Why I Went to GHC ’19
By: Andrew Carlson
Tags: Ghc, Grace Hopper Conference, Ischooldiversity, Women In Tech, Women in STEM

This year I (a man) attended The 2019 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), a tech conference “designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront.” It’s the world’s largest annual gathering of women in tech with a whopping 25,000 attendees. It’s no mystery why women are drawn to this event. I thought I’d write about what drew me: my belief that GHC is making the world a better place by advocating for women in tech. There are several ways it does this:

Celebrating female role models in tech. Showing why diversity pays off. Raising awareness on gender issues and what to do about them.

Celebrating Female Role Models in Tech

I love to obsess over my heroes in computer science. The Imitation Game is one of my favorite movies for its portrayal of Alan Turing. I even engross myself in the inane details of Ken Thompson’s life, like what his Unix password was, for no other reason than that he created Unix. However, if you challenge me to try to name as many noteworthy techies as possible, they would mostly be men because of the gender bias in tech forums and books I browse. GHC has put a collective effort behind celebrating overlooked female heroes and geniuses. For me, busting the bias isn’t just about setting a historical record straight or paying homage to the right people. It casts a message to future generations of women that they, too, belong. Here, you don’t simply learn about Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, or Rosalind Franklin, pioneer in DNA research. You can get pins and necklaces in their honor. T-shirts, bags, hats, stickers, and other gear are given away to make female scientists and engineers icons. Wear these, and you’ll find your friends and colleagues starting conversations with you about people they’ll come to admire.

It’s not only female geniuses of the past. With the Abie Awards, GHC honors contemporary women technologists with incredible achievements in things like social impact and educational innovation. By recognizing renowned female A.I. researchers like Prof. Fei-Fei Li, Aerospace CEOs like Dr. Natalya Bailey, and others, they demonstrate that “all of us have the power to improve our world.” While a handful of women are honored with Abies, many other technical leaders working at top companies give lectures and seminars on topics ranging from bleeding-edge quantum computing, to practical data science and software engineering, to career development. It’s empowering for women to see leaders in tech that look like them, and with people of all genders being empowered, we can solve more of the world’s problems.

Showing Why Diversity Pays Off

Diversity of perspectives furnishes better solutions. I’ve heard many complaints about tech products being designed poorly for women. For example, most fitness apps that track your weight, and ping you with gentle admonitions when you start gaining it, lack a “pregnancy mode.” A pregnant woman who, due to her circumstances, should be gaining weight has no ability to express these wishes to her fitness app. This relatively simple feature wouldn’t likely be overlooked had there been adequate female representation during the product design process. In general, all products’ design teams should be representative of those who will actually use it. Part of my agenda for GHC was to talk about my work in health tech. Health tech is especially affected by gender gaps because women make 80% of healthcare decisions for their households. I work at Onehot Labs, where we apply machine learning to eliminate administrative waste throughout healthcare systems. One project is an artificially intelligent chatbot that guides patients through the medical billing process. Knowing that women will be the majority of our users is a deeply important consideration for the quality of the product. The only way to design for women is to have them on the team.

For those still seeking the skills to work in A.I., I recommend my alma mater: the MIDS program at the UC Berkeley School of Information. I also came to GHC to represent my school and share my experiences with prospective grad students. Being part of a compassionate and hard-working community like MIDS is a boon for your graduate studies. Because it’s online, it has achieved a notable level of diversity among its scholars. I’ve seen students from around the world, some who work multiple jobs, and others who were tending to infants during class. This program breaks down barriers compared to more traditional master’s programs, so I was happy to have Berkeley send me to GHC to talk about it.

Raising Awareness of Gender Issues

It takes a concerted effort to learn how biases are perpetuated in our field. When I started my career in tech, I was kind of an idle bystander to this. I’d never seen any flagrant sexism happening at work. In a naïve and puerile way, I concluded that gender issues had been solved. I wish I could take my past self out of this illusion, to pull his eyes over the walls to peer at the very privilege that blinded him. My comfortable unawareness of inequalities is exactly how privilege works; you only feel it if you don’t have it.

My comfortable unawareness of inequalities is exactly how privilege works; you only feel it if you don’t have it.

The effort lies in seeking the perspectives of other groups and identities, empathizing with them, and accepting where you sit on a spectrum of inequality. This only gets harder if your workplace isn’t all that welcoming of conversations about privilege. GHC brings these issues to the fore.

Perhaps the most broadly valuable thing about GHC is its readiness in confronting privilege and bias. One invaluable resource that made an appearance is the Check Your Blind Spots Unconscious Bias Bus, a mobile exhibition for enriching your perspective. One of its experiences “gamifies” the task of recognizing bias. They show a video clip, and you press a clicker every time you see bias in the clip. You get a score at the end. This isn’t just a reality check. It actively engages you in empathy and provides an individually actionable learning experience.

The experiences of the seminar speakers are also illuminating. Several of GHC’s seminars discuss inclusion and cultural awareness, e.g. “How to Confront Sexists, Racists and Other Offenders Like a Boss,” by Jennifer Plummer and Marie Mendoza. I’ve learned some good responses for scenarios that help create environments where micro-aggressions are not tolerated. For example, if I ever hear a coworker comparing colleagues by attractiveness, I would ask them if they’d ever say those thoughts to their faces. Assuming they’d say “no,” I would respond with, “Then keep it to yourself. I don’t want to hear it either.” The talks at GHC teach effective ways for allies to turn their support into action.

The Bottom Line

GHC is a community of like-minded engineers of all gender identities — where we all proclaim the identity “nerd” with a glint of pride. We nerd out over unsung heroes in tech, and about the cool and innovative things women engineers work on at their companies. We talk about the problems we’ve solved, the ones we are still working on, and the ones that need more talent on them. These conversations break down barriers for skilled women to work on important problems. It presses us closer to a futuristic world where the things we’re excited about realizing have been built: 5G, autonomous vehicles, cheap space travel, and for me personally, more efficient health care systems. I’ll hope you’ll attend to both inspire and be inspired!