Why aren’t more women in tech? That was the main topic for discussion yesterday on BBC’s Business Matters. I shared my report from Google’s I/O conference, where almost one in four attendees were women. The Women Techmakers team managed to increase female attendance from 8% in 2013 to 23% this year. How did they do it and what can other companies learn from their strategy?
Listen to the podcast at the BBC World Service (Women discussion starts at 26:40) or use the clip below:
Here’s a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
BBC Host, Roger Hearing: Have you thought how many women there are in the new high tech industries? Not enough is the general verdict. Have a quick listen to this:
Google CEO, Sundar Pichai: Welcome to Google I/O and welcome to Shoreline. It feels really nice and different up here. We’ve been doing it for many many years in Moscone and in fact we’ve been doing I/O for 10 years, but I feel we’re at a pivotal moment in terms of where we’re going as a company…. There are over 7,000 of you joining in person today.
BBC Host, Roger Hearing: That was the boss of Google, Sundar Pichai, opening a recent conference held near the tech giant’s headquarters in Mountain View, Silicon Valley. Alison, you were at that conference. Tell us more about it….
Alison van Diggelen: Google I/O is the annual Google developers’ conference. I/O stands for Input/Output and Innovation in the Open. It attracts thousands of developers from around the world who use Google’s open platforms, such as Android and Chrome, to build apps for your smartphone, smartwatch, or computer.
Google has been battling to increase the number of women in its tech teams, and I was pleased to see a decent number of women making presentations on the keynote stage. The company managed to triple the number of women attending the conference by partnering with other tech organizations like the Anita Borg Institute, Women Who Code and Hackbright academy.
At the conference, I spoke to Natalie Villalobos. She’s Google’s Head of Global Programs for “Women Techmakers.” I began by asking her WHY Google is seeking more women in tech…
Natalie Villalobos: We need everyone to contribute to make the most innovative technology. The more diverse voices we have, contributing, participating, and building the technology, the better technology we’re going to have…We always need more diverse voices at the table: for women, people of color, veterans, people with disabilities because the people building the tech should be as diverse as the people that the technology serves.
Alison van Diggelen: You went from 8% female attendance in 2013 to 23% this year, almost a quarter today. How did you do that?
Natalie Villalobos: ‘What could only Google do?‘ is a big rallying cry of my work and it was partnering with community organizations, locally, nationally and internationally to bring women to the conference, by providing travel grants, access to tickets and so we wanted to create these lasting partnerships…And one of the things we worked really hard at is how can we really engage women across the spectrum? We welcome all types of women: whether you identify as non-gender binary, women of color, Latinas…Also geographic diversity: We have women from South Africa, Taiwan, Tunisia, China…a lot are coming here to the U.S. for the first time for Google I/O.
Alison van Diggelen: What makes you special, is it just deep pockets? (Google has earmarked $150M this year for its diversity programs)
Natalie Villalobos: We’re really looking at how we can engage and meet developers, designers and entrepreneurs wherever they are. Diversity and inclusion in the tech industry is not just in the United States. There are people all over the world who want to be here in this industry who can’t move to Silicon Valley. How can we meet them where they are and share our new platforms, our technologies?
People who can’t come to Mountain View can join a local extendedI/O event – I believe we have over 400. Our biggest this year is in Sri Lanka with over 2000 attendees. It’s about reshaping the industry and supporting people where they are.
Roger Hearing: Alison, we’ve heard this a lot before…there aren’t enough women involved in the high tech industry. But it doesn’t seem to get any better.
Alison van Diggelen: It seems to be moving in the right direction but it’s very slow going. I actually had the chance to speak with Sundar Pichai and he said that this is a long long road. He’s talking about 10 years, 15 years before they can get close to equality. It’s a pipeline issue, it’s a role model issue. There are inherent biases in companies that make it more difficult for women to get into tech companies and thrive in tech companies. He did point out an encouraging fact that at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, the most popular major is no longer Biology but Computer Science. So anecdotal evidence like that says that perhaps we’re reaching a critical mass, perhaps a turning point, where women can feel at home in that geeky, computer science world.
Roger Hearing: Let me posit that maybe that’s because it’s Stanford…it’s California. Simon, let me come to you (in Singapore) In the high tech world where you are….where some of the most cutting edge stuff is going on. Are there many women involved?
Simon Long, The Economist: I’m struck when I visit multinationals (in Singapore) like Google and local startups how dominated they are by the young…and men. Alison put her finger on one of the main problems: who’s studying what at university? Who has the right skills? There are these ingrained prejudices…people recruit people like themselves.
