in between. Is it just traditional sciences? >>What are some of the things that you see and it's not just so much coding and running Java or objective C? I wish you'd asked me some questions about some really deep topics. I mean, gosh, these are, these are, I'm sorry. It's about the kids. In the early days of the telephone, phone, telephones were a very special thing. Not everybody had them and it was predicted that as the telephone networks grew, we were going to need to have many, many more telephone operators. What happened is that we all became, so the very nature of telephony changed so that now I as an individual have the power to reach out and do the connection that had to be done by a human. A similar phenomenon I think is happening in computing that it is moved itself into the interstitial spaces of our world such that it's no longer a special thing out there. We used to speak of the programming priesthood in the 60s where I lost my thing here. Hang on. >>Here we go. I think we're good. We're good. I'm a software guy. I don't do hardware so my body rejects hardware. So we're moving in a place where computing very much is, is part of the interstitial spaces of our world. This has led to where I think the generation after us, cause our, our median age is, let me check. It's probably above 20, just guessing here. Uh, a seven. I think you're still seven. Uh, we're moving to a stage where the notion of computational thinking becomes an important skill that everyone must have. My wife loves to take pictures of people along the beach, beautiful sunset, whales jumping and the family's sitting there and it did it again. My body's rejecting this device. Clearly I have the wrong shape. i-Ready got it. Yeah. There we go. Uh, taking pictures of families who are seeing all these things and they're, they're very, with their heads in their iPhones and their tablets and they're so wedded to that technology. >>We often see, you know, kids going by and in strollers and they've got an iPad in front of them looking at something. So we have a generation that's growing up, uh, knowing how to swipe and knowing how to use these devices. It's part of their very world. It's, it's difficult for me to relate to that cause I didn't grow up in that kind of environment. But that's the environment after us. So the question I think you're generally asking is what does one need to know to live in that kind of world? And I think it says notions of computational thinking. It's an idea that's come out of uh, the folks at Carnegie Mellon university, which asks the question, what are some of the basic skills we need to know? Well, you need to know some things about what an algorithm is and a little bit behind, you know, behind the screen itself. >>One of the things we're trying to do with the documentary is opening the curtain behind just the windows you say and ask the question, how do these things actually work because some degree of understanding to that will be essential for anyone moving into, into, into life. Um, you talked about women in tech in particular. It is an important question and I think that, uh, I worked with many women side by side in the things that I do. And you know, frankly it saddens me to see the way our educational system in a way back to middle school produces a bias that pushes young women out of this society. So I'm not certain that it's a bias, it's built into computing, but it's a bias built in to culture. It's bias built into our educational system. And that obviously has to change because computing, you know, knows no gender or religious or sexual orientation boundaries. >>It's just part of our society. Now. I do want to, everyone needs to contribute. I'm sorry. I do want to ask you about software development since you're devoted your career to a couple of things about to defining, uh, architectures and disciplines and software development. We're seeing software development now as epitomized by Facebook, perhaps moving to much more of a fail fast mentality. Uh, try it. Put it out there. If it breaks, it's okay. No lives were lost. Uh, pull it back in and we'll try it again. Is this, is there a risk in, in this new approach to software? So many things here are first, is it a new approach? No, it's part of the agile process that we've been talking about for well over a decade, if not 15 years or so. You must remember that it's dangerous to generalize upon a particular development paradigm that's applied in one space that apply to all others. >>With Facebook in general, nobody, no one's life depends upon it. And so there are things that one can do that are simplifying assumptions. If I apply that same technique to the dialysis machine, to the avionics of a triple seven, a simple fly, you know, so one must be careful to generalize those kinds of approaches to every place. It depends upon the domain, depends upon the development culture. Ultimately depends upon the risk profile that would lead you to high ceremony or low ceremony approaches. Do you have greater confidence in the software that you see being developed for mission critical applications today than you did 10 years ago? Absolutely. In fact, I'll tell you a quick story and I to know we need to wind down. I had an elective open heart surgery or a few years ago elective because every male in my family died of an aneurysm. They are an aneurism. >>So I went in and got checked and indeed I had an aneurysm developing as well. So we had, you know, hi my heart ripped open and then dealt with before it would burst on me. I remember laying there in the, in the, uh, in the CT scan machine looking up and saying, this looks familiar. Oh my God, I know the people that wrote the software where this thing and they use the UML and I realized, Oh this is a good thing. Which is your creation. Yes. Yes. So it's a good thing because I felt confidence in the software that was there because I knew it was intentionally engineered. Great. I want to ask you some society questions around it. And computing. I see green as key and data centers take up a lot of space, right? So obviously we want to get to a smarter data center environment. >>And how do you see the role of software? I see with the cognitive all things you talked about helping businesses build a physical plant, if you will. And is it a shared plan is a Terminus, you seeing open power systems here from IBM, you hear him about the open sources source. Um, what, what does that future look like from your standpoint? May I borrow that cup of tea or coffee? I want to use it as a aid. Let's presume, Oh, it's still warm. Let's say that this is some tea and roughly the energy costs to boil water for a cup of tea is roughly equivalent to the energy costs needed to do a single Google search. Now imagine if I multiply that by a few billion times and you can begin to see the energy costs of some of the infrastructure, which for many are largely invisible. >>Some studies suggest that computing is grown to the place releasing the United States. It's consuming about 10% of our electrical energy production. So by no means is it something we can sweep under the rug. Um, you address I think a fundamental question, which is the hidden costs of computing, which believe people are becoming aware of the meaning. Ask the question also. Where can cognitive systems help us in that regard? Um, we live in, in Maui and there's an interesting phenomenon coming on where there are so many people using solar power, putting into the power grid that the electrical grid companies are losing money because we're generating so much power there. And yet you realize if you begin to instrument the way that people are actually using power down to the level of the homes themselves, then power generation companies can start making much more intelligent decisions about day to day, almost minute to minute power production. >>And that's something that black box analytics would help. But also cognitive systems, which are not really black box analytic systems, they're more learn systems, learning systems can then predict what that might mean for the energy production company. So we're seeing even in those places, the potential of using cognitive systems for, for uh, attending to energy costs in that regard. The future is a lot of possibilities. I know you've got to go, we're getting the hook here big time cause you gotta well we really appreciate it. These are important future decisions that are, we're on track to, to help solve and I really appreciate it. Looking for the documentary anytime table on that, uh, sometime before I die. Great. Thanks for coming on the, we really appreciate this. This SiliconANGLE's we'll be right back with our next guest at to nature. I break.