Alison van Diggelen: The pipeline issue is not the whole excuse. I did speak with Ellie Powers, a product manager at Google and she was on the keynote stage. It’s a lazy excuse, she says, “if you’re looking for gold, it’s rarer, you have to look a bit harder” and you have to figure out how find and connect with people outside your network. She put a challenge out there to Google and beyond for any company looking for women, in order to make a better team.
Roger Hearing: Perhaps the women are not there, they don’t want to do it? Is it a cultural bias?
Alison van Diggelen: I think there is a bias…there’s the stereotype of the geeky coder, but I think that’s changing. After being at that conference for an entire day, and seeing that one in four of the attendees were women. It was different from other tech conferences I’ve been at where if feels more like 10%.
Unconscious bias training will help. I think role models like Ellie Powers, up there on stage, wearing a dress, talking tech, being geeky…that will help get more young women to say, maybe coding is for me, maybe computer science is for me?
Roger Hearing: Simon, does it matter what the gender balance is?
Simon Long: I think it probably does…if everyone had equal access to do what they’re good at, the world would be a better place. As Alison says, if the problem is not just a pipeline one… If there are biases inhibiting women from doing as well as they might, then we’re all losing out.
Roger Hearing: If women were involved in designing the Apple Mac, would it be different, better?
Alison van Diggelen: Natalie’s point is relevant here: if your end product is for the world – 50% of which is women – you have to include women in the process. By attracting a more diverse employees base, you’ll get a better workforce. I talked with Steven Levy, a well-known tech author and he said, the days when a credible company can have an all-male conference or panel are just “way over” – it’s about sending a message to all people that they’re welcome. It’s about getting a better workforce and building better products. That’s the bottom line.
Last Thursday, I joined a special BBC World Service program hosted by Fergus Nicoll in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We began by discussing the large community of Vietnamese in Silicon Valley and its connection to Vietnam’s growing tech hub. Listen to the BBC podcast (at 21:00 re. Silicon Valley-Vietnam, and at 31:00 re. The Tech Awards)
We discussed my latest interviews in Silicon Valley on the BBC Business Mattersprogram. Here’s a transcript of our dialogue, edited for length and clarity:
Fergus Nicoll: Alison, you’ve been talking to some of the winners of the Tech Awards in Silicon Valley. What kinds of things are they coming up with and what could Vietnamese developers seek to emulate?
Alison van Diggelen: I spoke with three young entrepreneurs who’re doing incredible things: Tricia Compas-Markman is founder of DayOne Response. What they’ve built is a 10 liter backpack – it’s very low-tech in fact. It provides clean drinking water on day one in a natural disaster. They’ve deployed it in places like Nepal after the earthquake; and what they want to do is pre-position it in places like the Philippines that are subject to natural disasters. It’s a wonderful way for families and individuals to collect and treat and get clean drinking water in disaster areas…
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Fergus Nicoll: We were in the Philippines last week…we could maybe put them in touch with Senator Loren Legarda or the Red Cross in the Philippines? They would be very keen to hear about that kind of initiative. What else have you been hearing about?
Alison van Diggelen: Let’s do that for sure! The other winner is called Open Pediatrics and it’s an online community for pediatricians. It’s almost like a Khan Academy for pediatricians: an online learning community connecting the cutting edge technology of first rate hospitals like Boston’s Children’s Hospital with rural clinics in developing countries, so they get the same expertise. It’s a wonderful, simple idea and there are some top people involved in that. I talked with Traci Wolbrink, one of the key people (pictured at the podium, above).
And the last one I want to mention is a very simple app…It’s called BeeLine Reader, founded by Nick Lum, a corporate lawyer who’s become a tech humanitarian. This BeeLine Reader allows people to read on screens much more easily. If you’re suffering from dyslexia, or vision problems, you can read using a color gradient. So if you can imagine reading a line, and the color of the script changes from blue to red to black but it wraps around, it guides your eye so you can read faster or more clearly. This is available for either a dollar a month or $5 to buy the app.
Alison van Diggelen: All these entrepreneurs were given a good load of money to take it to the next level. It was very inspiring to see that not all techies are out to make a buck. Some of them want to change the world…make the world a better place.
Fergus Nicoll: Brilliant. That sounds fantastic.
Find out more at Fresh Dialogues
What is Tech Award winner Jeff Skoll doing to change the world and make it greener?
According to the organization, apps are expected to create over 3 million jobs in the next 5 years; and its SVC2UK Appathon contest aimed to inspire a new generation of British entrepreneurs. Three 14-year-old girls from Notre Dame High School in Greenock, Scotland and four Cambridge University students won a trip to Silicon Valley to learn about entrepreneurship.
“Back in Britain a lot of people are scared to make the leap and do their own thing…(they’re) scared of not doing well” Ellie Wilkie, age 14
I had the opportunity to meet and interview the young entrepreneurs as they toured LinkedIn and Google. Ellie Wilkie was a natural leader and spoke confidently for her two Scottish colleagues. Each one of them was energized and inspired by their time in Silicon Valley and eager to take some of the “can-do” Silicon Valley attitude back with them to the UK.
Here are highlights of our conversation (comments have been edited for length and clarity):
van Diggelen: How does entrepreneurship in the UK compare to Silicon Valley?
Ellie Wilkie: Back in Britain a lot of people are scared to make the leap and do their own thing. Here…you do internships which aren’t as readily available back home. Out here, it’s much more put into the school curriculum…and lots of people learn about it from a much younger age, especially if you live in the Bay Area with all the major tech companies around. It’s good to see – as a young person – all these young people doing so well. Back home it’s not so publicized about how boys and girls can do so well… in companies like this and how exciting they can be.
van Diggelen: What are entrepreneurs in the UK scared of?
Ellie Wilkie: Scared of not doing well. Taking that leap and it doesn’t work…well (if you don’t try)… You’re never going to know are you? In (UK) companies, bosses and CEOs and managers of companies seem very intimidating and I’m not really wanting to go and speak to them, whereas here it’s much more: everybody’s the same and everybody’s much more approachable.
van Diggelen: Do you feel Silicon Valley’s open (less hierarchical) culture helps?
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Ellie Wilkie: Definitely, it’s much more: everyone can do this. Whereas back home it’s a very specialized thing … Lots of people feel that they couldn’t do something like that.
At Facebook, no one has an office, everyone is the same and everyone’s voice is listened to, so there’s no scary going up to your boss and saying, is this OK? …
…it’s just a very cooperative environment. I was really surprised at how laid back everyone is. They really enjoy what they do, compared to lots of people back home who don’t necessarily enjoy what they’re doing …everyone out here, they’ve got a real passion for what they do, they love it.
van Diggelen: What will you tell your friends back in Greenock?
Ellie Wilkie: Seeing women in tech, college students from around here doing so well and having a real input…Women saying “we felt we had a real worth in the company ” They got to make decisions and got to be involved in the actual design processes. Even at such a young age they can be so involved and so vocal in what they do.
van Diggelen: What are you inspired to do after visiting all these companies (Facebook, Tesla, LinkedIn, Box and Google)?
Ellie Wilkie: I’d like to be out here working for any one of the companies. They’re all incredible. I’ve always had an interest in technology but seeing people actually doing well and have a passion for it has cemented in my mind I can see myself doing this. This is what I want.
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“Here (in Silicon Valley), ‘NO’ is not really in their vocabulary…they get stuff done” Benjamin Moss
I also spoke with Benjamin Moss, who’s completing a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering at Cambridge University
van Diggelen: What surprised you most about how business is done here in Silicon Valley?
Benjamin Moss: Here, ‘NO’ is not really in their vocabulary…they get stuff done. They’re extremely ambitious and if something is required to achieve these ambitions then nothing really stands in their way.
There’s quite a bit of risk aversion in the UK in the way there isn’t here. People in the UK have a lot of pride and they don’t want to look silly, so if they come up with an idea and it doesn’t work, then they’re very concerned about having looked silly.
Whereas in Silicon Valley, coming up with an idea and it not working and your moving on and learning from that experience is positive.
Find out more
Read more Fresh Dialogues stories about Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, and beyond
There’s nothing that Silicon Valley likes better than a big problem to solve. But with California’s historic drought and mandatory water restrictions in place, can Silicon Valley tech alone rescue the Golden State from going dusty brown?
The BBC invited me to share another Letter from Silicon Valley about Tech in the Time of Drought. Smart water meters, drone surveillance and soil monitoring etc. can help save water, but Californians are also leveraging tech to shame their neighbors – and celebrities – into saving water. Not surprisingly, #droughtshaming is trending on Twitter. This week, actor Tom Selleck has been sued for stealing water from a public fire hydrant in LA.
The BBC’s Manuela Saragosa hosted the show. Here’s her introduction:
Saragosa: One of California’s biggest problems at the moment is drought. So can Silicon Valley’s technology sector rescue the state from going dusty brown? Alison van Diggelen is there, and sent this report:
BBC Letter From Silicon Valley by Alison van Diggelen: Tech in the Time of Drought
In January, Bill Gates famously took a sip of water that minutes before was raw human sewage. As the cameras clicked in Washington State, he drank and smiled like the Cheshire cat. Eeewwww, you’re probably saying, but let’s dive a little deeper into what this innovation means.
Gates’s smile speaks volumes about “tech in the time of extreme drought.” Not only did Gates give the ultimate endorsement for a waste treatment startup he’s backing, it demonstrates an important Silicon Valley mantra: for every problem we face, there’s a tech solution. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity.
And right now, California is in its 4th year of serious drought. Experts are calling our water crisis “the new norm.” And it’s part of a global problem. This year, for the first time, the World Economic Forum ranked water crises the number one danger in its Global Risk Report, above nuclear threats and global pandemics.
Silicon Valley startups are scrambling to find solutions: from Watersmart, a software management system that encourages water conservation; to mOasis, a soil additive that maximizes crop harvests with minimal water. Plans for massive desalination plants are also moving ahead.
Since farmers use 80% of California’s water, tech solutions that impact agriculture are especially valuable.
But tech solutions can’t do it alone.
I recently visited the high desert state of New Mexico. As we flew over endless miles of parched land, I wondered, is this the future of California? I toured the Earthship headquarters where they are building radical eco homes, completely off the grid. With 8 inches of rain a year, residents are fanatical about water conservation, and they reuse every drop of water four or five times. Earthship roofs are designed for optimum rain and snow catchment and feed directly into massive holding tanks. They wouldn’t dream of having a bath, never mind using potablewater to flush the loo.
It was a vivid reminder that this crisis requires both low and high tech solutions; and we also need to adjust our mindsets.
A study by UCLA found that wealthier neighborhoods in LA use three times more water than others. A utilities manager in Newport Beach reported that some people – believe it or not – still don’t know that we’re in a drought.
Those with a cavalier attitude to water use in California will be forced to change. Soon, water districts can be fined up to $10,000 a day if they don’t reduce water use by 25%, on average. Residents here are bracing for a surge in water prices and potential fines. Installing greywater systems and replacing lawns with drought tolerant plants are becoming de rigueur.
As is drought shaming. Californians are using social media to shame their neighbors and target celebrities about wasting water. There’s even a drought shaming app that geo-tags photos so authorities can take action.
Ultimately, Silicon Valley’s tech solutions will help address this water crisis, but California will have to take action on all fronts. By adopting, and experimenting with a firehose of ideas from innovative minds* Silicon Valley could offer lessons for the whole world, as the impacts of climate change and water shortages grow.
*Tesla’s Elon Musk says he’s investigating a water saving solution using California aqueducts. Watch this space for updates.
“Believe in yourself.” That’s the core advice from Weili Dai, cofounder of Marvell, whom some are dubbing the new Tech Wonder Woman, given the recent ouster of Carol Bartz from Yahoo. Dai’s advice for women in business is resonating, given the focus on women’s crucial role in reviving the economy at the historic APEC Women and the Economy Summit in San Francisco last week, chaired by Hillary Clinton. The summit concluded that that increasing women’s participation in the economy could lead to a 14 percent rise in per capita income by 2020.
Weili Dai spoke at APEC and has strong views about women’s role in the business world. She argues that the best way to grow the world economy is to fully engage women as business leaders. She points out that fewer than 29% of global decision making positions are held by women. Encouraging more women to focus on science and technology is key she says. At the Game Changers Conference in Silicon Valley, despite calls from other delegates for trade intervention against China, she voiced her preference for collaboration not confrontation. “We are powerful, China is powerful. Today, we live in the global world….let’s collaborate…cooperation is the healthy thing to do.”
In this Fresh Dialogues interview, she shares some tips about how to succeed in the tech world. A native of Shanghai, Dai attended UC Berkeley and cofounded Marvell in 1995. Since then, she’s helped to grow the company into one of the world’s largest chipmakers. Marvell touts a few admirable green policies but could do better as a green leader, coming 434th in Newsweek’s green ranking of America’s largest 500 companies.
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Read transcripts, see photos and check out our ARCHIVES featuring exclusive interviews with Tom Friedman, Paul Krugman, Vinod Khosla and many more…
Alison van Diggelen: What makes you special, is it just deep pockets? (Google has earmarked $150M this year for its diversity programs)
Alison van Diggelen: The pipeline issue is not the whole excuse. I did speak with Ellie Powers, a product manager at Google and she was on the keynote stage. It’s a lazy excuse, she says, “if you’re looking for gold, it’s rarer, you have to look a bit harder” and you have to figure out how find and connect with people outside your network. She put a challenge out there to Google and beyond for any company looking for women, in order to make a better team.
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And the last one I want to mention is a very simple app…It’s called 
van Diggelen: What are entrepreneurs in the UK scared of?
I recently visited the high desert state of New Mexico. As we flew over endless miles of parched land, I wondered, is this the future of California? I toured the 
